Sony Ericsson G502 Review

Messaging:

Besides SMS and MMS, the messaging menu also houses an e-mail client. We were pleasantly surprised when G502 offered to check for the settings on-line. So if you are using one of the more popular web mail servers, you can save some time, because you won’t have to input them manually. This is a great function for a phone of a relatively low class, especially considering the fact that it is not present at all in the top models of some rival brands. Two thumbs up for Sony Ericsson.

T9 assists you for the text input, which accelerates the process to a great extend. The factory preset templates can also save you some time, by giving you one of the most popular phrases.

Similarly to K850, here we also have an RSS reader in the messaging menu. This program is used for browsing through web content without loading entire pages. We very much liked the ability to show the new information from the sites of interest on the start screen (similar to widgets).

Connectivity:

Here, G502 is up against the main rival for the title “Best web browsing phone” in the “low mid” class – К660. The last one has been the leader from the very beginning, since it is quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and can be used anywhere on the Globe equally well. However, this is a minimal advantage, because both phones cannot use UMTS (2100) in America. They are head to head in Europe and Asia, thanks to the HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s support. Nevertheless, K660 has a videocalling camera, which is still considered an advantage.

For local connectivity you can use a wireless Bluetooth 2.0 connection or a using the USB cable (PC), which unfortunately is not provided in the package. The standard for all Sony Ericsson phones PC Suite can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s site, but if you connect the G502 with a PC as a mass storage device, you will be able to transfer files directly.

Internet:

So far, both models performed almost equally, with K660 being slightly ahead. Their browsers are identical as well (Access NetFront 3.4). That program manages easily to load complex pages (like phonearena.com’s homepage for example), with the lower speed (if using EDGE), being the single obstacle for fully visualizing all images. Luckily, they can be disabled from the view settings. Also from there, you can choose whether you want to see the page in a portrait or in a landscape mode, to zoom in/out, or to enable panning. The last function is very well realized and allows for faster viewing of large pages, giving you the ability to see in detail what’s of interest to you.


From the tools menu you can add a bookmark, search for an element on the current site, mark and copy, save an image or a page, reload the page or to send a link (as a message, e-mail and even via Bluetooth).


The extras offered by the browsers of both are identical, and apparently, the winner will be the one having a more user-friendly interface. Here we should witness one of K660’s strengths, which has four shortcuts assigned, used to Search, add Bookmarks, go to Homepage and to Zoom out. Meanwhile, in G502 the functions, which have keyboard shortcuts are:

* - change view (full screen, landscape and portrait mode with options displayed)
0 - turns on zooming in/out (by using the different D-pad directions)
# - activates panning
1 - bookmarks

Inputting any letter from the keyboard, will automatically activate the address bar (always visualized vertically for convenience).

G502’s shortcuts lead to the more important functions and are quite handy with the only problem being that they are not clearly marked and you’ll have to experiment or read the manual in order to get used to them.

According to us, this titanic battle between the mid-class Internet oriented phones produced no winner. Even though K660 has the minor advantage of being a global phone, it cannot provide high-speed web access all over the World.