Sony Ericsson are certainly a company in transition at the moment, with their next generation of handsets getting people salivating at the prospect of phones like the Idou, an all-in-one multimedia powerhouse in their pocket.

The Sony Ericsson C510, however, is not one of those.

The C510 nestles in the mid-range sector of Sony Ericsson’s portfolio, a Cybershot phone with a sturdy 3.2 megapixel camera, a decent array of connectivity options and very familiar looks and styling.

Design:

Whilst sharing the bar form factor of the more impressive C902 camera phone, the C510 is a decidedly more basic affair as costs are corners are perceptibly cut to bring a cost-effective handset to market.

The display auto-rotates due to a built-in accelerometer when the handset is turned, and the C510’s lens has a protective sliding cover which is a guilty pleasure to fiddle with, but there are few frills besides.

The compact frame hearkens back to snap-happy precursors like the K750i, but the C510 also inherits the slightly cluttered keypad and imprecise buttons of its forebears. Six buttons flanking a central d-pad is far too much, leading to a few mis-steps when navigating menus and the occasional missed call.

Nevertheless the form factor Sony has stuck with is a winner, and the C510’s modest dimensions (107mm x 47mm x 13mm) and light weight for a 3G device (a mere 92g) make the phone a joy to carry around in this age of 3” touch screens and seam-bursting behemoths.

Features:

The 3.2 megapixel snapper is the C510’s unique selling point, and it is admittedly a competent camera in all conditions. The handset has a revamped user interface too, still decidedly S-E, but with the addition of swish transition animations and cool additions like threaded SMS messaging.

The 100MB internal memory can be improved with Memory Stick Micro M2 memory cards, and the media player navigation is still inspired by the minimalist menus made famous by the Playstation 3/PSP.

No headphone jack though, as Sony stubbornly sticks to their proprietary headsets. The C510 was certainly made with solely picture taking in mind, and it is slightly to the detriment of the handset’s other features.

Calls and connectivity:

The C510 being a 3G enabled handset was a welcome surprise, with HSDPA connectivity making browsing the web a slick and simple experience. With the presence of Bluetooth and a full email client, the handset was only bereft of those things that are the preserve of smart phones such as GPS and Wi-Fi. For the target demographic, the C510 has plenty.

Making and receiving calls was a slightly fiddly affair given the profusion of buttons around the call answer/call end buttons, but the calls were crystal clear. Battery life was impressive, lasting almost two days on a single charge using a mixture of calls and 3G surfing.

Verdict

The Sony Ericsson C510 epitomises the way of Sony Ericsson up until the present, making a vast array of very similar handsets with rudimentary cosmetic or technical upgrades to cover all price points and demographics.

The phone is a mid-range Cybershot device through and through, with no aspirations for anything greater. The camera is decent, the media functionality is competent, connectivity features are present and correct, but the C510 makes no attempt to impress or defy expectations.

Sony Ericsson has recognised and addressed this segmented approach by offering a new breed of ‘convergent’ devices like the W995, a Walkman phone that has a camera that can embarrass most dedicated devices, but the C510 seems to be far more symbolic of the old guard.

If you want a Cybershot phone and little more besides, the C510 is exactly that.