Unlike a review that I saw about the Sony Ericsson S710 mobile phone, that mentioned that the flashlight they had would only operate if you opened the flap and went into the features of the phone in order to operate. The person apparently did not know that you could just flick the button that would normally lock the phone when the phone has the flap opened; it turns on the light, which is quite powerful for such a small size.

The phone is quite cool. I took it to school, and immediately people all around wanted to look at it. I got several people that said that it was such a cool phone, and they want one. But, it's not all show-off and no action.

It has great reception, and the sound is better than other phones I have tried. However, the size may be a bit thick and short, but the fact that the phone opens by sliding, makes you want to grab it and just play with it all the time.

As mentioned before, the general appearance of the phone is amazing in the close position, but when opened, the phone seems quite luxurious. It's not all lights and glitter that makes it tacky. It's more reserved and cool, and that makes it look attractive and capable of being carried by a businessman or a teenager; except the businessman may find it hard to write an appointment with the phone. The keys are quite hard to handle when writing a message, just like any other phone that uses the 10 number keys as a keyboard.

Although at first it is a bit hard to locate everything on the phone and see what it really has, the phone is one that you just want to play with, and eventually you learn where everything is situated. You can also set keys as shortcuts, and it has voice security, voice calling, and voice activation capabilities. Although I have not tried this feature, it does look cool. It can also lock the SIM card with secret word or voice activation, though I doubt it might be a good idea to use the latter, but I still have not tried this.

It has bluetooth and infrared, and the camera has a good display with the large screen. However, when the picture camera is changed to movie, the screen becomes smaller, though it may not be smaller than other phones. The large screen on this phone makes the video screen seem quite minute, and makes you wonder what happened, and you are only allotted a limited time in the normal position. The camera options are also quite amazing, as you can invert the colors, and change the lighting in the background to one of about 7 features. Pictures are pretty high quality when they appear on the computer. When compared with the RAZR, the images are pretty clear, and the size of the image when it appears on the computer is quite large, though at a slightly smaller size the picture would look a lot sharper rather than slightly blurry at a larger size. It is easier to make a picture smaller than it is to make it large and get good quality.

I would definitely advise people to buy this phone, even though I find the limits dealing with memory to be quite burdensome, especially after I bought a 2Gb Memory Stick Duo PRO that is non-refundable. The reason that it does not work is apparently due to an SE security feature on the phone that does not allow duo PRO memory to be recognized. Hopefully Sony will provide a program that will take this measure off. Until then the phone is still great rather than excellent.

I recently wanted to upgrade from my (pitiful) Sony Ericsson T610 to something that didn't, well, 'suck'. Initally, this (the S710a) was the first phone to catch my eye, but after seeing the high price-tag on an unlocked version I decided to stay away, and looked into phones such-as the Motorola V330, A630 and several Samsung phones that T-Mobile offered. After a couple weeks of researching phones, and no longer caring if I switched to another service-provider from T-Mobile, after feeling 'jerked-around' by them while trying to obtain a better phone, I saw that the S710a was supported by Cingular, and available directly from them for $300 and also included a $100 mail-in rebate ($200 final cost after rebate). I quickly switched over to Cingular, and while in some ways I miss T-Mobile's service, the switch was more-than worth it to have the Sony Ericsson S710a.
The phone comes with a wrist-band to tie around a hook at the bottom of the phone, a Sony Memory Stick/Pro/Duo/Duo-Pro flash card reader for the PC (as well as a USB cabel for it), a 32mb Memory Stick Duo flash card, a standard Sony Ericsson battery, standard Sony Ericsson AC charger, and a pair of Sony Ericsson earbuds. On the phone, there are several pre-loaded 'visual themes', many pre-loaded pictures and sounds/ringtones, a single pre-loaded video (two videos if you purchased the 'Star Wars Edition'), and two (extremely short) game demos (There will also be a Star Wars game demo if you purchased the 'Star Wars Edition').
I am very impressed by the screen on this phone. Not just the size, but the quality of it as well. It is simply gorgeous and displays colors very vividly and clearly. The phone has two speakers, one on the front, and a loud one on the back for MP3 Playback/Speakerphone. I am some-what dissapointed with the volume of the speaker-phone though. While not exactly 'low', it definitly leaves you feeling "I wish I could make it just a little-bit louder...". The camera is another great feature of this phone, the pictures are simply beautiful when enough light is available, but if there isn't (which is often, due to the placement of the lens) you can enable night-mode which will 'melt-away' most of the grainyness, also there's a flash/flashlight to help add light to a scene, and while it doesn't do much in extreme-dark situations, it certainly does help with lower-light situations. Feel free to check out my photo album: http://photobucket.com/albums/y142/PsykoSnake38/ - all pictures were taken with my S710a... pretty good for a cellphone, eh? I do wish that the flash could be turned on without turning on the camera so it could be used as a flash-light more easily. Also, I'd like to note that I was very pleased to be able to simply stick some of my favorite songs (in MP3-format) onto the memory card and be able to set them as my Ringtone/Alarm/etc. While I realize this is nothing new, the phone allows pictures to be attached to your contacts in the phone book, meaning you can take a picture of your buddy "Jim", attach the picture to his contact information, and when he calls you his picture will pop-up on the screen, it will also be there when you call him and will cover the screen while you are talking to him.
I am very happy I purchased this phone, and reccomend it to anyone who would like a nice looking phone with MP3 playback and a good quality camera built into it. My only real complaint is that the battery-life seems a bit low. Maybe it's because my previous cellphone was a Sony Ericsson T610, which offers over 14hours of talk-time on a full charge. The S710's battery life simply seems to drop ridiculously fast when viewing/recording video, using the camera, and/or playing games. I would be very intrested in purchasing a higher-quality battery for this phone if Sony Ericsson would release one. Regardless though, the Sony Ericsson S710a is the best phone I have ever used, and the only way I wouldn't reccomend it is if you had enough to purchase the K750 or Z800, of course, with those phones, you won't have 850GSM available and most-likely won't get good service in more rural-areas.

This is my dream phone. I love the gigantic screen, the swivel and Bluetooth. I've had my Sony Ericsson S710 for a month now, and I still can't believe how cool the video recorder is. It takes really good pictures and the speakerphone and MP3 player sound great. Plus, I was surprised it came with a USB memory stick reader and it wasn't an additional accessory I had to purchase. The only problems are that it's a bit bulky and the price of course is EXCESSIVE. If I wasn't able to get it for $40, I wouldn't have been able to get this great phone.