Ericsson R520m Review

Overall Rating

Feature rich, good standby/talk time, lightweight, excellent screen and backlight, build quality, good RF performance, intuitive menu, nice design (IMO, but like the R320 better) Very good value for money (you can find the phone for about 100-150$)

Keys are not very responsive, perhaps a bit too long (although a smaller phone would mean smaller keys), the earlier software versions were prone to crashing.

The R520m is the successor for the R320s phone, a phone intended for the businessman. This means stacked with all the features they could find. First looks: * You will most likely encounter a "Streaking Silver" model, this is the standard model: a silver grey finish on the casing and the keys. The first 25000 phones were "Copper edition" phones, this is a mix of copper and silver on the casing and black rubber keys. Otherwise these editions do not differ from each other in any way. * The phone is big (13 cm, 16cm with antenna) in the eyes of most people, yet the phone is extremely thin (only 17 mm with battery) and light (about 105 gr with battery). * The phone feels and is very well-build: no creaking when you put pressure on the casing. The back of the phone is made of magnesium (also used in the frame of certain laptops) a durable yet light metal, the front is made of some kind of plastic, as well as the keys. Features: * The phone is a TRI-BAND (900, 1800, 1900 MHz) GSM phone. This enables the phone to be used in Europe, Asia and USA, i.e. a world phone. It also support GPRS and HSCDS for fast data communication with the built in MODEM. * The phone has built in INFRARED and BLUETOOTH to connect and/or synchronise with other devices (carkit, computer, pda, printer,...) * It has a built-in SPEAKERPHONE to make conference calls (or for when your arm gets tired of holding the phone ;-) * It has a VIBRATE FUNCTION. * It supports 1.2.1 WAP (with encryption) * The phone has room for 510 phone numbers (each contact can have 4 numbers and an email adress assigned, also room for company name and job title) * The R520 has VOICE DIALLING and VOICE COMMANDS (there can be up to 50 voice entries). * It features a MAGIC WORD to activate voice dailling or commands without having to press a button. * It has a VOICE MEMO function (92 sec). * It has a LARGE SCREEN with CHANGEABLE FONT SIZES (l,m,s), you can have up to 6 lines of text. * There is a built-in PIM (CALLENDER & TASK MANAGER). * CALCULATOR, ALARM (with MOTION SENSOR: just wave over your phone to go into snooze mode), TIMER, CODE MEMO (a vault to put in all your codes and passwords). * EMS text messaging, this enables you to put small pictures (you can also COMPOSE your own pics on the phone), animations and sounds in your text messages. You can also write more than 160 characters in a message. * 8 USER DEFINABLE RING TONES * 2 GAMES (ERIX & TENNIS) * USER CHANGEABLE BACKGROUND PICS * Supports 7 PROFILES so you can quickly change a number of settings (ring volume, ring tone, divert calls, ...) . Performance: I use the phone in Belgium (Europe) where there is excellent coverage in 900 and 1800 MHz, performance may vary in 1900MHz zones (USA). * When you have a recent software version (R4A008 or above) the phone is stable, fast, reliable,... When you haven't things are a little bit different, expect to see the phone perform rather sluggish and to have crashes once in a while. Fortunately PHONE UPGRADES ARE FREE while the phone is under warranty, and take about 30 min.- 1hrs. * When fully charged my phone has about 260 hrs standby time and 8 hrs talktime, with the standard BSL-11 (600mAh, LITHIUM-POLYMER)Battery . This is an estimate calculated by the phone. This is highly dependant on network strength. This is with bluetooth and IR DEactivated. * At first the size of the phone makes it a little akward to hold but after just a short while it becomes very comfortable, there is enough room to assure a firm grip. Still the phone is not very pocketable, yet I (and I stress that this is my opinion) wouldn't want it any other way. * SOUND QUALITY is EXCELLENT, very rich sound. The R520 has a BACKGROUND NOISE FILTER. The speakerphone is very usable in quiet environments, with a lot of background noise it tends to be more difficult to use. * The phone proves to be very reliable and is a real workhorse. * The big screen is a real plus for WAP and EMS usage. * I did find that I did need some time to adjust to the keypad, I sometimes needed to press a key twice because it lacks feedback. * Voice dialling is very usable, you hold in the YES-keys of volume slider (or say the magic word) till you hear a beeb, then say the name of your contact, wait for the second beeb and the say wich number you want to call (home, work, mobile, other). Very nice! You can also switch profiles or record and play voice memos with voice command. * I haven't used GPRS, HSCDS, so I can't comment on that. Overal Opinion/ Recommendation: I will never need/ want another phone. Buy it! At 100-150$ it the best bang for the buck you'll ever find. Just make sure you upgrade the software and this phone will blow you away. The only drawback is the size and rubbish (early) software versions. It's solid, feature-rich, and inexpensive. Dietbrand Vandenberghe Check out Howard Chui's review at: href="http://www.howardchui.com"> Howard Chui href="http://www.howardchui.com/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=27&page=1"> Direct link to review

Members' Comments onDbVDb.'s Review

• katherine muirhead. on 28th Nov 2002

  please can you tell me how to find out which software version my ericsson R520M has? I have some problems with the ear peace volume. thankyou. katherine muirhead. email k.muirhead@ntlworld.com