Category Archives: Vivaz

It always feels great to share something new with you – below is the first footage of Vivaz in the new color Light Pink. This post has a stronger focus on design, which might even lead to that there will be a few new blog visitors commenting, let’s see

Since we have received very good feedback on the design and colors of Vivaz, I asked my colleague Maiko Ishida who is the product planner for Vivaz, to share her story of the work behind the design.

The Vivaz Light Pink will be available in selected markets end of this quarter.

Daniel

This video doesn’t include extreme skiing stunts or rock concert performances, but it still has a quite spectacular twist – it’s recorded with the very same phone we are talking about: the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro. Vivaz pro shares the same multimedia and entertainment elements as its sister Vivaz (except the difference in megapixels), and with the full slide-out qwerty keyboard it’s ideal for the many aspects of messaging highlighted in the video clip.

So, should you go for a pure touch phone or one with a full slide-out qwerty keyboard? Well, I guess the choice is up to you and it is a matter of taste. I use Vivaz pro as my personal phone mainly because I feel that a physical keyboard is superior for handling my work and private emails and I’ve been addicted to having decent camera functionality ever since the first Cyber-shot phone. I’m a frequent user of Facebook but I’m more of a follower on Twitter than a contributor. When it comes to blogging, besides being active in the discussions with you on this blog, I mostly have blogs in time periods, usually for certain projects or travels.
We believe that there are as many types of ”messaging lifestyles” as there are users.

BTW, did you know that you can use the headset as a microphone when you are recording video on Vivaz and Vivaz pro? As I needed a slightly longer cable for this video sequence, I got a €14,90 clip-on mic from a discount electronic store. As you can hear in the video it does a great job given that I’m sitting in the middle of the open landscape at the Sony Ericsson office.

Daniel

As Rikard pointed out, we have let a few people try the Vivaz who are professionally into making movies. Here is a clip from British music video producer Emil Nava (has worked with artists such as the Sugababes). The cloudy London sky might not give you the true Springy Easter feeling but the clip shows Vivaz from yet a few other sides: the continuous autofocus is really tested to the limit with the jumping dogs and the rehearsal part with the dancers in the studio really comes across well.

As you understand, Emil is not the guy that sits still for very many seconds (guess similar to an extreme skier) which you obviously realize from how fast he talks as well as from the fast video cuts.

Just for your information, the first part and last part in his living room is not recorded with Vivaz so you know.

Happy Easter for those who celebrate!!
Daniel

As Vivaz now is launched and starting to roll out in more and more countries all over the world the buzz it’s making about its great video recording capabilities is really cool. It’s main features in regards to video recording is of course the 720p HD-resolution but I would say that the contious auto focus while filming is something that really adds a dimension.

Some fellow marketeers in the world started to create cool videos in cooperation with famous movie makers – challenging them to use the Sony Ericsson Vivaz for their shoots.

There will hopefully be more of these coming but first out are my friends in Norway who challenged Norwegian ski film maker Filip Christensen to hit the slopes with the Vivaz as his video tool of the day:

Remember to choose “view on YouTube” and make sure to choose 720p to experience the full quality.

I will have to admit that he seems to manage to hold is Vivaz more steadily while skiing than I do standing still, quite amazing

For you out there shooting your own cool clips – please feel free to share your YouTube uploads among the comments!

Finally an update on the question of Equalizer for Satio and Vivaz. As some of you might know one important feedback from you the readers of this blog has been that you want an equalizer in Satio and Vivaz. Since I got this feedback and saw your engagement in the issue I’ve worked quite a lot with trying to make that happen. As it turned out it unfortunately hasn’t been possible to add it in an integrated way in a software update. However some real hero colleagues of mine decided to try to build it as a separate application instead so I’m now delighted to at least offer a kind of solution for those of you that have been missing an equalizer.

For most markets there is now an free application called “Equalizer” available on PlayNow in the music category under applications. This equalizer will give you the following different options: Off, Classical, Jazz, Dance, Party, Pop, Rock, Spoken Word, Loudness, Mega Bass and Treble Boost. As I understood it it will equalize all music played in the phone, also the setting it makes is global and stay there if the Equalizer application is closed and also even stays after rebooting the phone. There are two important notes though: First of all this application needs the latest update to work on Satio (on Vivaz it works on the launch SW of course) and also since it’s a separate application it needs to be started separately when you want to start using it i.e. it’s not included under options in e.g. the music player. When an equalizer setting has been chosen it should stay even if the application is closed or the phone rebooted.

I’m well aware that it would have been even better to have a fully integrated equalizer and I’m sorry that we don’t have that. Still I hope that this solution will work for those of you that really feel that an equalizer has been missed a lot.

Here are some screenshots and a short video I shot to show you how it works. (Sorry for the shaky video – I didn’t have my tripod in the office today so I had to navigate the Satio with one hand while filming with a Vivaz with the other hand)