Sony Ericsson Reveals Vivaz Cell Phone With 720P HD Video Recording

Sony Ericsson has confirmed rumors and detailed the Vivaz, a Symbian (S60, 5th Edition) OS device and one of their first phones with 720P HD video recording capability (with a dedicated video button on the phone). The phone will be available in Q1 2010 and be offered in Moon Silver, Cosmic Black, Galaxy Blue, and Venus Ruby colors. Sony Ericsson has also made sure that you can share your videos on the fly, with the ability to upload your videos to YouTube and photos to Picasa. The Vivaz features a beautiful 16 million color, 3.2 inch screen (16:9, 640×360). The camera included with the device is also pretty feature-rich, with an 8.1 megapixel sensor, 4x digital zoom, auto focus, continuous auto focus for video, and face detection for photos. Geo-tagging, image stabilization, smile detection, touch capture are also included for an optimal experience.

We’re surprised at how quickly this phone was announced, since the XPERIA X10 hasn’t even hit the US market yet and this may throw off potential buyers of that device since this has several features it doesn’t. However, it sure is exciting to see Sony Ericsson really hitting the groove with their hardware strategy by offering devices with such intelligent features.

The processor inside the device is also quite satisfactory at 720MHz. Other notable features include Bluetooth (A2DP for your stereo headphones), Wi-Fi, and a WebKit web browser. We were also pleased to see a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack, TV Out (at VGA resolution, and an included 8GB MicroSD card. The Vivaz also comes included with many applications, such as Facebook, Google Maps, Twitter, YouTube, Rally Master Pro, and SSX Snowboarding (what! I love this game) amongst many others.

We found a hands-on video by Sony Ericsson that shows off the device in a little more detail:

Battery life figures clock in at GSM/GPRS talk time up to 13 hrs, GSM/GPRS standby time up to 430 hrs; UMTS talk time up to 5 hrs 20 min, UMTS standby time up to 440 hrs. Video call time will last up to 2hrs and 30 mins.