Announced at the 3GSM World Congress (now known as Mobile World Congress) in February of 2003, the Z1010 was the first 3G capable handset offered by Sony Ericsson. It would take almost a year for the phone to become available in the market though. There was a simple reason for the delay, however, as no operators were offering 3G to the public at the time.
The “killer application” and hype back then was for video calling. The Sony Ericsson Z1010 was ready to jump onto that bandwagon, as it was equipped with the necessary hardware (2 cameras) and had a nicely configured video call application.
Other stand-out features at the time included expandable storage and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, which made the Z1010 a good music companion. USB sync connectivity was also included and the secondary display on the outside of the phone eliminated one of the downsides of clamshells, providing the most important information to the user without the need to open the phone. Check out our hands-on tour to see all of these features in our Throwback Review video below.
Here are the key features of the Sony Ericsson Z1010:
- Network: 2G and 3G (2100 band)
- Dimensions: 98.5 x 54.5 x 29 mm (3.88 x 2.15 x 1.14 in)
- Weight: 144 g (5.08 oz)
- Display: 2.2-inch (176 x 220 pixels), TFT, 65k colors, Outside display: 101 x 80 pixels, 4 level grayscale
- 2 VGA cameras
- Long Range Bluetooth
As a little extra, we also show you – what we believe to be – an early 3G Ericsson engineering prototype. The design most definitely looks like it was an early version of the Z1010. Unfortunately, the phone won’t turn on (it’s hard to find replacement parts for such rare devices!), but we thought we would give you a quick glance anyway. With that said, let’s move straight over to today’s Throwback Review video, Episode number 4.
Episode 5 of the Throwback Review series will cover the Sony Ericsson K750i and S710i. Stay tuned!