I'm about to change my mobile, and I quite fancy the E530.

Problem is, it seems to be thought of as a "girly" phone. I think this might be because there's alot of them around in that pinky lilac colour.

But they also come in blue and silver.

What do DS folk think? Is it OK for a bloke?

If you're a bloke and you want the phone then it's okay. Who gives a flying monkey's what other people think.

I bought the SE Z520i last week and it's sort of marketed at the 'girly' market (although SE obviously won't explicitly state this as it'll alienate other audiences). It's because most of the covers are lilac and pink etc (the default is white).

When I was thinking about buying the phone that was the main thing that put me off it but then I thought do I really give a s**t what other people think? And the answers no. Now I've got the phone and no one has said to me about it looking girly, in fact everyone so far says it looks cool and is different and believe me my mates would tell me if it looked girly so it's not that they're afraid to say!

Anyway, just go for what you want, if we made decisions based on what other people thought we probably wouldn't do a lot of things in life.

I don't believe it, this is an amazing coincidence.
I've just got back from the shops and saw the SE z520 for the first time and thought: "What a cool phone!"
So I added it to my potential shopping list then logged in to DS and found your posting, LTT !

So whats the lowdown on the SE? Are you pleased with it so far? I've heard that the only points against it are poor battery life, and the camera button is easy to touch accidently.

LOL, that's mad!

Yeah I really like the phone so far. It's my first flip-phone but I'm pleased with it. Yeah the battery life is poor, lasts just two days before you've to charge it, my last phone was the Nokia 3220 and that lasted a few days before you had to charge it, maybe Nokias just have better battery time, I can't really say cos this is my first SE phone. However this is my second day since charging and battery is at 59% so I'd say it will do me all of tomorrow too (in saying that I turned my phone off all last night).

The camera button thing really isnt a big issue (to me anyway). If you press it by accident it only lights up the external screen (takes it out of screensaver/standby mode), it doesnt turn the camera on unless you hold it in for a couple of seconds so you're unlikely to turn the cam on should you be lifting it out of your pocket, you'll just make the external screen light up (which really isn't a big deal since you were more than likely taking the phone out to do something that required turning the internal/external light on anyway). That said, I don't know whether the cam button is pressed when in my pocket although i doubt it.

The only other thing that annoys me is size of the text font when writing SMS, it's pretty big and people close to you can read it so if you're writing any "personal" messages on the bus, in a shop etc people will probably be able to read them if they're nosey enough.

Overall though excellent phone. For £79.99 you're getting a phone with camera, video, bluetooth, IR, external colour screen and it's unique looking compared to other phones (how many other white phones have you seen around?). And if you order through http://www.o2.co.uk/students you get a bluetooth headset worth £49.99 free too!