It's a shame that more Sony Ericsson cell phones don't make it into the hands of more U.S. carriers. For the most part, the company's handsets enjoy a good reputation, with eye-catching designs, admirable features, and good performance. Take the Sony Ericsson Z520a, for instance. Though its camera and photo quality were unimpressive, we considered it to be a solid choice for a midrange cell phone.

And better yet, it made it onto Cingular's handset lineup. It must have had some success overall, as the carrier now is offering a follow-up phone, the Sony Ericsson Z525a. Bearing a nearly identical design to its predecessor, the Z525a offers much of the same feature set, save for the addition of support for Cingular's push-to-talk (PTT) network. Performance is also comparable, though photo quality hasn't improved.