January 9, 2007
Slow and Low. Reviewing the Sony Ericsson W800i
The new Sony Ericsson W800i is packed with tons of features on top of being a walkman phone. This phone is a bit pricey, ringing the register at about $549.00. Ouch… pretty expensive. Let’s see if it is worth it.
The feature that everyone is talking about is the MP3 player which is incorporated well into the W800i but lets go over all of the features. There is also an AM/FM radio which holds up to 20 presets. The phone book holds up to 500 entries. Each entry holds the name, up to 5 phone numbers, email address, web address, street address, business title and company, birthday and notes. You are able to organize callers into groups and also match with a picture for caller ID. There is also a ringtone caller ID but it only gives you a choice of 12, 40 chord polyphonic ringtones. I think the ringtones will really set this phone apart.
You also get voice dialing and commands, vibrate mode, a calendar, a task list, an alarm clock, a timer, a voice recorder, a note pad, a world clock, a stopwatch, a calculator and text and multimedia messaging. What? There’s more? Yup… for those corporate types there is a big selection of work friendly features including PC syncing with Outlook, a speaker phone, conference calling, an infrared port, POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail support, a business card exchange for wirelessly transferring contact information. There is Bluetooth technology for both calls and file transfers.
Lets talk about the camera for a minute. The Sony Ericsson W800i is designed to look like a stand along camera from the back so when you hold it horizontally the shutter and zoom are on the top edge. To activate the camera, you slide open the lens cover on the rear face. Along with the camera lens you get a square self portrait mirror. The camera has 4 shoot modes: normal, panoramic, frames and bursts. There is a 4x digital zoom, an auto focus, a macro setting for up-close shots, a night mode, a flash, a time and date stamp, and a self timer. There are 4 picture effects: Black & White, Negative, Sepia and Solarize. There is also white balance settings and 2 picture quality modes: Normal and Fine. A cool feature is the MPEG4 video recorder. This takes clips with sound at any length the available RAM will allow. You have a choice of 2 resolutions: 176×144 and 128×96. The editing features are similar to a still camera. If you want to get real creative you activate something called the W800i’s Photo DJ (also available is Video DJ), you get to choose from six fun frames, use various image effects including brightness, contrast, tint control and photo marking. There are additional editing options on the software CD. One cool little feature is the flash. You can use it as a flashlight or have it blink on and off as a distress signal.
Lastly you can personalize the handset with choices of wallpaper, themes, start up screens and screen savers. You have the ability to download more personalization options and you can also create your own ringtones using the Music DJ application.
Wow… there are tons of features and this is a really cool looking phone. So what’s the catch? Well there are some downsides to to Sony Ericsson W800i. Lets start with the keypad. It is really small and very slippery. Because the buttons are barely raised above the surface, dialing by feel is nearly impossible and also the back-light is too dim. The ear bud port is located in a odd spot which is on the bottom of the phone. This would have made more sense at the top of the phone. Also, although you can unplug the ear buds to listen to the MP3 player, the sound is not in stereo. That was kind of a disappointment. You are unable to listen to any music through the Bluetooth headphones. Although the camera on the phone is pretty good the video that you take with it is kind of grainy and pixelated.
My personal opinion is that the features outweigh the faults on this phone. All except one for me… the price.
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Ken Savage
02/10/2007 at 7:19 pm
I saw the Sony Ericsson W800i in the mall for $470. I don’t know if anyone bought this yet or has seen it for cheaper.