Sony Ericsson W810i: The Perfect Cell Phone/Music Player Hybrid
Written: Mar 25 '07
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Pros: Strong music player, impressive multimedia features, good volume/speakerphones.
Cons: Only 20 MB onboard memory, can freeze and stutter, toggle navigation is tiny.
The Bottom Line: The Sony Ericsson W810i is a must for professionals looking for all of the basic essentials of a cell phone and multimedia features. The W810i, quite literally, has it all.
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| billy159401's Full Review: Sony Ericsson W810i |
The Sony Ericsson W810i is the perfect cell phone for you if you’re looking for extended features to go along with a cell phone with solid performance. With this model, Sony Ericsson continues its trend of not following the industry’s main trend of making cellular phones with small sizes. The Sony Ericsson W810i doesn’t sacrifice looks for power. Equipped with powerful features, it is a solid cell phone / music player hybrid.
Design and Looks
The Sony Ericsson W810i is encased in a polished black case. Its interface still appears in orange. According to Sony Ericsson, the cell phone is at 3.9 by 1.8 by 0.8 inches and weighs only 3.5 ounces. Although not slim and tiny, the Sony Ericsson W810i makes up for its comparatively larger size with its features. Its display screen measures 1.8 inches diagonally with 176 x 220 pixels and supports 262,144 colors. There is a backlight feature enabled with the display. Automatically set to light up or dim, there is no option within the menus to change the backlighting time.
The Sony Ericsson W810i uses a circular toggle, much like those in other versions. In the middle of the toggle is a raised OK button. Navigation is performed by using the toggle. While playing music, the toggle acts as a scrolling tool through music lists and the OK button is a play / pause button. The toggle is fairly easy to use. On the sides of the toggle are two keys, the back key and the clear key. These buttons control the opening of menus and talk / end controls. While it may feel surprising and awkward to use a phone without dedicated talk / end keys, users will quickly readjust to this strictly Sony Ericsson design.
The keypad is slightly elevated making dialing rather easy. The keys are quite spacious and there is also a good orange backlight for times when you need to dial in the dark.
The Sony Ericsson W810i also includes on the outside of its case a music player button, memory slot (which supports Memory Stick Duo™, Memory Stick PRO Duo™, and Memory Stick Micro), a camera control, and a volume / camera zoom toggle on its spine. On the top, there is a dedicated power button and an infrared port. The charger and headset ports are both located next to each other at the bottom of the phone. The actual camera and lens are situated on the back of the phone next to speakers.
Features
Music is the main attraction of the Sony Ericsson W810i and it does not disappoint. Complete with similar features, controls, and interface as on other Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, users will feel right at home. Music tracks can be organizes by artist, track name, or playlist. Menu settings include shuffle (song/album), loop, Sony's Mega Bass, an equalizer, and stereo widening. These settings provide a wonderful experience for the music enthusiast. The music player does not conflict with normal cell phone use. Music stops automatically when a call comes in. Hang up and the music starts once again. Music tracks must be imported into the phone via the included USB cable and Disc2Phone software.
The cell phone’s phonebook can hold up to 1,000 contacts each with 5 phone numbers and additional categorical notes such as company name, work title, birthday, e-mail, and home address. The SIM card can hold up to 250 names. Every contact may be assigned to caller groups and paired with a picture or ring tone. This is extremely useful as both can act as caller IDs.
The Sony Ericsson W810i is also complete with a vibration mode, conference calling, speakerphone, and voice dialing. These features complete extended calling options. The organizer submenu provides an alarm clock, calendar, task list, calculator, timer, stopwatch, notepad, and a code memo for storing passwords. There is also a voice memo and call recorder. Furthermore, the camera menus contain loads of options, with exposure, special effects, and flash. Note that users may use the flash on the camera as a flashlight.
The W810i includes built in Bluetooth, which allows for headsets and data transfers. There are also text and multimedia messaging and PC syncing for files. The Bluetooth’s range is fairly large as well.
The Sony Ericsson W810i comes with a built in 2 megapixel camera. Pictures can be taken in three resolutions (1,632x1,224, 640x480, and 160x120). There are various shoot modes, zoom options, special effects, and shutter sounds to choose from. The camera also doubles as a video recorder that records MPEG-4 video at two resolutions (176x144 and 128x96).
A variety of themes, wallpapers, and screensavers are included with the phone, but many more extras may be purchases from Sony Ericsson and the service provider via th WAP 2.0 browser. Games are also included and utilize Java.
User Experience
The service provider of my Sony Ericsson W810i was Cingular. Call quality was good and clear. The overall volume is extremely loud at maximum volume. This, of course, can be adjusted to suit the user’s needs. The speakerphone has a loud volume level as well, which was surprising.
According to Sony Ericsson, the phone can have a talk time of 8 hours and a standby time of 14.6 days. However, I found that I needed to recharge the phone pretty much every night even on days when I rarely used the phone for calls or music.
The Sony Ericsson W810icomes equipped with only 20 MB of storage. I found this to be extremely annoying. Without a memory card, the cell phone suffered from frequent freeze ups, which made even the power off button unresponsive. On more than one occasion I had to remove the battery pack and restart the phone from there. However, with a 2GB memory card, I did not experience these problems.
Also, the keypad felt quite spacious. But some of my friends who use the same phone have felt that the toggle feels too small and is quite sensitive. This may cause some problems for users with larger hands.
Final Thoughts
The Sony Ericsson W810i is definitely a strong cell phone and multimedia player. Along with essential cell phone features, it contains a multitude of impressive tools. Some problems that hinders it from gaining popularity is its less impressive battery life and large amount of memory usage. Also, the fact that it requires a PC to sort out music files can be troublesome.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 149.99
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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billy159401
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Member: Billy
Location: New York City
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