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The Good:
Excellent integration of functions, good overall design, great music quality, easy to use, 2MP digital camera, fast operating system, memory expansion, Bluetooth / IR/ USB data transfer, drag and drop support, video clip and photo slide show on device editing.The Bad:
No bookmarking features, cumbersome hands-free cables, costs and limits of the memory Stick Duo format, slow fast forward.The Verdict: An excellent combination of devices with few real compromises.
REVIEW:
Thanks to the advances in memory and processor technology in the past few years, the Music Phone genre is finally starting to get interesting - it's no longer about adding music features as a mere afterthought.
Music Phones are nothing new in themselves but they have almost always been a compromise. This year is promising a few new entries that aim to do it right, and the SonyEricsson W800i is the first phone to sport the highly recognizable "Walkman" name.
Sony has lost out big-time to Apple in capturing the hard drive music player market in the past few years, so this focus on music phones makes for an interesting battle given the Apple backed Motorola ROKR. Can they overcome the Apple momentum? Probably not any time soon.
But can they compete on this field? Absolutely
Look and Feel:
The design guys did a great job with this one. The cream-and-copper color scheme looks great and the phone is very well put together in a comfortable 100-by-46-by-20.5 millimetres and 98 gram package. As with previous models, SonyEricsson is going with the dual face design; the back looks like a camera, the front like a phone.
The camera side carries a 4.8mm 2 megapixel lens, along with 2 bright LEDs which provide a light source. Unlike most camera phones, the W800i has a built in lens cover. This slide switch that opens it also doubles as the camera activation key.
The front of the phone sports the 176-by-220 pixel (262K) screen, dial pad keys, navigation controls and the dedicated Walkman key. Overall, I really like the design of this phone and found it very comfortable to use.
The sides of the device bear the multiple use keys which cover volume, camera shutter, power, play/pause and other features.
The W800i includes an external speaker for listening to music, using the speakerphone and the like. If you put it terms of a small clock radio, you won't be disappointed. It was great for listening to tunes at my desk, where I don't want to bother anyone else, but little else. At the highest volume, which could well be heard for quite a distance, it gets pretty tinny.
Note that both a clip-on FM transmitter and a desk stand with amplified speakers will be available soon.
As a Phone:
The W800i is a tri-band 1900 / 1800/ 900 worldphone with 32 megabytes of on-board memory in addition to a 512MB Memory Stick Duo. I have used several phones with the same operating system and I really have little to complain about.
Reception and call quality were good and the eight hours of advertised talk time (400 stand-by) on the 900mAh Li-polymer battery was pretty close to accurate.
As modern phones go, the W800i offers a good variety of well implemented features including a flight-mode, conference call, speakerphone, voice answer, magic word, voice dial, 500 name phone book with photo ID, Outlook Synchronization, Vcard support, stopwatch, countdown timer, datebook, task list, word time, notes, call record(both sides) and 40chord polyphonic ringtones (12 included).
This is pretty good. However, the phone book limit may be a little light for business users. Also, the call logs might be called Time and Cost but do not have a feature that would allow you to plug in your plan details. I have yet to see this option well implemented and it sure would be nice to avoid the monthly bill surprises. Thankfully, the data side keeps track of all your kilobits.
