I do not know what happened to the designers at Sony Ericsson, but it is as if all their phones look the same lately. Sony Ericsson W910i is no exception in this case, but promises to impress with a rich functionality. It wins by its small size and its excellent Walkman functions.
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Because of the design, that I consider conservative, Sony Ericsson has made a fan base which remains loyal to the brand because of the mobile performances. Let us see how good Sony Ericsson W910i is and if it is right for you.
W910i comes in a medium sized package box. It has all the accessories you need: the charger, the HandsFree, the USB cable, the Memory Stick Micro M2 memory card, the card reader, manuals and the software CD. The card reader is very useful because it allows you to quickly copy files from your PC to USB card and to use them on your phone. It is ideal for music, because it is faster than Bluetooth and easier to use than a USB cable.
The phone is made from quality materials and it is solid, even if it is a slide model. Being thin and relatively easy, I could slip it smoothly into any pocket. The screen is large, it has 2.4 inches, and occupies almost the entire surface of the phone. The number keys are available only after opening the slide. Most functions can be used without opening the slide, with the help of the keys that are below the display.
Near the speaker, there are two buttons that are used only to view images. One of them opens the album and the other selects larger image. I would have liked to have other uses, depending on the application open.
On the sides, the phone has the volume control buttons, the card slot, the camera button and the Fast Port. The Fast Port is a proper format for PC, handsfree and other accessories connections. I am for standardization, so I would have preferred a miniUSB or microUSB port. If I do not have a cable around, there are high chances to find one at my friend or to buy one at a lower price, but a specific producer cable is harder to find and more expensive. On its backside, a 2 megapixels camera without flash was added.
The screen has 2.4 inches and a resolution of 240 x 320, and it does its job well. The images are clear, and the text can be read very well. Even in bright light, the screen remains visible.
Sony Ericsson W910i is a walkman phone, so listening to music is a pleasure. The audio player is one of the best players. We used the MegaBass equalizer and we were very happy about it. The coolest function is the Shake Control. You can control the player with hand motions. Therefore, you can skip songs or activate random playback.
Another unique function is SenseMe. SenseMe automatically adds a tag that reflects the mood and the tempo of the songs when you copy it to your phone. Using the audio player, you can choose to listen to songs that are tagged with the tempo and the mood you want. If you want to add tempo and mood tags, it is necessarily to transfer your songs using the software phone. From this, I concluded that the PC software analyzes and adds these tags, not the player of the phone.
The video player is also very good. It has all the controls you need. The phone has an auto-rotate function, which does its job well. I was happy with the image gallery too. Sony Ericsson W910i has an FM radio with RDS.
The camera has only 2 megapixels, no flash and no autofocus. This means that the picture quality is average. If you try to take a picture at a close range, it will not come out clear. The pictures are good enough to see them on your phone screen or send them via MMS, but if you copy them on your computer or if you put them on a photographic paper you will not be happy. The camera can record videos at a resolution of 320 x 240 with 15 fps.
It has everything you need except for a WiFi connection. It has GPRS, EDGE, 3G and HSDPA. That means you can quickly navigate on the Internet. The Bluetooth supports A2DP, which means you can connect your Bluetooth stereo headphones to listen to music. It does not have an infrared port.
The browser made by Sony Ericsson is NetFront and it is reasonable. I like the browser on the Symbian Nokia phones better because they render pages faster. You have the option to install Opera Mini, but I never had to do it.
The email client of the phone is even better than I expected. It supports POP3, IMAP and SMTP and can do a lot of configurations. It has a separate inbox for SMS / MMS. The attachments can be saved in the memory of the phone and if the file type is known by the phone it can also be opened.
Sony Ericsson phones have always had reasonable organizer functions, although they are not smartphones. The calendar can add any events and they can be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook. You can even add to-do. I liked at Sony Ericsson that I could add a to-do as a call type. When the alarm of the reminder rings, you just have to click a button and the call is made.
Do not dare to think that Sony Ericsson W910i is suitable for mobile office. This privilege remains to BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile phones. Therefore, there is no support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Excel. I guess someone could have made a Java application for this thing. W910i comes with three games pre-installed, but you can install yourself many Java games.
Sony Ericsson W910i is a phone suited for those who listen to music on headphones a lot. You can copy many songs on the memory card and it has a good audio player. Users searching for a smartphone should look elsewhere.