The original Walkman phone is back with a vengeance; Sony Ericsson's W810i sports several improvements over the W800i - and they're of the right sort. A review by Sindre Lia.
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson W810i:
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 Picking up where the W800i left off, the Sony Ericsson W810i offers improved music navigation in tandem with the same excellent music management capabilities and decent amount of bundled memory as its predecessor. Out-of-box audio quality is on par with the high standards we've come to except from the handset maker, while we’re slightly disappointed by the lack of stereo Bluetooth audio. These niggles aside, the W810i makes for a stellar music phone with side servings of a 2-megapixel camera and EDGE. Release: October 2006. Price: $70.
Pros: Improved controls; good music management; quality out-of-box audio; outstanding battery life
Cons: No stereo Bluetooth audio
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Full Sony Ericsson W810i Review:
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Competition
Find out how well the Sony Ericsson W810i competes with similar music phones:
Sony Ericsson W810i vs. Nokia 5300 vs. Motorola RAZR V3i
We were tempted to say it's back in black, but after careful consideration opted to stay away from such horrible puns (well, mostly) in this review of Sony Ericsson's W810i - the handset maker's latest music phone, and the obvious successor to the popular W800i. At 100 x 46 x 20 mm and 99 g, it's a near exact match for its compact predecessor, yet its glossy black finish dots the i on improvements including a total rework of its music controls, the addition of quad-band GSM/EDGE and more.
Music to ones ears
With the W810i, the act of navigating music has been vastly improved as the navigational pad now lets users easily skip forwards and backwards as well as play and pause music in a one-step process. As presented through the bright and crisp 1.8-inch medium resolution screen, the Walkman interface remains one of the best in existence for music management, and looks even better than before courtesy of the addition of phone-wide support for themes created in Flash Lite, a pared-down version of Macromedia's flash for the desktop.
On the note of connectivity, the W810i no longer requires the installation of PC software to enable music transfers over its USB 1.1 cable; instead, users can now install only the required drivers, connect the handset and request an memory update be conducted once the desired files have been transferred from the PC. Speaking of memory, the W810i retains the 512 MB Memory Stick PRO Duo card bundled with the W800i, which is a fairly decent amount even considering recent developments in the music phone space.
Unfortunately, the W810i remains compatible with only MP3 and AAC file formats, negating the use of all-you-can eat online subscription services. Out-of-box audio quality is very good, however, and the W810i now also comes bundled with a stereo cable for connecting to home stereos and the likes as an alternative for listening to music through the bundled earphones for 15 hours straight .
Other musical tidbits worthy of mention include the ability to activate the well-performing stereo FM radio with RDS through a dedicated play/stop button on the left side of the phone is a handy feature, as well as our slight disappointment in the lack of support for stereo Bluetooth audio via the A2DP profile.
Best of the rest
In addition to its prowess in the music department, the W810i also plays host to several other features, among which we find a first-class 2 Megapixel camera with autofocus as well as a browser out of Japan's Access. Unfortunately, the latter is of the rather mediocre kind as its ability to adapt full web pages to the small screen falls short on the account of excessive scrolling, failing to exploit the newfound EDGE support which enables higher-speed data transfers.
Lastly, the quality keypad deserves a bit of attention, as does the ability to connect mono headsets via Bluetooth; the integrated ambient light sensor for automatically adjusting screen brightness; Java MIDP 2.0 support; and talk and standby times of 4 hours and 7 days, respectively.
Price and availability
Available now from Cingular, the Sony Ericsson W810i retails for $200, or $150 with a two-year service agreement.
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