What's small, cheap and promises a better music experience than any of its competitors? We take a look at Sony Ericsson's music phone for beginners, the W300i.
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson W300i:
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 Delivering music on the cheap, Sony Ericsson's W300i delivers something of a contrast-filled out-of-box experience with a first-rate interface and sound quality - offset by low storage and an otherwise anemic feature set. Fortunately, memory expansion and a friendly price tag saves the day, making this an excellent alternative for those desiring a mix of solid call and message handling and excellent music capabilities. Release: July 2006. Price: $1.
Pros: Excellent interface and sound quality; memory expansion; good bundled earbuds; FM radio
Cons: Only 20MB of internal memory; no dedicated music controls; small, low-resolution screen
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Full review of the Sony Ericsson W300i:
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Competition
Find out how well the Sony Ericsson W300i competes with similar music phones:
Sony Ericsson W300i vs. Nokia 5300 vs. Sony Ericsson W810i
Clocking in at the lowest end of Sony Ericsson's extensive Walkman range, the W300i targets those who want to add high quality music to solid phone functionality and leave it at that.
Void of frills, the handset is in essence a simpler version of its bigger brethren and likely a better alternative for many than archrival Nokia's 3250.
Music - Good
Storing in the range of 80 MP3s, the W300i bundles a very decent set of earphones which combine with otherwise excellent audio quality for a highly enjoyable music experience out of the box. Granted, memory is a little short with only 20 MB, but a fiddly-placed expansion slot takes care of this. Music kept playing effortlessly in the background while conducting other tasks, but we're disappointed by the lack of dedicated controls for track skipping. Still, we've got some praise to spare for the external screen's ability to display music info, the handy stereo FM radio with RDS and the ability to send unlicensed music to other phones via Bluetooth straight from within the player.
Camera - Good
Just about as low resolution as they get, the VGA camera of the W300i both records video and shoots stills, failing spectacularly at producing results one would want to share with anyone - even though doing so is an intuitive process be it via MMS, e-mail or even Bluetooth.
In addition to suffering from an ever-present blue tint, the low resolution makes the camera unsuitable for all but the most basic photography needs; its interface is decidedly un-cameralike; and saving pictures is slow - but on the upside, there's enough storage for about a gazillion pictures.
Calling - Very good
Making calls with the W300i is a pleasantly straightforward affair courtesy of a contacts library where looking up contacts is as easy as entering them and the number of available fields is plentiful. Signal reception proved excellent, while audio quality and the built-in loudspeaker ranked as very good, as did support for Bluetooth headsets.
Also, synchronizing or backing up contacts with a desktop is mostly straightforward provided you have a copy of Microsoft Outlook; if not, you're out of luck.
Messaging - Very good
Although somewhat unusual in its layout, the keypad of the W300i offers large and comfortable keys and there's absolutely no sign of lag during input. what's more, SMS and MMS messages are easily created wherever necessary, and the handset can archive a good number of them - although not into folders.
Further on a positive note, the ability to see which messages have been replied to is a plus, but with only 70-odd characters on screen and no ability to back up contacts heavy texters might not be too impressed.
Multimedia - Mediocre
Due to the small, low-resolution screen of the W300i, little content fits in the phone browser at any given time. Be it for mobile optimized or full web pages, the presence a full screen mode has minimal impact, and the lack of page up/down functionality just makes things worse.
Games is another story; although a couple of decent ones are included with the phone, users can easily purchase more - as well as ringtones - through the integrated PlayNow service.
Battery life - Excellent
With 5 hours of talk time and 10 days of standby, the W300i is one of very few phones which chalk up a full score in the battery life department - and it doesn't hurt that it can play back music for up to 15 hours straight in its MP3 only mode either.
Price and availability
The Sony Ericsson W300i will start selling for Free to $180 ((AT&T)) in July 2006.
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