The featherweight import takes on the heavyweight local champ in this battle between two dramatically different styles of phones. Will the XpressMusic slider win, or the svelte Walkman?
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson W880i:
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Full Sony Ericsson W880i Review:
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Round 1 - Design
The Nokia 5300 and the Sony Ericsson W880i represent two different sides of the music phone spectrum, and both are compelling in their own way. The W880i is ultra-thin, at about 0.4 inches, with a brushed metal face and soft-touch rubber backing. It has tiny buttons and only one truly dedicated music button, while the navigation buttons pull double-duty as music controls once you press the Walkman button. The Nokia 5300 is a big slider, thicker than the slim sliders Samsung sells on Helio's network, like the Helio Heat. It is coated in a rubbery finish, and painted in playful white with a colored stripe (black or lilac on T-Mobile). The dedicated music buttons start playing songs the instant you press them, and they function only as music buttons. We found the Sony Ericsson W880i to be a much more attractive phone, and easier to pocket than the much larger Nokia, but we had problems with the music controls. It is difficult to switch songs or start playing music without taking the phone from your pocket and looking at it. Occasionally, when we thought we were pressing play, the phone had exited the music player, and we were actually selecting some other menu option. Though we think the size issues might make this an easy decision for most people, whether they want a thin candy bar or a playful slider, for its better integration of the music controls into the design, we're giving this category to the Nokia.
Winner: Nokia 5300
Round 2 - Calling
Both phones have similar calling options, including Bluetooth, voice recognition, conference calling and a robust contact list. The Nokia 5300 uses speaker-independent voice dialing, which we normally like, but in our tests the phone never understood a single name we spoke, so the feature was all but useless. Sound quality was much better on the W880i, an unlocked phone on Cingular's network, than on the Nokia 5300, which we tested back in October of 2006 as an unlocked phone on T-Mobile's network. While callers complained of some background hiss and noise on the Nokia 5300, many listeners felt that calls placed on the Sony Ericsson W880i were among the clearest they had ever heard on a cell phone.
Winner: Sony Ericsson W880i
Round 3 - Music
Both phones have good music playing software built-in that offer a range of playback options. They both have preset equalizers and playlist options, but the W880i has a very good playlist creator that makes new lists on the phone without the need for a computer. Both phones sounded great while playing music, though the Sony Ericsson phone seemed to limit the volume on most tracks, or perhaps it simply wasn't loud enough to drown out the New York City traffic, which was probably for the best. The W880i did have better EQ options, including MegaBass options and a sound widening option that spread the left and right channels to produce a wider stereo effect. The W880i interface looked much more slick than the Nokia music player, mostly because the W880i's screen is a bit more sharp, with a seemingly higher contrast. Navigating was easier as well, thanks to the graphically enhanced hierarchy menu that makes flipping back and forth between menu options more of an informed choice than a lucky guess. For music transfers, neither software kit could hold a candle to our favorite, iTunes. Originally, we tested the Nokia 5300 with the Nokia music management software, but the recently-released T-Mobile version lacks the software and instead relies on Windows Media Player for management, which is not a bad option, since many Windows users already have WMP set up. Though we liked using Windows Media Player a little better than Sony's disc-to-phone software, we greatly preferred the interface on the W880i itself over the Nokia 5300's onboard software.
Winner: Sony Ericsson W880i
Round 4 - Accessories
Both Nokia (through T-Mobile) and Sony Ericsson should be commended on providing everything you need to enjoy the music features on these phones, especially since we've seen plenty of carriers (we're looking at you, Verizon Wireless and AT&T) who've begun skimping on included accessories and instead sell them as add-ons. Each phone comes with a USB cable, a 1GB memory card (microSD for Nokia, Memory Stick Micro for Sony Ericsson), a 3.5mm headphone adapter and a stereo headset. The Nokia uses a small headset adapter that juts from the side of the phone. The Sony Ericsson incorporates the microphone into the headphone adapter, placing it at the end of a cord with a clip, and you plug your headphones into the end. We're not as fond of the Nokia 5300's option because we think the smaller adapter will be easier to lose, and to make calls you'll need to find headphones with a microphone attached, or pull the slider our of your pocket. We like the way the Sony Ericsson cord incorporates the mic, though it means you'll have a length of dangling cord if you use your own set of cans. Both phones are also capable of A2DP support for stereo Bluetooth headphones.
Winner: Sony Ericsson W880i
Round 5 - Extras
Our Sony Ericsson W880i was an unlocked import phone, so we didn't have access to the HSDPA network that the phone uses for 3G, or the front-facing VGA camera for video calls. Our data was limited to GPRS speeds, which are literally as slow as a dial-up modem, and made the Nokia 5300's EDGE networking seem fast by comparison. The W880i features a 2-megapixel camera, compared to the 1.3-megapixel sensor on the Nokia phone, but images on the Sony Ericsson phone also looked better, with sharper details and better color, although the Nokia's camera was not as bad as others we’ve seen. Both phone handle text messages and e-mail accounts, though the Nokia has some easier preset options for Gmail, Yahoo and AOL. Also, typing on the Nokia's broad, rubbery keypad was much easier than on the tiny keys of the Sony Ericsson's pad. The Sony Ericsson has some nice additional features, like a built-in RSS reader and a nifty vibration feedback on some menus, as well as a sharper interface overall, but the Nokia runs the Symbian S40 operating system, which means that plenty of third party software options are available.
Winner: Nokia 5300
And the winner is . . .
While the Sony Ericsson won more categories in our duel, it isn't a clear winner overall. Both phones handle music very well, better than so-called multimedia phones, on which a music player seems like a tacked-on extra, as opposed to an integral part of the device. The Nokia has the best dedicated controls we've seen on a music phone, and the Sony Ericsson has the best music player software. Both phones could use some improved music transfer software, but their list of accessories is nearly identical. In terms of music, the phones are nearly a draw, and customers looking for a good music phone wouldn't go wrong with either. It is ironic, then, that a music duel comes down to calling options, but we think the Sony Ericsson phone made better sounding calls, and had calling options, like voice tagging, that worked better. In this very close duel, the W880i also emphasized the "phone" in "music phone," and for that reason it is our champion.
Champion: Sony Ericsson W880i
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