More than just good looks (Sony Ericsson W880i with Contract)

Name: JsonRenlan

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Product:	Sony Ericsson W880i with Contract
Date:	05/09/08 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: design, build quality, Java implementation, good audio functions

Disadvantages: battery life is poor, small keys

The Sony Ericsson W880i is kind of a mixed bag.
First of all, the look is definitely striking, but you either find it beautiful or you will consider it ugly. It's slim, but very well built. Due to its size it may seem fragile, but actually it is a very resistant phone. Similarly slim phones from Motorola or Samsung are fragile, but the W880i impressed me. I've dropped it really bad several times and not a single serious mark. The screen is resistant to scratches and the back is also from a really good non-glossy plastic; despite the fact that I usually wear it my pocket with my keys after almost an entire year, the phone looks very good. I also have a Samsung D600 and it's in a very bad shape.
The software is good, the regular Sony Ericsson menus, well organized and with plenty of functionality. You have all the regular software for performing basic functions: making calls and writing text messages, and email client and an email browser, an RSS feed reader, a good agenda and you can store a lot of additional information about your contacts (1000 contact entries), a calendar/organizer, a task manager (very basic though, you add a task and you'll get a notification when the task it's due), stopwatch/timer, a calculator for basic math and a "Code memo" application that you can use to encrypt and password protect your sensitive data (e.g. credit card codes, small notes, other passwords). You can also synchronize all your tasks, calendar and agenda with your computer with a really nice application that comes with the phone. The phone is quite powerful and has a very good Java implementation, so you can run almost (every) J2ME application you can think of. You can even run several Java apps at once, I run Opera Mini and eBuddy without issues. I have yet to find a Java game that refused to work on the W880i.
The screen is also good, quite bright even in direct sunlight you can use it, but the relatively small size and the 320x240 may not turn out to be the happiest combination for those that have problems with small fonts.
As most phones from the Walkman series, the audio quality is really good, though a standard headphone jack would be great, but the jack adapter is something you can live with. The audio player application can be set to run in background so you can do other things with the phone while listening to music. The bad part is that you have no FM radio, but you can always use Internet streaming stations. The loudspeaker however is not that good, basically the phone is so slim that some sacrifices had to be made (same as for the thin music oriented models from Nokia) ... and probably there was simply no space to house a speaker capable of reproducing decent low-range tones, so you are left with the mid-range and high frequencies and everything sound hollow. But if you use the phone with headphones the sound quality is remarkable.
The keyboard buttons are really small, but they are very good and after a couple of hours of adjustment it is not longer a big deal to use them. The back light is white and it looks nice. If you text a lot, you might look for something else though.
The only issue I have is the battery life; I do use the phone a lot during a regular day, so it takes me just about two days, sometimes less, to drain the battery. The recharge however is very fast, takes slightly more than one hour, when using the AC charger and about two hours if you connect through USB to a computer.
The camera is also poor, and can be used seriously just in places with abundant light and outdoors. There is no flash and most importantly there is no automatic focus, but then again if you want to take pictures you can look for something like K800. The phone also has a decent frontal video camera for 3G video calls.
Overall a good phone, very nice looking and remarkably functional, with a superb build quality. Definitely one of the best Sony Ericsson models.

Summary: Overall a good phone, very nice looking and remarkably functional, with a superb build quality.