Go with the flip (Sony Ericsson W300i)

Member Name: bilbob20

Product:	Sony Ericsson W300i
Date:	18/08/08 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The easy to use music organiser amongst other things

Disadvantages: The camera's below standard

I acquired this phone nearly by accident. My aunt bought it for my 14 year old cousin in February, but being 14 he was just too cool for it. So my aunt decided to pass it on to me as a birthday gift. It may have been an afterthought, but hey who is complaining. At the age of 29, I'm slightly past caring about the most recent model of just about everything. Besides, its a decent enough looking phone that it doesn't look like something my grandfather would have acquired at a car boot sale.

Its approximately 8 by 4 cm in size, but doubles when it opens, being a flip phone. This makes it smaller than the most recent models, and much harder to accidently phone people at 2 in the morning when you're dancing about in a night club. Not that I club so much now, being 29 and a bit uncool and all that. In appearance, its silver with a black ID screen on the front. When you open it, you have a much bigger screen that doubles as a caller ID and a camera screen.

The phone initially came with a 256mb memory stick which allowed me to store some music. However, when I got tired of carrying around my mp3 player and a phone, I decided to upgrade to a 2gb memory stick which cost me £11.99 from ebay. That now allows me to store enough music so that I can leave that great irritating other contraption at home. The memory stick also allows me to store more photo's as well.

The best thing about the mp3 function is that it sorts your files by artists, albums, tracks, playlists in the same way that a more sophisticated mp3 player might. You can click on your favourite artist and shuffle their music, or click on one particular song. You can also listen to your entire music playlist and shuffle the songs about.

The phone also comes with an earphone pack which doubles as earphones for your music and an ear-piece and mic for you to conduct your phone calls if you are caught short with a phone call whilst listening to music. I must warn you though, if you have a sister as loud as mine, god help you with those earphones in. I have to turn her down quickly to preserve my hearing.

The sound quality of the phone is pretty decent, very ocassionally in poorer reception area's, the sound can become slightly muffled. All in all though, the tone and clarity of the phone is pretty clear. There is also a decent battery life on it. I have always had problems with batteries in the past, and in my last phone found that I had to charge it all night every night. Despite the huge amount of use my phone gets as a phone and an mp3 player, the battery can last for 3 or 4 days. I recently took it on a long bus trip with me, approximately 8 and a half hours. My mp3 player ran out on a full charge after about 5 hours of use on my way down. My mobile phone still had a small amount of battery left over after 8 and a half hours of use on my way back home.

The camera is the least pleasing feature of the phone. The photo's taken can be slightly grainy and certainly is only recommended if you are out in daylight. None of my photo's are good enough quality to be printed or kept. Where it does come in handy though is for the nifty little caller ID function that many phones now have. You can attach people's photo's to their phone number and when they call you get to view their mugshots. Although, that depends just how attractive your circle of friends might be. If you are so inclined to mock at their expense, there is a little feature which allows you to play around with the picture and add cartoon features.

The phone also has a radio function attached which is handy if you are fed up with your own music, or if you're one of those blokes who listens to the football on your weekend shifts. I rarely use it, but its functional enough when I do on the rare occasion that I listen to the real radio wind up in the morning on the bus to work.

Other features that I rarely use is the Entertainment function which consists of no games that you'd ever bother to play, and a slow pointless web access that I have used once to obtain an email I was waiting on. Most people have access to the internet either at home or in work, its getting pretty desperate if you want access in the pub as well. And anybody who might use it for internet access in a work capacity might well be better served by buying a better model.

Along with the facility to personalise your contacts with pictures, you can also personalise with songs. I have applied different songs to certain people, which serves only to allow you to avoid certain people if you fancy a night without chat. It doesn't really do anything that the caller display doesn't do, but if you are as lazy as me on your days off, then you'd understand why it serves its purpose. The phone also has the obligitary Calls tab which allows you to view your received, made and missed calls. This isn't a feature that other phones dont have, but its laid out nicely and allows you to differentiate between your missed and answered calls at a quick glance.

Along with this, there are also various organising features, such as a note section, calender, calculator, an alarm function which is used often with me. Especially that all important SNOOZE button. Who can live without their snooze button? You can also switch the phone between silent, your personalised ring tones and a vibrating signal if you want to hear your calls without disturbing half the world. People on the bus at 8 in the morning should take note. You can also have a different ringtone or signal for incoming text messages. Again, feel free to switch to silent in public.

My phone is with o2, but I'm sure you can go with any network you choose whether paying as you go, or opting for a contract. For those of us who dont need the most expensive flashiest model's, this is a simple to operate godsend that's only downfall is a slightly below average camera.

I would enlighten you to the price, but I've always felt that it was cheeky to look up the price of something that was given to you as a gift. So despite my curious nature, this is one area where I dont break my own rules. But I'm sure the phone is widely available as I've seen quite a few people with them, so go on have a peak at the price and see if its the perfect phone for you.

Summary: A decent easy to use phone that'll suit those of us who aren't after anything too complicated

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