Hot on style but not on features (Sony Ericsson W380i)

Member Name: masterchef98

Product:	Sony Ericsson W380i
Date:	13/11/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks good, reliable and nice size

Disadvantages: Camera isn't great and walkman is difficult to work

The W380i is one of Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones although I must admit that had nothing to do with the reason I bought it and I have never actually used this feature.

I chose the phone as it is a clam-shell style, which suits me as I feel the screen and buttons are much better protected and because it was available on Tesco Mobile PAYG for £79.99. The fact that mine is dark purple with pink accents and is super slim and stylish was a bonus.

The phone is not too big or heavy (100g), it is slim (about 1.5cm) and flat (about 9 x 4.5cm) and not so small that it gets lost easily in a handbag. The phone is easy to use for the address book, phone calls and texts which is what I mainly use it for. It also has a 1.3 megapixel camera which is very good at taking photos outside in good light and manages a fairly decent photo inside in good light but doesn't have a flash, just a night mode so if the light is not very bright the picture is terrible. There is not a lot of memory on this phone but you can purchase a memory card to increase it.

As I said I haven't used the Walkman feature, it does have integrated touch control buttons to play and skip tracks on the front which is a nice feature and also allows you to see the time, battery, signal and message icons in a display on the front if you press them. I did try to put some music on my phone but only managed to put one track on before my memory was full (maybe its all the photos) and I haven't yet been able to work out how to play it. Admittedly I haven't read the instructions for this section, but I'm not an idiot and spent some time trying so its obviously not that intuitive and something that needs a little working out.

I think this is a stylish phone and it suits me and my (meagre) needs very well. If you want a flashy phone with lots of features this probably isn't the one for you though.

Summary: Suits me, but its a pretty basic phone so depends what you want

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