It's not fair, his phone's better than mine (Sony Ericsson W800i)

Member Name: sandemp

Product:	Sony Ericsson W800i
Date:	13/01/06 (983 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great phone, brilliant camera, excellent MP3 player

Disadvantages: mmmm - it's my husband's and not mine

When my husband's trusty old Nokia 3310 decide to die a quiet death (after 4 years of use), it was time to start looking for something new for him to use to call me. He does have a Sagem MYX7 as well, but he never managed to get this unlocked, so it's just sat in a drawer for over a year. When deciding on which phone to get price and the ability to make phone calls were the overriding factors, so it's somewhat amazing that he ended up with the top of the range Sony Ericsson W800i, a phone that's also a 2MP camera and a walkman. The reason he actually ended up with this particular model, is that he decided to finally take the plunge and get a contract phone instead of PAYG, and this was available for free with the contract he chose.

---The Styling---

The W800i is one modern looking phone, being mainly pearl-white in colour with orange highlighting. This doesn't sound a very nice combination but I personally think it looks a lot better than it sounds. This is NOT a flip-phone, and therefore is not the smallest phone to hit the shelves, but that's not to say it is in anyway bulky. Measuring in at 10 x 4.6 x 2cm it certainly doesn't create much of a bulge in the pocket, and at just 99g it certainly won't weigh you down.

---The Battery---

For me at least, one of the most important parts of a mobile phone is the battery, it's life and how long it takes to charge. Charging wise, things couldn't be easier, the phone takes 2.5 hours to charge from dead. I can't help to be amazed at how quick this is, the first mobile I owned took over 8 hours to charge. Even better is the fact that as well as using a standard wall socket, it can also be charged by connecting it to a computer via USB, which means that as long as you have the USB cable with you, you could give the phone a quick top-up in the office. (I'm not sure if the drivers need to be installed for the phone to charge, but if I ever find out, I'll let you know).

Battery-life is quoted as being up to 9 hours talktime, and 400 hours standby. Now I'm sure you're aware that these figures don't actually mean very much, after all are you really likely to not use the phone for 400 hours or talk for 9 continuously? In reality, with occasional use of the camera and walkman functions, and approximately an hour of actual calling a day the phone easily last 2-3 days between charges. Heavier use of the walkman/camera will reduce this time considerably. A nice little feature is that it is possible to find out exactly what percentage of battery-life is left, although this is slightly awkward to so. (I only found out by accident).

---The Screen---

The screen is large, bright, clear and displays any photos, videos and messages without any problems. The start-up screen displays the relevant battery and signal strength information in a reasonable way. Official figures for the screen are 176x220 pixels and 262144 colour depth, which means absolutely nothing to me.

---The Phone---

Once the phone has been charged, it's time to turn it on, and go through the set-up wizard, which allows you to set the time, date etc. This wizard can be repeated at any time, and I found it far simpler to set than my own phone (NEC 338). After setting the clock, etc, it's easy enough to navigate the menus even though they are somewhat different to those on Nokia phones. It took me a couple of minutes to become accustomed to the little joystick control, but it did take my husband a little longer as he found it was a touch too small for his hands.

Adding contacts to the address book is simplicity itself, there are two main methods, the first is to input all the details and the second is to synchronise with Microsoft Outlook (express). Inputting the details can take a long time as there are so many details you can add to each contact. As well as the obvious name and number, you can add physical, email and web addresses, birthday and work details, you can even assign each contact a different ring-tone and picture. All contacts are stored on the phone's internal 34MB memory, and I'm not sure how many you can add, but I've put 50 numbers on my husband's phone and don't appear to have made a very large dent in the memory.

Once the contacts were added it was time to check out the most important functions of the phone, that is making calls and writing texts. Making calls is (as with most phones) a simple enough affair, input the number (or find it in contacts) and start the call. Once connected call clarity is exceptional and the volume is easily adjusted via a control on the side of the phone. Just so you know, as well as the call being clear at this phone's end, the volume is perfect at the other end as well. My husband's Sagem seemed to pick up every little background noise and I found it uncomfortable to be at the receiving end of one of his calls.

Receiving calls, is just as simple as making them, there are a few decent ringtones installed on the phone, but what both myself and my husband like is that you can use MP3s as ringtones. This means he'll never have to pay for another tone. The actual ringtones, are played loud enough to hear even in a crowded area, and there is also a vibrate function.

The W800i supports all message formats, including text, picture and voice. I've, personally only used it for text messages though. The predictive text, which is on by default, is as annoying as always, so I've switched it off. Neither myself, or my husband can get the hang of predictive text, I always end up with words I don't want, but if it's your thing then it's there. The keypad is responsive and I have no difficulty writing texts using the repeated tap method, and the cursor moves on to the next letter in just about the right time-frame.

As far as other features go, there are a couple (other than the major features I'll be describing below), the phone is tri-band, which means it will work just about anywhere. There is also a radio, that can only be accessed when using the hands-free set. It also features bluetooth and infrared connections, neither of which have been tested (yet). I just don't have a phone that I can attempt to connect with it, or a dongle for my computer.

---The Camera---

The first thing I'm going to say about the camera is "Wow", compared to the cameras on my previous phones it's simply amazing. The 2 megapixel camera, yes you read that right 2 megapixel, sends the VGA camera on my NEC hiding in a corner. Using the top quality setting I can take pictures that are starting to give my standalone camera a run for it's money. Scrap that, in certain lighting conditions the pictures it produces are actually superior to my 4MP camera.

Part of the reason for this is the range of functions it has, simply slide open the lens cover and you have a fully featured digital camera in your hands. You can change the picture quality, from a pathetic size designed for publishing on the web right up to the full 2MP. You can play with effects, for example you can take pictures in black and white, or sepia, there is a 3x digital zoom, and even a light for darker shots. It's with this light that the phone excels as a camera, with my standalone if I try to take a picture in a dimly lit room I have problems. Without a flash the resultant picture is too dark, and with a flash I get whiteout. With the W800i I get perfect results every time. Obviously the photos can't be printed above the 7x5 level without pixalation, but for everyday use it's perfect, especially as there is so much room on the memory card (unless it gets filled with MP3s).

The camera also functions as a video recorder, and a fairly decent one at that. Audio is captured perfectly, and the picture quality once more puts my NEC 338 to shame. I'm not sure how long a clip you would be able to record, as I've only attempted very short clips, and then deleted them almost immediately.

---The Walkman---

Apart from the camera (and making calls) the W800i's big selling point is the fact that it's branded a Walkman. What does this mean? Well it means it's a MP3 player, and not a bad one at that. The walkman mode is very is to operate, and can be switched on without switching the "main" phone on. Sadly, only the MP3 format is recognised, but it can manage MP3s that are protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management), but you will not be able to send these to other phones.

Sound quality is exceptional, even with MP3's that have quite a high rate of compression (64kbs). The actual quality is improved even further by using the supplied earphones, which are of such high quality that they have been comandeered for use with a Creative Zen. How many tracks you can fit on the phone, does depend on which compression level used, and the size of the card you have. With the supplied 512MB card, you should be able to easily fit over 100 tracks, plus a few photos with using 64kbs compression.

There are programs supplied with the phone to make moving you music files easier, but I've never bothered with these. I have my own versions of programs to encode files, and add tags and prefer to stick to them, and have found moving files between comtputer and phone to be a simple case of drag and drop. A word of warning, the transfer to the phone is very slow, it takes a couple of minutes per track.

One last point about the Walkman, of course it's not going to compare with the likes of the iPod or Creative Zen, but it does compare very well with those cheaper no-name makes of player, both in quality and functionality.

---The Software---

The phone comes with a CD-ROM filled to the brim with all the software you'll need to make the most of your phone. In fact it comes with too much software, I've barely needed to use any of it. I have of course, installed the drivers, so that my computer will recognise the phone, but I haven't bothered with the imaging software. I will say that installation was easy enough, and the programs don't seem to have de-stabilised my computer.

*It appears that the supplied software is only suitable for Windows 2000, ME and XP

---Price and Availability---

My husband received his phone free when he entered into a contract with T-Mobile (Relax 300), and I've seen them offered (on contract) for anything up to 100GBP. I've only seen it once on Pay As You Go and that was for 279GBP.

---Final Words---

This is a great phone, that while performing a number of extra special functions, also works perfectly well as a phone. It's easy and comfortable to make calls and write texts with, and the battery lasts reasonably well. It also boasts an amazing camera, and a very good MP3 player, and to be perfectly honest I'm quite gutted that my husband got such a good phone. Ah well, my contract ends next month, and do you know what, I think I'm going to get one of these for my very own.

Summary: Is it a phone, a camera, a MP3 player? Yes it's all three.

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