Still Worth Considering (Sony Ericsson W800i)

Member Name: dissident505

Product:	Sony Ericsson W800i
Date:	10/06/09 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good music playing features, sound quality, 2 MP camera

Disadvantages: Not the most elegant or petite of phones

I bought this phone 2 years ago and am still using today. Not through lack of choice or money but because it still does what I want it to do. It is a Walkman phone so I will talk about it's musical features. It comes with an FM radio and music playing application. The FM radio is a nice addition as even today many high end phones are lacking this feature. The interface used to find stations is simple and easy to use. Reception is generally good and you can save presets. To use the radio function you need to connect the proprietry headphone cable which doubles as the antenna. The radio can be output through the built in speaker and the volume can go impressively loud. The music player can be opened by pressing the dedicated Walkman button under the screen and has all the navigation options you would want. You can browse by track, artist and album. When playing MP3s via the built in speaker the volume is considerably lower then when using the radio. Even so, it's still sufficient for most settings. This phone has very good sound quality when using earphones and the earphones provided are well built and worth keeping.

The phone uses Memory Stick Duo cards to add much needed extra space for you're songs, pictures or videos. The 2 megapixel camera produces some decent pictures for a phone camera. The only comparable phones that seem to take noticably better shots are the Nokias which use Carl Ziess lenses. The W800i's camera fall down when it comes to low light shots, producing grainy, poorly defined images. The Video capture is passable but watch recorded video on anything bigger than this phone's screen and you'll be greeted by an ugly bunch of moving blocks. The screen itself is small but sharp. The phone also plays games, has a basic video editor and you can customise most things including the theme.

The cover can be changed but you'll need some special tools to do it. The battery life when I first bought it was good, needing charging only once a week at most. 2 years on and it lasts maybe 2 - 3 days. Again, you can buy replacement batteries and all rechargable batteries suffer from diminished life over time.

Summary: A solid phone with enough features to keep most happy

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