Sony Ericsson W910i (Sony Ericsson W910i)

Member Name: macmonkey13

Product:	Sony Ericsson W910i
Date:	11/09/08 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 2.5" screen, came with 1GB memory card

Disadvantages: None (so far)

Having needing to get a new phone, I did a bit of research into what products Sony Ericsson have out on O2 at the moment. I narrowed it down to the W380i and the W910i and (after much deliberation) settled with the W910i.

My first impressions was that the handset was very light compared to my old K700i. It's width (50 mm) and height (99.5 mm) are larger, but as the thickness is less (12.5 mm), it doesn't feel that much bigger in my pocket. A great advantage of the W910i being a little wider is that it comes with a 2.5" screen which is great for viewing your snaps taken with the 2 MP camera. The camera's quality is decent enough but you wouldn't be able to blow any images up to a great size if printing. There is also a decent video recorder and a second camera on the front above the screen for making 3G video calls.

I found the pre-set theme to be a little boring, but my handset came with some great alternatives (my favourite being Orbit) but I'm not sure if these come on an O2 handset only. Battery life is good too with it having last for a whole week under normal use (and turning off at night). I haven't used the Walkman for continuous listening, but it seemed to be a decent function on testing with a few tracks.

There is an external memory slot on the right hand side for adding a Sony Memory M2 card, which is advisable as the phone only has approximately 35MB built in. I'm not sure if this is standard with the device, but mine came with a 1GB memory card which is big enough to store 300+ photos or a few music albums if used as an MP3 player also.

This is also the first slide phone I have owned. All my previous handsets have been 'Candybar' style with the buttons constantly on show at the bottom of the handset. The fact that the screen half of the phone slides over the buttons is great for me as I have on occasions made an unintentional call to someone in my phonebook when the keyguard has been off and the phone in my pocket. The slide also adds to the overall beauty of the design, in my opinion.

The buttons themselves are slightly raised from the main unit and feel padded and soft to press. It does not take a lot of pressure to press them, so it is a good idea they are covered by the slide function. Even though each button is a decent size (approx 12 mm W x 6 mm H each) I have found when sending a text message I sometimes press unintentional letters. I don't have particularly thick or chubby fingers either so this can be frustrating when trying to send a quick message as you have to go back and delete the mistakes.

The top slide part of the W910i has a selection of buttons under the screen which can prove to be great time savers for applications used most frequently. The top most buttons in this section act as selectors for options which come up on the screen. When on the phone's homepage, these act as shortcuts to the 'Media' and 'Contacts' sections.

Beneath these you have your standard Call buttons (to start and end calls). There is also a function to accept and end calls by sliding the screen up, but this has to be activated in the phone's settings menu.

You then have a further two buttons at the bottom. The right hand is for canceling or deleting items (e.g, letters in text messages), and the left is the main Shortcut button. When you press this, you have four tabs to choose from. The first is for New Events, the second shows what Applications you have running (if any), the third is the 'My Shortcuts' section and the fourth is an Internet tab for quick access to bookmarks and web addresses. The 'My Shortcuts' is the most usable of these I find. You have four slots in which you can allocate a shortcut. I have mine set to Bluetooth, Camera, Media and Alarms as these are the apps I use the most, but you can link to practically anything in your phone.

Finally, there is the main navigation button(s) which gives you your select, left, right, up and down buttons. These are mainly used to find your way round the phone as with most Sony Ericssons.

Overall, I am very happy with this phone and it fits into the low to mid range of handsets available. The 2MP camera is a little small for it to contend with the bigger players, especially when 3.2 and 5MP are so readily available. As I mentioned, it's a great size and weight and the slide function seems pretty sturdy. This was a relief too as I have heard of many slides breaking or wobbling around after a couple of months use.

Summary: Good handset with a great design.

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