Jun 02, 2009 12:37 AM
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In a nutshell:An attractive slide phone with the outstandingly good Walkman 3.0 music player, the W595 also has an FM radio, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 2GB memory card, Bluetooth, 3G with HSDPA, and not forgetting the cool "shake control". Available in Blue, Black, White, Grey or Sakura (a floral pattern.) Do you remember the good old days when mobile phones just worked? We're talking about 2006. In those days, Sony Ericsson made phones that did what it said on the tin.
Then in 2007 most of the phones they made didn't work. Some, like the W580i, just fell to pieces when you opened the box. Others, like the W910i were absolutely brilliant until you switched them on. Then they switched themselves off again and had to go back to the shop. There are signs that Sony Ericsson have turned the corner in 2008, but they still have a long way to go before their reputation is restored, so we're going to be suspicious of any new phones they produce until they've proved themselves to be reliable.
This is particularly relevant for the W595 because it looks almost exactly the same as the incredibly unreliable W910i released a year ago. It looks the same on the outside. It looks the same on the inside too, with an identical list of features, apart from a slightly upgraded camera. Only the name has changed. Oh, and it's got fatter and heavier too. What have Sony Ericsson put inside it? Not a bigger battery, because the battery life seems to be almost exactly the same as the W910i. Maybe it's new firmware. That's it, Sony Ericsson have spent a whole year fixing the bugs in the W910i firmware, and the new firmware is so much better it weighs an extra 20 grams. Mystery solved.
OK, so this phone is just the same as the W910i, except it's heavier and the bugs have been fixed. This makes it a fantastic phone. We loved the W910i when we first reviewed it. It was only after the user reviews started flooding in that it became obvious that there was a problem. The W595 is a nicely styled slide phone with a tapered top edge and a smooth slide action. It's an excellent size - not superslim, but compact and good to hold. As a Walkman phone, it has music controls featured prominently when the slide is closed. The keypad is easy to use, despite the keys being a touch small, and it has an easy-to-use circular navigational key, not the dreaded joystick that appears on some of their models. The screen is large, bright and high resolution (240 x 320 pixels) and the menus are clear and simple to navigate.
The W595 also has Sony Ericsson's "Shake Control" that lets you change to a new track by giving the phone a flick. The motion sensor also auto-rotates between portrait and landscape viewing of photos.
The W595 is a great music phone, as you'd expect. The Walkman player has received plenty of praise before, and this is the latest version 3.0. You can create and manage playlists, shuffle songs, equalise, etc, and album art can be displayed when music is playing. The supplied software lets you transfer music from PC to phone, and rip music from CD's. The W595 has excellent audio quality, either through the loud stereo speakers, or via a conventional stereo headset or a Bluetooth stereo headset. The MegaBass feature helps to enhance bass frequencies for a fuller sound. In addition to the music player, there's an FM radio with RDS.
The built-in memory is limited to 40 Mbytes, but a 2GB memory card (enough for around 500 MP3 tracks) is supplied with the phone and the W595 supports cards up to 8 Gbytes.
The camera has been upgraded to 3.2 megapixels but lacks autofocus and a flash, so don't expect too much from it. The camera can also record video, and video calling is possible on a 3G network with the front mounted video camera.
The W595 is a brilliant phone. It's what the W910i should have been. We think that the bugs have been fixed, and judging from the user reviews below there don't seem to be any problems at all. Top phone! Check out the new W705 for an even better phone!
