W810i - Camera in guise of Walkman series . Review on Sony Ericsson W810i

Being an avid nokia user, I was skeptical about other brand of cell fones. I went thru a lot of reviews before deciding to buy the SE W810i. Below is my 2 cents about the fone.

Sony Ericsson W810i is actually a wonderful camera fone with walkman capabilites as well. I had the good fortune of owning this cell for a month before I lost it partly due to my carelessness and partly due to being over cautious.

Well that apart, this is a very decent Walkman series fone with one of the best 2MP cams around in the market today.Let me start from the beginning and take it step by step.

Packaging: SE deserve a pat on the back for this. The way the fone looks when you open the box is for one to see and not explain. The way the accessories are bundled one below the other in compartments is another innovative idea of packaging. On the whole 10/10 for delightful packing of the product.

When I first held the cell in my hand I was amazed at the perfect size and comfort it offered to handle the fone single handedly.The construction of the body is very tough and robust. In fact I dropped it twice on tiled floor and it held on and dint fall apart working fine later on. The whole fone is made of matte black plastic which is very good since it does not attract fingerprints and grime easily.

But the key pad is not upto the mark. By upto the mark I mean the feel of it when you press the keys; its very plasticky and cheap. But the tactile feedback is very good and they are placed comfortably apart for very quick texting.

The display of this fone just blew me away when I switched it on. Its a 256K TFT display but its very crisp and crystal clear. You cannot compare it to any N-Series. Its way above them all. The menu items are also arranged in a typical SE fashion which make for easy navigation. The only problem with the display is that its easily prone to scratches as its not embedded and only the display part of the phone is a finger print magnet.

Navigation reminds me that the highlight of this cell is the fone has no joystick. Instead, it features a four-way navigation key with confirming middle area. Each way of the navigation key as well as its central part is assigned a special function when the music player is running.

Music is what this fone is made for and it lives upto its name. It has a very intutive walkman interface which plays very clearly in the loudspeaker provided in the phone. But to enjoy the actual walkman effect, plug in the noise cancelling ear phones and u will know the difference. Awesome music with good bass effect and clarity. Just great. The same holds good for the stereo FM radio too as the ear phones act as the antenna for radio. FM reception is dependent on the service provider but in areas where there is good network reception, the radio is very clear and pleasant to listen to.

Operational speed in this fone is blistering fast. Its a Java phone hence its really fast and u dont feel that you are operating a high end fone at all as there is no lag between key clicks. Even when I had loaded upto 400 MB of the 512 provided with the fone it was real fast and pleasure to meddle with.

Coming to the Camera of this cell, it features a 2MP camera with auto focus. In fact the camera interface is just similar to a digi-cam and easy to use. The camera offers plenty of setup options. Beside standard pictures you can capture panorama landscapes or a fast sequence of four shots in burst mode. The pics taken in the cell are sharp, colourful and very clear. I have actually had the chance to compare it with the pics taken on a N70 Music edition fone. The owner of the N70M (my friend) himself accepted that the clarity of the pic in my fone is way above his. This speaks itself for the camera capabilities. The flash at the back of the fone above the camera is not a flash but a flash light which can be used to illuminate dark areas when taking a snap. It does a pretty decent job and night mode snaps with the flash light on are very good too. Transfer the pic to the comp with the data cable provided and you will see that the clarity speaks volumes of the quality of the camera.

The ringing volume of the fone is very loud and there is no possibility to miss a call even in noisy surroundings. The vibrate feature is above average at the max as its not that very strong.

All said and done, at the end of the day W810i is a fone and everyone would want to know how it performs as one. Not bad at all. The in-call speaker volume is not very high and nokia user's will have to get used to the low volume levels during conversations. This apart, it has very good battery back up for my usage as detailed below:

2 - 3 hours of calls

1 - 1.5 hours of music/radio using ear phones

5 - 10 minutes of Bluetooth/IR

1 - 2 hour of texting/SMSing

For this usage, one charging cycle lasts me 2 full days with 18% power left in the fone. Mind you I dont switch off the fone at nite. Its wonderful compared to phones in this class.

If I use music/radio on the loudspeaker then it eats away the battery and I only get 1.5 days of battery back up with about 14-16% power left in the fone. Still good enough for me. But I prefer ear phones over loud speaker so no problems there.

Now that all good points have been penned down, doesnt this fone have any bad points at all..?? Surprise surprise!! coz it does have some points which have been overlooked by SE. So here you go with the numbered list:

1. Since its a communication device, the in-call volume is quite low for my liking. I would have appreciated a little more sound when on calls.

   
   




2. The camera lens does not have a shutter. This is very disappointing. Coz when you keep the cell in ur jeans pocket, it easily scratches the cam lens and the quality of the pics will definitely suffer due to this.

   
   




3. Its a music fone alrite but it does not play all format of music files. I transferred a few songs from my friends N70M and I was not able to play the wmv files at all to my surprise (& humiliation too).

   
   




4. As mentioned above the keypad clicks sound very plasticky and cheap at times but u can still live with it.

   
   

Apart from the above cons, I have not noticed any particular thing that tends to put one off from buying this cell.

Also, apart from the above features, it has all the standard things like organizer, alarm, stopwatch, timer etc etc which is a standard for a fone of this level. No elaborations on that front since they are pretty straight forward.

Now why did I lose this fone... All credit goes to Con number 2. It was a fateful friday when we are allowed casuals in our office. I had worn a jean and tee. Tee's normally dont have pockets, so had to keep the fone in the jean pocket. But I was afraid I would scratch the cam lens and always kept it in my hand. I placed it on the table in a restaurant near the office. After food, due to my carelessness, I forgot the cell there itself and returned back to work. After half hour I realised by which time the cell was long gone... Hmmm .... Fateful friday... Cant say much though.

But ppl, if you want a good cell with amazing multimedia capabilities then I recommend this to one and all. Only thing is you have to live with comparatively less volume during calls.

Till the next one, Adios everyone.