ADDITION TO BELOW - UPDATE- 27-10-2006
Sorry, was busy with Diwali et all. Maybe my next review will be on Herbolax (A Himalaya Product). Anyway, back to the W810, enjoying every minute of it....
Btw, I did receive my HPM-70 jet black headset from SE Service exactly after a month. i.e. 17th October, but that wasn't without exchange of a good number of polite but firm requests to the persons concerned at Salora electronics, the ppl in charge of handing SE servicing. As I explained earlier, I was determined to get a replacement HPM-70 BLACK headset and not the Silvery finish W550/800/700 headsets. There after, i've had no problems. I'm happy wth my purchase. I even contacted SE for info on their new Blutooth stereo headset and its compatibility with the W810i, sadly, it's not compatible due to lack of BT A2DP, which the W850i and W900i have....hmm...i sure know what i'm going to replace this phone with in a few years time :)...anyway..ciao! thanks for all the ratings and comments guys! :D very encouraging for me.
Btw, the battery life has increased over the last month and even the recharge time has reduced (by approx 15-20% each). and YES it is possible to put certain software onto the OS...and my phone came with updated software R4DB005, I checked with SEUS. so all's well that works well.
-------
Well, after a lot of waiting and lot of research online (mouthshuts reviews included) I
finally went ahead and bought the SE W810i . I've moved from a Nokia 6600 to the SE and it
is very very satisfying phone to use. Everything is so simply laid out in the menu unlike
the MotoSLVR L7, whose dictionary is awful as hell. Nokia makes good phones, but they are
too gaudy when it comes to aesthetics. Every new model from Nokia has a very bulky look, I
felt like I was carrying a small brick in my denim pockets, with the SE I can easily remove
the phone from denims and it has a very convenient hold/grip (for my hands).
I can kee going on about the phone just like others, but honestly, I am a little
disappointed. Barely 2 days after buying the phone (15th sept), on the evening of 17th sept,
one of the handsfree's earphone stopped working all of a sudden. I tapped it a few times but
no no help. Took it to the SE authorised service stn and they took it in for replacement, so
i'm waiting for a replacement. I noticed in the few days that I used it, that its SMS system
is adaptive, i.e. common messaging numbers are stored in a quick list which I dont know any
other phone does, also the speed of the phone is awesome, i'm yet to configure my WAP
settings, but in terms of daily operation, I havent goofed up even once yet or lost my
patience.
Music Quality is excellent, nothing comes close, maybe be N91, but its HUGE!! I have another
grouse, the SE takes longer to completely recharge, but the battery life is good-very good,
it's the 3rd day today of me using the phone since I last charged it, i've done a series of
batter draining tests already, (all test are from 50% battery life as indicated in the Settings>general>phone status descrip.)
- torch light & camera continuous use from 50% with MP3 player playing from built in
speaker 1 hr
bluetooth transfer 20 mins total
serial cable connection 1 hr
Video editing 1 hr
Picture Editing 1 hr
Music DJ 1 hr
Games for 1.5 hours
and IT showed me RED batter status today morning. :D so all in all, if the phone can manage
so much I think its enough.
Its connectivity is better than any nokia i've used (5100, 3330,6600) my home is located
such that in all 4 corners of my room, I get signals from 4-5 different cell towers on Idea
network, with the 6600, it was de funct for me to go out of the house to talk to anyone on
my cell phone, with the SE I can talk to ppl in my bed without any problems at all, even if
the signal strength is 2 bars. SE has intelligent indicators for both battery & signal
strength, the colours change according to strength.
I'm not a heavy cell phone user in terms of calling ppl or vice versa, but I do use a lot of
SMS and Music functions. Its interesting to note that the battery level indicator fluctuates
when u are using the phone i.e. it reduces and bounces up again once the call is over.
About a post regarding the display of time on the standby screen, the display totally blacks
out which is good for saving battery power. In nokia smart phones the Time display is so
small that you have press a button to display the backlight anyway cos u cant see the time
after which within a second it disappears and the standby screen is displayed, here in the
SE, you press any volume key up or down and ONLY the time is shown in balck font nice &
large and within seconds the display blacks out again. Fast! fast is good.
The phone is not as customisable as Nokia's Symbian OS are but it doesnt let u feel
shorthanded anywhere, it has a built in bluetooth remote, I also installed a 3rd party
bluetooth remote (Salling Clicker, which I also installed on my 6600) which worked well too.
Any 3rd party software doesnt take as long to load as it does in Symbian.
Conclusion
This is a phone for a person who has done his homework and is sure about what features he
wants. It has a sleek image that no other phone has. The orange and black colour combo has
left all my friends in awe and further more the reduced prices have made it more affordable.
The camera results are at par with any low end SONY camera in terms of clarity and
resolution, i'm a photographer by profession and it helps in taking quick high res shots
when i'm not carrying my SLR. Keypad is very comfy, though at times I press the '0' button
to input space in the SMS text, becos of Nokia habits,i didnt have any other problems
getting accustomed to this phone. Though SE should have taken care of headset quality (i
learned from the SE service station mgr that 3 other cases before mine reported the same
problem) I've also contacted SE India about the problem and they're replied promptly.
So if you intend to buy this phone, be sure of what your needs are, use the power of
internet to browse to 10's of reviews of products by professionals as well as users
themselves. This would apply to any phone in fact. SE has done a good job with this phone,
they chose not to promote it as they intended on coming out with lower models which would
get them larger market share. but trust me lower SE models hardly come close to this (except
K750i which this model is based on) Important point to note is the W700i or W300i DO NOT
HAVE autofocus camera or macro, sellers dupe customers into buying those models as they're
cheaper and tell the customer that both models are same, there is no difference. crappy
mentality. if sellers put half as much interest in selling higher end phones properly and
showing justification of features, India prolly wouldnt be such a price sensitive market.
but thats another story for another day.
