Sony Ericsson W800 Mobile Phone Review

An impressive feature set graces the SONY ERICSSON W800 mobile, which boasts not only the  2 Mega pixel camera,, but also a built-in FM radio and audio player with 38 MB of internal memory and expansion courtesy of the proprietary Memory Stick Pro Duo format.
Lingering at the prototype stage, the W800 still managed to impress with its audio capabilities. W800 is the first Sony Ericsson’s long-rumored Walkman branded phone. It is a tri-band GSM and features 262k color TFT display, built-in 2.0 mega pixels camera with flash and video capture, Blue tooth, Eye-catching design, FM radio and a 512Mb Sony Memory Stick Duo bundled, multiple imaging and audio playback features; good still image captures ,quality earphones , good battery life.

Weighing in at a mere 99 g and measuring 100 x 46 x 21 mm, the W800  is both slim and light considering its heavy feature set. When turned on, the relatively small 1.8", 262K colour screen strikes one as bright and clear as well as unusually sharp due to its resolution of 176 x 220 pixels.

Sony Ericsson Mobile phone guide: Audio capabilities and Digital Music style

The Sony Ericsson W800  ships with a 512 megabyte Memory Stick  PRO Duo, allowing it to hold approximately 125 music tracks, or 10-12 full length CDs, from an existing music collection. The device is compatible with industry standard MP3 and AAC music file formats. The W800 also comes with Disk2Phone software, which enables quick, convenient transfer of music CDs onto the phone via a PC. And, the software makes updating the music collection simple, allowing people to browse, sort, find, transfer and delete music files easily.
The Sony W800i's intuitive interface makes moving between the functionality of phone, camera and music player very easy. The W800  sits easily in your hand and has the look and feel of a quality digital music player. There are music buttons on either side of the phone to make your listening experience as easy as possible. A dedicated music button, a direct media player button and a music volume control.
The  direct music button  plays, pauses and stops tracks. And, people won't miss calls when listening to music, as the phone ring is played through the stereo headphones. If the person chooses to take the call, the music is paused for the call's duration and resumed after the call is ended. You can also tune into FM radio on the device. First of all, the MP3 software used on the W800 is much more advanced the. On the W800  have an option to separate all the music on your phone/card into different categories such as artist name or track name. This is especially useful if you pack your 512mb memory stick full with music and want to search for a particular song. Going through 120 tracks in 1 folder in no particular order could take a while if you are searching for a specific song. Also, if you use the play/pause button at the side of the handset, this will immediately start the last selected music track or pause the music if it is currently playing… In W800 you can play or stop a song at anytime with just 1 press of a dedicated play/pause button.

Sony Ericsson W800 Mobile phone: Multimedia Features

The W800  gets our two thumbs up for its bright, trendy design and strong multimedia features. The W800  comes with a 512mb memory stick. This is 8 times larger in capacity than the included 64mb you get with the K750i. For a phone that is marketed around its music capabilities, 512mb is a more than adequate size for music, image & video storage. It equates to approximately 120 tracks on your phone, which is around 10 albums. There are not many devices on the market today that come as standard with that memory size, so that in it is a plus point. Of course you can expand the memory by buying a larger memory capacity card, but for your initial usage the included memory is sufficient.

Sony Ericsson W800 Connect and charge – USB and Blue tooth

The W800 kit is complete with USB cable to connect quickly and easily to your PC. This is useful when you're moving songs from your PC to your phone. When the USB cable is connected to your phone it also charges your phone battery. The W800's Fast port system connector is designed to enable faster data transfer from PC to phone and back. Sharing is easy with Blue tooth  and infrared. Send images, video and music from phone to phone or PC.

Sony Ericsson W800– Mobile Phone Guide – Phone Features Review
• Imaging
• Picture editor
• Frames
• Sound recorder
• Picture gallery
• Picture effects
• Picture Phonebook
• Wallpaper animation
• Picture wallpaper
• Backlight display
• Camera integrated
• Email
• Instant Messaging
• SMS long (Text Messaging)
• Digital camera menu
• Photo light
• 4X Digital zoom
• Themes display
• MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
• Quick Share
• MMS templates
• Video streaming
• Video record
• SVG Tiny 1.1
• MMS Video
• EMS (Enhanced Messaging)
• Auto focus
• Video Clip
• Screensaver
• Viewfinder display
• Predictive text input
• Camera 2 mega pixel
Entertainment
• Melody composer/MIDI (Music)
• Mega Bass™ (trademark of Sony Corporation)
• Media Player
• FM radio
• Play Now
• Content Online
• Music tones
• Polyphonic ring tones 40 voices
• Games Embedded
• Games Download
• Java
Connectivity
• Sync ML
• Fast port
• Infrared port
• GPRS
• High-Speed Data
• USB support
• Synchronization PC
• Blue tooth wireless technology

Sony Ericsson W800 – Mobile Phone Guide – User friendliness

Moving on, we find the W800 keypad to be very comfortable in use, providing good tactile feedback as well as low audible noise. Both the numeric keys and the action buttons are flat, well-rounded buttons, and Sony Ericsson has also found room for a dedicated short-cut key activating the Walkman music player. In terms of navigation the W800i offers a rather small yet ergonomically sound 5-way joystick, which provides a quick and easy way of scrolling and selecting while in the menu. All in all, the W800 comes across as slick and user-friendly with regard to user interface and text input.

Sony Ericsson W800 – Mobile Phone Guide Review Of Camera Details:

The W800 snaps stills at a resolution of 2 Mega pixels with good white balance, and performs admirably well under poorly lit conditions. Its appliance of contrast leaves something to be desired, however, but overall image quality must be said to be excellent with good colour saturation and crispness. Also, the W800i's implementation of auto focus and macro focus deserves praise for its good performance and relatively short response times.
For better lighting, use the photo light just above the camera shutter lens. And when you need photoflash, snap on a Phone Flash MXE-60 optional W800 accessory. Open the active lens cover and the W800's camera viewfinder appears on-screen ready to use. The camera shutter, auto focus and digital zoom control are at your fingertips - where you want them. When you want to adjust contrast, set image effects or size, switch to night mode or use another camera feature, use your thumb to browse the camera menu. Easy. When the W800's camera is activated and you want to catch some action, flip the joystick down and record some video.

.The camera lets you flip the phone on its side where a dedicated shutter button lays. You then can use the phone like a true camera using the 262k-color screen as a beautiful viewfinder. Video comes out pretty decent in the right conditions.. However, the w800 shines with stills. The quality is unbeatable, hands down. If it’s dark, you can use the amazingly bright LED-flash to keep your picture quality high. The w800‘s camera is seriously it’s best feature that makes everything else pale in comparison.

Sony Ericsson W800 – Mobile Phone Guide  Review Of Network Connectivity:

 As far as mobile phone related features are concerned, the W800 supports GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks, as well as HSCSD and GPRS. Unfortunately, EDGE support has been left out, but at least Blue tooth and Infrared are present for short-range connectivity. Offering a Memory Stick Duo expansion slot and an USB 1.1 port, the 512 MB Memory Stick storage card and the USB cable to be found in the box allow for easy transfer of MP3 files to the phone. Furthermore the W800 also supports an FM radio, 38 MB of non-volatile internal memory, polyphonic and MP3 ring tones, SMS and MMS, instant messaging and e-mail, and lastly Java MIDP 2.0 as well as WAP 2.0 support.

Sony Ericsson W800 – Mobile Phone Review Of Battery Life:
 
The battery life has to be pretty amazing to handle all this multimedia going on and  found it to be excellent with the W800  and you’ll find you only need to charge it after a day of listening non-stop to your music. Otherwise, you can probably go 2 or 3 days without having to recharge it. If you’re skipping music playback altogether, you’ll get plenty of talk time and standby time from this phone. You can always check the percentage of your battery life on the phone easily which gives you an exact idea of how much longer you’ll have to play games and text message your friends.
 
Conclusion

Music is key in Sony Ericsson's first Walkman branded handset, the W800. Outstanding audio quality combines with a user-friendly interface to make for a compelling music experience fully capable of replacing lower-end MP3 players. The 512 MB of memory provided out-of-box is a bit cramped, though, which is unfortunate given the limited synchronization capabilities. This becomes even more of a pressing issue when the handset's 2 Mega pixel camera - in itself a high-performing feature - is taken into consideration.