Sony Ericsson W810i

With the huge success of the K750i and W800i, it didn't come as a surprise when Sony Ericsson unveiled the W810i at the CES tradeshow in Las Vegas earlier this year. Available now in black and white color options, the Walkman phone inherits almost all of its predecessors' sporty design and powerful features, while offering several minor but nonetheless useful enhancements, including Memory Stick Pro Duo support, quadband and an improved navigation pad. The W810i is now available for S$268 with a two-year contract and S$490 on its own.Design
From the picture, the W810i seem to sport a similar design and form factor as its two predecessors. There's the familiar button layout on the sides for volume control, camera shutter and music playback, the location of the Memory Stick slot on the left of the keypad, and the compact candy-bar footprint. However, there are some minor design improvements made on the W810i.

For a start, the phone is likely to appeal to more people since it is now available in two colors, black and white. Previously, the W800i came only in a combination of white and orange which some users felt was a little too flashy and stained easily. Interestingly, the W810i is also slightly smaller, or more accurately 1mm shorter than the already compact W800i and K750i.

We are happy to see that Sony Ericsson has finally replaced the navigation joystick with a more responsive directional keypad, but are somewhat confused as to why the lens cover was removed. The camera function can still be activated via the shutter button but it is just not as intuitive as sliding the lens cover. Also, the camera lens is now exposed to dust and scratches.

We like the button layout on the W810i's keypad. It's small but well-spaced and each key is raised just enough to provide a nice tactile feel. A quick comparison with the W800i reveals an additional button to "My shortcuts", which gives the user quick access to common functions such as Bluetooth, Calendar and Light. Staying true to its Walkman branding, the W810i also comes with two buttons for users to instantly switch to the music player.

The 176 x 220-pixel LCD screen, which takes up almost half the length of the phone, offers a vibrant and crisp display with its 262K-color support. It comes with brightness control that lets you adjust from 50 percent to 100 percent brightness settings.

Like its predecessors, the camera shutter button is placed to the right side panel of the W810i, so that when the phone is held horizontally, it instantly feels like a camera. The camera lens, together with a small reflecting mirror and three tiny circular speaker grills, can be found on the back of the phone below the two LED lights.

Overall, we found the W810i sporty yet stylish, with dashes of orange and metallic silver blended into the black or white body. Size-wise, it is really compact and light (100 x 46 x 19.5mm; 99g) compared with many other phone with similar features, meaning it can fit comfortably into pockets or hung round the neck using a lanyard.

The bundled headset comes in two parts, the connector with a 3.5mm audio port that connects to the phone and a pair of earphones. This allows users to hook up their 3.5mm jack earphones for use with the W810i, though we found the ones provided good enough for our music listening pleasure. One limitation with the handset is that because the handsfree headset and AC charger use the same port, you cannot charge the handset while listening to music with the wired earphones.
Features
Even though the W810i comes with just minor improvements over its predecessors, it remains a powerful phone packed with loads of multimedia features. Top of the list is its music player which comes complete with an equalizer and Sony's trademark Mega Bass for audio enhancements. Users can create song playlists and view tunes based on title as well as artist name. There's the useful Play/Pause button on the side, which offers a simple one-touch access to music playback.

We like the autofocus feature on the W810i. It makes the phone feel more like a camera since one can half-press the shutter button to focus on the subject and then press it down fully to take the picture.

The 2-megapixel camera shoots pictures in only three sizes: 1,632 x 1,224, 640 x 480, and 160 x 120. We'd like more size options but that's just a minor gripe. For a camera-phone, the W810i offers a good selection of camera controls, from macro and night shooting modes to filter effects and white balance. There are also settings for self-timer and shutter sounds. You can zoom in to subjects using the 4x digital zoom. The dual LED lights double as useful flashlights and can be set to blink in SOS mode.

For those not into still image capture, the W810i comes with an onboard MPEG-4 camera that records video clips at resolutions of up to 176 x 144 pixels. To add a touch of creativity to the captured footage, Sony Ericsson has also included a Video DJ application to perform video-editing functions. In addition to Video DJ, the phone also features Music DJ and Photo DJ utilities for music creation and photo editing.

The onboard FM tuner on the W810i comes with radio data support (RDS). Radio stations which support this feature can feed information such as traffic information and news into the phone. Mobile users will also be happy to know that the Walkman handset supports 3D games and comes with Access NetFront Web Browser for Internet surfing.

Connectivity-wise, the W810i has Bluetooth, USB and infrared options, though we were disappointed there was no A2DP profile support for stereo Bluetooth and 3G. Sony Ericsson has added EDGE functionality to the phone but this is of limited use as it is not supported by all the cellular providers. It is noteworthy, too, that the W810i is now a quadband handset (versus the triband W800i).

With just 20MB of built-in storage, onboard memory is measly. Fortunately, like the W800i, the W810i comes bundled with a 512MB card, which should be good enough for a decent number of songs and pictures. Users also have the option to expand the storage memory up to 4GB with the improved Memory Stick Pro Duo slot.

As with many handsets these days, the W810i supports flight mode which allows you to turn on the phone, without the cellular functions, onboard a plane. It holds a 1,000-entry phonebook (with five numbers for each entry) as well as common organizer functions such as notepad, alarm clock, calculator and stopwatch. There's also a code memo option for storing secure data such as passwords.
Performance And Battery Life
During the test period, we didn't encounter any major problems with the phone reception and call quality. Calls remained loud and clear even when we used it in noisy environments such as on the train or at road junctions. In speakerphone mode, the audio quality was good but somewhat too soft at times. Surprisingly, with the speaker faced down when placing the phone on a flat surface, the music playback volume turned out relatively loud with hardly any muffling.

Image quality from the 2-megapixel camera was good as pictures were generally sharp with accurate color reproduction. Video clips could be smoother with less pixelation, though. The built-in twin LED lights were bright but could provide only limited illumination over a short distance.

Overall, we found the W810i generally intuitive and easy to use. However, we feltthe PC synchronization software was somewhat buggy. On one or two occasions, we could not connect the phone to the PC and was prompted to install the driver.

Expect the W810i to last for more than two days under normal usage conditions which include playing games, listening to MP3, sending SMS, taking pictures and making voice calls. Our battery tests showed that the phone has a talktime of about 7 hours, which is a little lower than the rated 8 hours.