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By Damian Koh
Nov 02, 2007

The Walkman series is a huge success for the Japanese-Swedish phone-maker and it's not difficult to see why. One of the latest in the lineup is the W910i which sports a new media-browsing interface, built-in sensor motion for both music and games, and is backed by a strong suite of cellular connectivity features. Two colors are available for the W910i--Hearty Red and Noble Black--at a current retail of S$798 (US$525) without plan.

Design

Though Sony Ericsson is not best known for its slider designs, we had no issues with the sliding mechanism of this music phone. It slides up smoothly and in a controlled manner to reveal a numeric keypad. At 12.5mm, it is extremely slim and weighs a mere 86g. Like most of the recent Sony Ericsson handsets, the W910i drops the Return key and sports Call/End keys instead.

Like the Sony Ericsson W550i, the W910i also comes with two tiny additional buttons on both sides of the earpiece above the LCD screen. While we didn't find any assigned use for the two buttons in the preinstalled games, we did find them useful as shortcut keys to the image library from the main menu. In the camera mode, the two gaming buttons double as camera control keys.

The tapered design of the W910i's bottom area has pros and cons. The good thing is the top row of the numeric keys has more "breathing space" for the thumbs during typing. However, this design on the bottom slab also means its single connector has to be placed elsewhere. This is found on its left side, a placement we felt was not ideal. Headphones should ideally be jacked into a phone or music player from the top or bottom, so the device can be placed in a pocket comfortably.
We normally expect keys on slider keypads to be flushed with the phone's body, a necessity because you don't want raised keys to block the closing action. While the W910i's keys provide sufficient relief, we felt that the three-column layout does not give enough distinction between keys in the vertical direction. It may have been a better idea to have smaller keys but with each one separated, with a divider, from the adjacent one.

While some people may find the W910i a tad too wide, one of the key advantages of this form factor is really a more comfortable fit to the face when making phone calls. More importantly, the W910i also comes with a large and crisp QVGA display that certainly makes it ideal for watching videos as well as playing games in landscape viewing mode. A useful built-in light sensor just beside the right control key helps to automatically adjust the brightness of the screen when the phone is used in different lighting environments.

Those who plan to access the battery or SIM will have to take note. The battery cover is locked in place by a tiny plastic catch which should not be too difficult to break. Fortunately, the M2 card slot is located on its own just below the volume control keys.

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