Sony Ericsson W350i Walkman

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At CES 2008, Sony Ericsson rolled out the W350i which falls into the cheaper end of the Japanese-Swedish's range of music handsets. The handset currently retails at S$298 (US$212.22) without contract.

Design

A wave of nostalgia hit us when we first saw the W350i, as it sports a design we haven't seen in a long while. The keypad is covered by a lid that flips down when you are using the phone. Think Ericsson T28. When the W350i's cover is closed, there are dedicated music controls for the Walkman player. These are not actual buttons, though. When you press on them, you are actually pushing the numeric buttons below the cover.

At 104 x 43 x 11mm and weighing a mere 80g, the W350i is a very petite phone with a design that's almost reminiscent of a certain Apple music player. Although small in size, the buttons' loose, springy feedback and decent size make the keypad very easy to use. We can't say the same for the backlighting on the buttons, though the uneven lighting shouldn't be a big issue.

We don't usually test phones over extended periods of time, so we can't comment on how the flip cover will perform over time. Nor how well the pseudo buttons and spring mechanism will hold up over a period of use. It did feel flimsy on our review unit.

In addition, removing the battery cover (to access the memory card slot) also requires extra care. The cover itself is wedged in the center back of the phone and we had to pry open the thin plastic cover. We got used to that eventually, but it wasn't a reassuring feel.

Features

In essence, the W350i is a basic candy bar with flip-phone elements that double as a music player. When the lid is closed, you are essentially looking at a dedicated Walkman and there is no way to access the phone functions. To operate the music player, there is a sliding lock on the top edge and a Walkman button on the side of the phone. The latter allows the user to switch between the My music and Now playing screens. The music controls on the flip cover double as navigational buttons for the Walkman player.

Once you open the cover, it reverts to a regular handset. If you are listening to music, the tunes will continue to play in the background. Note that the sliding lock affects only the music player when the lid is up and cannot be used to lock the phone's numeric keypad.

Beyond the music player, the feature set on the tri-band W350i is pretty average for a budget handset. There's a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth stereo A2DP, FM radio (requires headset to be plugged in as aerial), onboard speakers and personal organizer applications. The W350i comes with 14MB of in-built memory and the retail set will ship with a 512MB Memory Stick Micro card.

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