Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman

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Performance
The battery life on the W580i is pretty standard with approximately nine hours talk time and 370 hours standby time. Call quality is fairly good, although our review model cut out a few times where we had to restart the phone. Talking on the slider phone was quite comfortable whether the phone was open or closed.

The 2-megapixel camera and clear screen provided good picture quality. Having the camera integrated in the slide allows the lens to be protected. Unlike other Sony Ericsson phones, the W580i is usually held in portrait orientation as opposed to switching to the landscape position when taking a photo. We found this quite handy for capturing those random, once-in-a-life time shots.

The most unique feature of the W580i is the built-in pedometer. It is not the most accurate meter as most of the time you're either holding the phone or it's in a bag or pocket and not secured on the hip for the most accurate measurement. So for the enthusiastic step counter, we'd suggest buying a real pedometer with a clip.

The sound quality is good for a personal music player. Having the music player on loudspeaker distorts the sound a bit, but this isn't a major concern as its not often you play portable music out loud. The FM radio tuner doesn't have great reception and often while travelling we needed to turn the radio to mono mode and switch off the RDS in order to reduce the crackle. As with any portable radio, this is to be expected and it's easy to flick to the MP3 player when the radio gets snowed under. The portable hands-free kit also doubles as a radio tuner for the phone and comes with noise-cancelling ear buds.

One little annoying thing that we did find with the W580i is that the phone can't be locked after using it with the slider closed and it doesn't have an automatic lock.

This is clearly not a high-end phone and the feature performance is quite standard. It's definitely made for active people and we'd recommend it to anyone who wants a thin slider phone.

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