By Damian Koh
05/09/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,42689973p,00.htm

Sony Ericsson's previous 8GB W960i had various shortcomings that took away most of the hype. Dismal battery life and laggy performance were two of the issues we found. Did the company learn from its mistakes and make things right on its latest W980 Walkman flagship? Let's find out.

Design

The W980 is a solidly built fashion handset, but it is also a fingerprint nightmare with its piano black finish. Playing for keeps are the solid hinge that produces a satisfying click when we flip open the clamshell, rubberized back cover, well-spaced keypad (though we can't say the same for the control panel) and Walkman buttons with haptic feedback.

What's unique on the front panel of the W980 is the transparent strip which doubles as a window to the Walkman logo underneath. This area beams orange light to the tempo of the music and switches to white light for other incoming notifications. Adding to the aesthetic appeal is the flush surface of the handset and the LCD panel that disappears entirely from view when in standby mode. Likewise, the Walkman shortcuts found here show up only when in use. So you end up with a really sleek phone that disguises itself as a polished rectangular bar.

There are also two rubber nubs on the inner side of the clamshell which dampens the clacking sound when the two halves of the phone come into contact.

The proprietary Fast Port connector and strap eyelet are on the left, while the volume control, mode switch that toggles between the music player and radio, and keylock buttons for Walkman keys are on the right. The onboard stereo speakers sit on both sides of the phones.

As expected, the Fast Port connector is your best (and only) way to pair the W980 with a 3.5mm headset. The only problem is the total length of the cable (3.5mm connector and personal earbuds added up) is probably long enough to be a skipping rope for a six-year old. So unless you are using the bundled headset, you'll have lots of cable clutter to contend with.

We also find the W980's camera module poorly positioned. We had to hold the side of the phone with the numeric keypad upright (because the camera is on the opposite side), which results in the LCD facing downward. That made it hard for us to compose our pictures, not to mention the numerous occasions where our finger partially covered the lens.

Features

Save for Wi-Fi, the W980 comes with that usual connectivity features that should please most users. The quad-band GSM handset supports HSDPA, video calls and Bluetooth stereo A2DP. The biggest disappointment is the lack of autofocus for the 3.2-megapixel camera. In the case of the W980, it wouldn't have been too much to ask for autofocus or a built-in flash since the previous W960i had them, too.

While camera features are far from gratifying, a few added extras help to make this Walkman stand out from the rest of the pack. Top on the list is the 8GB onboard memory. Pity, there are no memory expansion options on this Walkman. So once you max out on the storage, you're going to have to start deleting your music, videos, or other files in the phone. Connection to the PC is via the supplied USB cable and you can manage content between the W980 and your desktop using the PC Suite software. In mass storage mode, phone functions are disabled.

As expected from a Walkman device, multimedia navigation was a breeze on the W980. The onboard accelerometer rotates pictures when we flip the phone on its side and drives our car in Need for Speed ProStreet. Tracks are sorted via artists, albums, playlists, SensMe, genre and year. Nothing surprising here, as it has been this way on the Walkmans for some time now. What's worth mentioning is that Sony Ericsson added a FM transmitter into the W980, turning it into a mini broadcast station for streaming music to other devices equipped with a FM radio receiver.

Music and radio functions are independently controlled using dedicated touch-sensitive buttons on the top panel. These provide quick access to your tunes without opening the clamshell. When text messages arrive in the inbox, the 1.5-inch screen automatically scrolls them to give you a preview, but doesn't display the entire message or allow any manual intervention. That's a tiny limitation, one which we were willing to overlook.

There are a couple of programs in the Applications folder, such as AccuWeather, Converter, Music Mate 5 and 3D World Clock, but what's interesting is Walk Mate. This nifty program runs in the background and using the accelerometer, counts the number of steps you take in a day. To stay in good shape, or reach the health goal, it says you'll need to make 10,000 steps daily. We are not sure if there's any scientific basis to that, though we admit that this is another innovative way to use the motion sensor, other than rotating the Walkman logo on the front LCD screen whenever we turn the handset.

Performance

For a long time, Sony Ericsson has done little to impress and its products are more evolutionary than revolutionary. Depending on how you look at it, it usually means two things. One, why mend something that's not broken. The user interface of the software has been consistent and it lends to a reliable, if not, stable experience. Two, it lacks innovation, which is why the Xperia X1 is getting a lot of attention and the recently released developers' kit only helps to fuel further interest.

With that in mind, the W980 delivered where it is supposed to, but doesn't go too far beyond. Performance was snappy while navigating menus, but slowed down considerably when the Walkman was playing in the background. For Web surfing, we recommend downloading the Opera Mini which is a much better alternative to the preinstalled browser. We didn't have any problems with 3G video calls. We could hear the other party (and vice versa) in an open environment with minimal lag in the video image.

According to the literature, the 930mAh Lithium-polymer battery is rated for 9 hours of talktime and slightly over 15 days on standby.

Supported music formats include MP3, AAC, WAV and WMA which covers most bases. We found the W980 a decent music player producing a good balance of bass, mid-tones and treble for most of our song selections using the bundled earphones. Oddly, the playback quality wasn't as good when we paired the W980 with our test headset, the Etymotic ER-6i. Our best guess is that the W980 didn't have enough power to drive the drivers on the Etymotic earbuds.

The 3.2-megapixel camera supports geo-tagging with cell ID, but it doesn't come with a dedicated GPS receiver unlike the W760i. Note that the location information isn't embedded in the EXIF data of the images, so it would only work while the pictures are viewed on the handset. Picture quality was barely acceptable in daylight and the lack of autofocus meant that you'll get a number of blurry snaps in your pictures. Without any built-in flash, the camera was useless once it gets dark.

After thoughts

It's hard to fault the W980 Walkman because it is well-specced, has a sleek and fashionable design and, most importantly, it delivers on most aspects. Is it better than the earlier W960i? Yes, but we are disappointed that Sony Ericsson has dropped important camera features such as autofocus and built-in flash on this iteration. That said, the W980 Walkman will appeal to those who want a decent music phone without a touchscreen LCD. They will probably also look at alternatives such as the Motorola ROKR E8 or the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.