By Joseph Hanlon, CNET.com.au
06/03/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,43607675p,00.htm

Like its Sony Ericsson W910i Walkman phone with its Shake Control, the Japanese-Swede's newest gaming phone on the block, the F305, requires some pretty frenetic arm aerobics to play.

Design

While there's no denying that the F305's appearance belongs to the Sony Ericsson family, it reminds us more of 3 Mobile's Skypephone. Both phones share a glossy, porcelain-like plastic exterior reminiscent of a giant tic-tac squashed flat on its front and back. The F305 is a slider phone with a nice, slick-feeling sliding action.

The screen is a minor disappointment, featuring a below average 176 x 220-pixel resolution that appears noticeably duller than most Sony Ericsson handsets, and inferior to the similarly priced INQ1 mobile phone.

Controlling the F305 is good for the most part with its selection keys being widespread and easy to define. Beside the basic five-way nav key and selection buttons there are also dedicated gaming keys; one to access your game folder and two above the screen for controlling certain games. The numeric keypad below the slide could be better, this flat pad lacks definition and we've found it cumbersome to use when thrashing out a text message.

Features

The F305 is certainly not the PSP gaming phone suggested by the rumour mill for eons now, in fact, it's more Wii than PSP, with motion-controlled games. Cleverly, the F305 uses the 2-megapixel camera on the back of the phone to orientate itself to calculate the movement of the phone, similar to the PlayStation's EyeToy.

All in all, there is about 60 games between those pre-installed and others ready to be installed on the bundled 512MB M2 memory card that comes with the handset. The games cover a range of gaming styles from a watered-down Sims 2 and Need for Speed, to puzzle games, shooting games, sport games, etc. Some of the motion-controlled games include a ten-pin bowling simulator, a fishing game and a pretty challenging horse racing game.

It's probably worth noting at this point that none of the games are that much fun. Some offer a once-off challenge, but the majority of those we've played are pretty dull.

Along with the phone and the memory card, Sony Ericsson has included a wrist strap lanyard for gaming, an alternative battery cover to customize the handset, and headphones that connect to the charging port of the phone.

Performance

As with most Sony Ericsson handsets, the F305 is a solid little performer. During our tests we had no complaints when making calls, and messaging is fine so long as you have tiny enough fingers to navigate the keypad efficiently.

The built-in camera is pretty rudimentary and the proof of this is in the lacklustre photos it takes. Without a flash or autofocus, we've struggled to take a photo that we'd use other than as caller ID pics for our contacts. The photos are barely worthy of being posted to Facebook, and that's saying something.

The F305 supports a decent range of music files including MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV and can also play MP4 and 3GP video files. Strangely, Sony Ericsson doesn't include a USB cable in the box with the phone, so transferring media files to the F305 requires you to buy a cable or sync with Bluetooth.

Sony Ericsson rates the battery life at eight hours talktime and 400 hours of standby life. During our tests we charged the phone every fourth day when using it for calling and as much as every other day when we played the games for an hour each day.