Sony Ericsson W550i
The new kid on the block, Sony Ericsson W550i, and what a kid it is, nothing normal about it! It’s a small in size, big on features and stylish. It’s swivel type phone which is, well, LOUD and Loaded
What’s in the box?
• Handset
• Battery
• Handsfree
• Extra Panel-White in my case(Express-On)
• Charger
• Manual
• USB Data Cable with software
• Ricky Martin Preview CD with music, videos and wallpapers.
Build
The phone’s Dimensions are 93 x 46.5 x 22.5 mm, so one can imagine that it’s quite small in size. With the phone closed, there are 4 soft keys under the screen, 2 gaming dedicated keys above the screen, a 4-directional pad with centre performing the ‘ok’ or ‘select’ function and 2 keys just above the part where the phone ends. On the left side, there is the play/pause button and lock switch. On the right side, there are the volume keys and the camera key. The switch on/off and profile changing button is on the top. The phone feels quite solid and the orange panel has a smooth finish, not plastic type, but a bit more on the rubber side, however the white panel (supplied with the phone) has a shiny plastic finish. The unchangeable part of the phone is fully plastic. The only down part of the looks is the handle-like structure on top of the phone (when closed), which reminds one of the old Sony Ericsson Z200. To open the phone, one is required to push the top of phone to either right or left side and then twist it around to reveal a 12-button keypad below which is the Proprietary Sony Walkman Logo in orange. The rubber keys are quite usable, much better than the k700. The orange backlight makes the keys quite visible during night time. The phone has 3 speakers, one only for talking on the phone, with the speaker phone off of course, the primary, as stated earlier next to the camera and another one on the right side, next to which is the infra-red port.
Display
The phone has a 262k display, with a resolution of 176 x 220. The display is quite crisp and watching videos and viewing images is quite a delight as videos and images can be viewed is full screen mode. The display, like all other Sony Ericsson phones, goes to stand by mode after a minute and displays the time, to view which in the dark one can press the volume key.
User-Interface
Exactly like the Sony Ericsson W800i, because they belong to the same family of phones. Pressing the menu soft key on the right or the select key reveals a 12 icon animated menu, which can be navigated through the 4-direction keypad. Starting with gaming, the phone is capable of running 3D Java games, included are Worms Fort 3D, Extreme Air Snowboarding 3D and Gauntlet. The phone ran almost all the java games I fetched it, including one’s for the Nokia’s and the older Sony Ericsson’s, the only differentiating factor being the display size. Profiles can be switched by pressing the power on button once and selecting the desired profile. Two types of alarms, recurrent and once alarm, calendar and all the usual features still remain. The phone is really easy to use, even the walkman feature, which will be discussed in the ‘Multimedia’ section below. Messaging is a breeze, owing to the keypad and the UI. Two things which differentiate the walkman family of phones from all the others of the same brand, are firstly, the ‘walkman’ button and the second is seen while powering on the phone when the phone asks the user to select between phone mode and music mode, during the latter, only music and videos can be played on the phone as the phone does not use the sim card. Overall, Good user Interface and usability.
Multimedia
This phone is ‘custom made’ for multimedia operations. The phone has 256 Megabytes of in-built memory with no memory card support. The sound quality of the phone is actually awesome, much better than the Motorola E398 which amazed me and most others with its sound quality last year. The phone uses 2 speakers for Music, the primary, next to the camera and the secondary on the right side of the phone (when closed), the latter only being used while playing mp3’s. The music can be played either through the file manager or the walkman software, I prefer the latter. One can listen to music and watch videos through this application on the main menu. The music can be equalized either using the pre-defined settings or one can customize. Stereo widening is a function that makes the phone louder. The sound quality for music is splendid, I cannot stress that enough! Coming to the videos, they can be viewed in full screen mode using the walkman application and most of them run smoothly. Another great thing is that one can view images in full screen mode and zoom into almost any image which is large in size, and save what’s on the screen at the click of a button. While playing games, they can be switched into horizontal mode and played widescreen using the directional pad and the dedicated gaming buttons. One may also open the phone half way and use numeric keys and the directional pad for playing games.
Connectivity
The phone offers GPRS, Bluetooth & infra-red for wireless connectivity, sadly no EDGE. The USB data cable, when connected to both, the computer and the phone, offers high speed data transfer as the phone can be switched into data transfer mode and data can be transferred through the supplied software. The phone offers the ‘PlayNow™’ service, which offers streaming audio and video, I haven’t used it as of now because I do not have a GPRS service activated.
Call Features
The new feature offered by the W550 over the older phones is the ability to record the call. The loudspeaker is clear and audible. The menu can be accessed during a call, but music and games cannot be played during the same.
Handsfree
Writing something about the Handsfree alone is quite weird, but the supplied Handsfree deserves it. Two earphones, one microphone and a long wire, what’s the extraordinary thing about it you say, simply the fact that one can attach the phone to a 2- channel set of speakers is the thing, making it a true Walkman™! Also supplied with the Handsfree are 2 extra pairs of rubber earphone covers.
Camera
The camera on this phone is an average 1.3 Megapixel camera. It seems like the camera has been taken out of the older Sony Ericsson S700i minus the CCD sensor and attached onto this model. This one has a CMOS sensor delivering images of average quality. The images are good in sunlight and average in indoor lighting. The camera offers frames, Panorama, a feature through which a wide image can be delivered by combining 3 pictures together, flash light and night mode. Video recording quality is also good. While taking still images, one can zoom up to 2x in VGA mode and 4x in 160x120 mode.
Conclusion
The phone is very good indeed, especially for a price of Rs.15, 500(New Delhi) [About US $350]. The phone has 256 Mb of in built memory, well enough for most people, but no expandable memory. The phone’s a breeze to use and can replace one’s flash based mp3 player, but not an Ipod. It certainly did not replace mine! The phone should be a success and is a worthy successor for the Sony Ericsson S700i in more ways than one, the only things it lacks is a bigger display and expandable memory. I would suggest this phone to anyone looking for a combination between a phone and a flash based mp3 player.