After much fanfare, Sony finally launched the W700i in india. In this review, I will attempt to look at the phone step by step, and hopefully cover all its aspects.
INITIAL APPEAL
From outside, it looks like any other sony phone launched off late, and this can be largely attributed to the fact that it actually is the very same body that the K750i came in. Although nothing to scream about, it looks decent enough and has well placed keys that are comfortable to use. The body area is efficiently utilised with buttons on the sides for quick and easy controls. Overall, decent looker and of course, the bottom line remains how appealing it will be to the person buying it.
THE PHONE
Features is the key criteria with this phone and there seems to be plenty of it. It’s got possibly everything one could ask for... A 2 mega pix camera, MP3 player, WAP, Bluetooth... the list goes on! But some of the features that are missed out on are the presence of EDGE, WLAN and also 3G compatibility. The fact that in india 3G is yet to make a presence remains, but as of now, these are the only 3 possibly important functions sony overlooked.
Also, the phone has 34 Mb of internal memory plus a bundled 256 MB card. So, storage shouldn’t be a problem, and if it ever is, you can always buy additional memory cards. The camera is insanely clear and sharp. Its almost impossible to not get sharp looking images unles you shoot in pitch dark with night mode and photo light on, and tend to not be still! :-)
Although essentially, K750i, W800i and W700i are basically the same phone in different bodies, this one stands out for really good value. You get the phone plus the memory card and that awesome headset for just about 14, 000...thats a real steal!
Another marketing gimmick used by sony is the Mega-Bass feature on this phone. Although present in almost every phone since the K700(i think), its essentially not really a mindblowing feature. It must be said that it does make the music sound awesome, but after prolonged use of this equaliser, my K750i’s headset got damaged - the right ear phone makes a horrible scratching noise if I now use that setting at close to full volume. And since most of you will be buying this phone for its musical abilities, please try and not listen to your songs at full volume with mega bass on - it will definitely contribute to premature wear of your headsets.
THE BAD STUFF
A common problem with all these phones are that they are prone to joystick damage really early in their lives, especially if you are a heavy SMS user. I would heavily suggest all you messaging freaks to stay clear of this phone at any cost... you’ll repent otherwise! Other than this, nothing else can be looked down upon, except for some people maybe, its now common body, and also the body colour.
FINAL WORD
A good phone, worthy buy for executives as well as students who would use most of its multimedia capabilities. Not recommended for heavy messaging, and in some phones, battery tends to die real quick when used for continous hours of MP3 listening.
ALTERNATIVES
Nokia N72, Sony ericsson K750i, Nokia 6681