I bought the Sony Ericsson W610i for many reasons, and I must say that it fulfilled my expectations on all accounts, and actually surpassed a few.
The W610i is basically a phone and an MP3 player merged, with no compromise to either system. Even listening to music through it's tiny speaker, I was surprised at how great the sound was... Gone are the days of tinny ringtones. That is the first thing I love about this phone: No longer having to search ringtone websites that provide ringtones I actually like.
I was tired of carrying both my mobile and my normal MP3 player around with me, so the idea of combining the two seemed like a great idea. I saw the adverts and did a little research and made up my mind that this was the phone for me. It was stuck firmly in my price range and had all the neat tricks it needed.
First of all, the navigation of the phone is really easy to use, but confusing if you're switching straight over from a Motorola phone; the Enter & Cancel buttons are on opposite sides of the phone and this creates a frustrating transition phase. I'm pretty certain that this applies to other brands of phones too, but this is based purely on my experience. Once weaned into the button layout, it is as easy as pie to use. I have to say though, this is not a phone for big handed people. The buttons are tiny, and often I have to press them by using only my nails. For a woman, this is not so much of a problem, but I can see it as a difficulty for a man with larger and less delicate hands.
The personal customisation of this phone is amazing. Given that you can upload any MP3 of your choice onto this phone, you can have an endless possibility of ringtones. And the quality of the camera on screen (and the fact that you can also upload photos/videos) means you have no limit as to what you have as your wallpaper. The amount you can store on this phone is equivalent to about 10 CD albums, which I admit isn't much compared to some MP3 players, but realistically, I doubt people would actually listen to that many albums anyway before getting bored and being able to change them.
There is already a a game to play installed on the phone, but with the USB cable that comes with it, it's really quick and easy to put new games on there from the internet. The radio feature is a little weak, considering I could never get a strong signal for BBC Radio 1.
There's a feature called TrackID which can record any song playing either on the radio or in the background of your location, and then connects to the internet to tell you what the actual song is. Although, this has really helped me sometimes, I've mostly found it a waste of money to connect to the internet like that, and instead have just written a note with a memorable line of lyrics from the song, and then made a google search on it to find the song when I first get access to a computer. As I say though, this feature does really work, and if you really desperately want to know what the song is at that specific time, it may save you.
Overall, I would really recommend this phone. It's great value for money, compact, and has good functionality, but steer clear if you have big fingers and wish to send a lot of SMS, because I'm pretty sure that it will be far too frustrating. The battery life in this phone is the best I've ever seen, and I only have to recharge the battery about once a week (maybe twice if I use the radio or walkman a lot).
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Brand new Sony Ericsson W610i Unlocked (not 3g) Mobile Phone. The Sony Ericsson W610i is more
the latest edition Walkman phone. It offers the version 2.0 walkman media player, which has support for album art. The Sony Ericsson W610 also has stereo Bluetooth capability so you can listen to your favourite tunes without the need for wired earphones. Other handset features include a 2.0 megapixel camera with autofocus, a built in RSS reader, and support for push email. Sony Ericsson W610i features at a glance: Dimensions: 102 x 46 x 14 mm Talk time: up to 10 hours Standby time: up to 350 hours Weight: 96 g Default settings are vodafone Camera: 2 Megapixel Display: 176 x 220 pixels, 1.96 inches Walkman music phone Memory: 64Mb Internal, expandable via Memory Stick MicroTM (M2TM) Bluetooth with A2DP, Infra-red, USB and GPRS GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 The WalkmanŽ player 2.0 transforms your phone into a powerful portable music machine. Enjoy one-click access to your music tracks via the WalkmanŽ key. THIS PHONE ACCEPTS ALL NETWORK SIMS (NOT THREE / 3g)
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