Sony Ericsson W950i Walkman

...box comes:

Sony Ericsson w950i (stylus slides into the phone)
Charger (which you can also insert your headphones into which is very handy)
USB cable
Full instruction manual
Sony Ericsson software CD-ROM.




If you are wondering where the stats for the camera are…there isn't one!




So there you have the specs for it, all in all not too ...
...You can use the standard Sony Ericsson software but I've never been one for that & this also doesn't work on Windows Vista yet. I just plug in my USB cable and open it as a folder & place my music in the music folder. Just like that!

Once you have done this go to Update Music & this will detect all your music for you.

One drawback which is pretty shocking is the loudspeaker & I know I am not alone in thinking this. It ... more

As soon as I seen this phone I knew I had to have it & haven't regretted getting it in the slightest. By far the best phone I have ever seen or used & even now after being totally used to it you still occasionally think wow! When you discover another new thing or just appreciating how much it rocks!

Firstly lets get the specs out the way:

Size – 106 x 54 x 15 mm

Weight – 112g

Available colours – Mystic purple (no choice unfortunately but looks great as it is!)

Screen – 262,144 colour touch screen
240 x 320 pixel

Memory – 4GB flash drive (no slots for memory cards sadly)

Networks – GSM 900, 1800, 1911 & UMTS 2100

Talk time of 2 hours 30 mins & 250 hours stand by time.

In the box comes:

Sony Ericsson w950i (stylus slides into the phone)
Charger (which you can also insert your headphones into which is very handy)
USB cable
Full instruction manual
Sony Ericsson software CD-ROM.

If you are wondering where the stats for the camera are…there isn't one!

So there you have the specs for it, all in all not too shabby what so ever.

Big plus points on the phone are obviously the touch screen, once you get the hang of it you will never ever want to go back, and obviously the massive memory on the phone.

But the huge drawback of the phone is the lack of camera – you can even see where it would be. Some have said that this is due to the fact that it would've blown another one of their phones right out the water in the P990i which has a lot of the same features but looks horrific and is more aimed at business users but now with the announcement of the P1 the reason would become very clear.

This looks to be a total beast & I will be upgrading to that as soon as I can.

The phone itself feels nice in your hand & unlike a lot of the Nokia's kicking about it feels like a quality product. I'm not know to take care of my phones to say that least but its got 2 small scratches on it and the screen is virtually perfect. I can't believe how high quality the screen is, nice and big, great resolution compared to virtually any other phone & you just can't scratch it at all! The screen is slightly sunk into the phone obviously to avoid as much contact to the screen itself as possible.

The buttons are flush with the phone however & although they have a small relief dot it really takes a while to get used to it but you will always occasionally end up pressing the wrong button, it's not a huge negative but it is a negative!

This phone is a Walkman phone so I shall go into a bit of depth here & try to explain as much as possible.

It is very similar in set up to any other Walkman phone but it is still far superior.

It can hold an outrageous amount of music & if you are copying an album from your computer, if you have the album art in the folder it will show the album cover as well which is a nice touch.

You can also set one of 4 moods to each individual track and then use that as a play list, eg. Chilled mood and you can just play everything set to chilled (for when you are dying on a Sunday morning!) So that's also pretty nifty.

Being a touch screen as well also brings one or two nice features to the music player, mainly the progress bar, you can actually drag this along so you can skip to any point in the song which is tremendous.

It will also create auto create auto play lists for you, your most played songs for example which is quite nice. It's got that track ID thing as well for recognising songs but I've never actually used that yet.

Putting music on the phone couldn't be easier. You can use the standard Sony Ericsson software but I've never been one for that & this also doesn't work on Windows Vista yet. I just plug in my USB cable and open it as a folder & place my music in the music folder. Just like that!

Once you have done this go to Update Music & this will detect all your music for you.

One drawback which is pretty shocking is the loudspeaker & I know I am not alone in thinking this. It is extremely quiet & you would think with a Walkman phone it would have a pretty decent sound. I had the w900i & the loud speaker on that is far superior but I suppose that is a pretty minor grumble as you will virtually always be using the headphones.

The headphones that come with it are pretty much standard for Walkman phones, has the bit on the cable so you can adjust volume, skip tracks, play/pause & change to the radio.

So in summary the Walkman software is great, sound quality through headphones is awesome.

I prefer using my phone to an iPod for example & that is a dedicated MP3 player.

The radio is also very slick on this and extremely easy to use. I haven't used it too much to be honest but whenever I have it's been easy & no complaints there at all.

As it is virtually the same thing I will just include video player here too:

That is also very similar to anything you would've used on Sony Ericsson's in the past but all you have to do is tap the screen and it will play it full screen for you & with the screen being so big you could easily watch a film or anything like that on it. It also has the nifty progress bar you can move along.

One nice feature is that you can separate the audio from a video file which I have never used but I'm sure it could be very handy.

Onto the software:

The phone comes with Symbian OS which I haven't used before but a lot of new phones are using it. I'm pretty impressed with it in general.

You have your standard menu with messaging, games etc as well as a control panel which is where you will be all your programmes. Has all the usual in there, calculator, stop watch, file manager etc and if you install any programmes or games onto the phone yourself that is where they will appear.

It is so easy to download & install games onto it and you can also Bluetooth these to other phones which means free gaming for you and your buddies!

It also has a task manager where you can close down any open programmes running in the background & where you can also launch any recently used applications.

There are a lot of features & settings on this phone I simply haven't even touched or discovered yet & you find new things every day. My suggestion is do what I didn't and give the manual a good reading over. Just too many things to go over & there are so many things you can download for it too.

So that's it in a nutshell but I want to go into a bit more detail of how it is to live with the phone. This isn't just a new phone it's a whole new way of using one.

The first thing you'll notice is there's no joystick or anything like that which would be the main navigation tool you would have.

You have your numeric buttons, walkman button & c button on the front of the phone. These as I said before are all flush with a small relief dot.

On the left hand side of the phone you have a wheel & also the back/return button.

On the right hand side is the play/pause button & volume control.

On the top is the usual power button.

There are a few ways to use this phone & it will depend on what you are doing & what you prefer. The phone is clearly aimed & right handers (unlucky lefties!).

Generally speak you will have it in your left hand, probably using the wheel to scroll through and if you press the wheel this will select what ever is highlighted. You can also generally use the wheel but use your finger to press whatever you want to open but sometimes your finger is too big for what you are doing, like if you are trying to select something from a list or maybe browse the net. Then your stylus will come into play, this slides in the side of the phone & is easy to get out & put back. Easy to lose as well as I found out. Only ever met one other person with this phone & he has lost his too!

It took me a full week to really get to grips with it & a while longer to really get the hang of it but once you do you can't go back. If you are using someone else's phone you will be trying to touch their screen & wondering why it's not working!

I love this phone & how natural it eventually comes to use but my mates have trouble trying to work it as they obviously haven't had a good play with it so I can't say that everyone will love this, maybe it will be a bit much for some people but I strongly think that this will be the way forward & probably 5 years down the line all phones will be.

In conclusion this is a great phone with lots of great features.

I don't think it will be for everyone & most people are pretty shocked when I tell them it doesn't have a camera which would put most people off but I bought it purely as a Walkman phone – I listen to music a lot more than I take pictures & I didn't want to shell out for an MP3 player when I could have a great one & a phone rolled into one.

Don't know if everyone would be able to get to grips with it but it will really appeal to boys who like toys.

It is just a shame this phone will be very short lived, as soon as the P1 comes out that'll be this dead & people are probably already being put off as they would rather just wait.

I think it may be fair to describe this as a beta phone but I love it – it's the best phone I have ever used by a country mile. 

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