One of the newest Sony Ericsson cell phones on the market, a great promise, but what's inside for real - can SE live up to its promise, can't they or do they give even more?
I've upgraded to W960i after years of using W800i and a brief Nokia E51 experience.
Quick summary
The phone takes about a minute to start and you can select among switching on the phone or a flight mode - safe to use the device on board or in hospitals as a
music player only.
It plays music and video files, allows you to listen to radio and browse the internet, take photos and videos as well as record sounds and keep all your important notes and agenda in one place.
It runs on the UIQ 3 system, which is a big change from Symbian, as it's not so intuitive and actually it's rather like a little
computer than a cellphone. It's an open system, which means you can move files and folders, create new ones and delete, too.
I won't lie - smsing and calling is easier and also faster on cellphones without an
operating system, but W960i has a lot more to offer, it's like a little office and
entertainment device in your pocket and under such advantageous circumstances I'm willing to lower my demands on its speed. Actually who cares if I spend a minute typing an sms or if it takes me two?
Connection to computer is possible via
USB cable or bluetooth, the USB cable can be set to recharge the battery.
The battery lasts about 3 days, of course depending on how much you play with
Walkman,
camera and if you let a lot of
applications run at the same time, but still for this class of a cellphone I think 3 days are quite fine.
Full review
Package contents (might probably vary)
W960i
Battery
2 styluses
USB cable
Wired
handsfreeheadset with earplugs
Black suede case
CDManual and commercial leaflets
Warranty file
Construction and looks
The phone has a plastic body, its back has a soft rubberish feel which makes it feel home in your hand and doesn't slide away from you. The screen attracts fingerprints but how could it not, the back side is pretty fingerprint-proof.
It's kinda big, but its weight seems less than 119g, anyway it's not a baby, you can't expect slim shape considering what's inside, however, the phone's compact and robust. All parts fit perfectly, to squeaking or rattling. Removing the back cover needs a big press and push and it slides back to its place like a sword into a scabbard.
SIM card slot is bit troublesome for me, I find it hard to get the SIM card out without using a pinzette.
There's only one colour option - Vinyl Black, a black body with white sides, a simple almost elegant appearance that wouldn't compromit even a businessperson in a meeting.
Top: power button
Bottom: SE charger/headset socket. (N.B.: The charger's plug has identical socket on its back, so you can plug the headset into it, while chargin the
phone you still can listen to music!)
Left side: Jog dial wheel - scroll to select and push to run/apply. Above it is a strap hanger.
Right side: Camera shooter button and
volume control/sound settings arrows.
Navigation
The 2 inch touchscreen, the main navi tool, takes about 75% of the surface, beneath is a classical 0-9 keyboard with extra button for return, walkman player, erase. For more comfort while browsing the web or playing movies, the content can be displayed horizontally.
The Jog Dial wheel is one of special navigation tools, but the phone was constructed to be handled via touchscreen and actually it's not possible to use all functions without using the touchscreen. At least I haven't found a way to, not that I mind since the touchscreen is perfectly responsive especially when using the stylus.
I haven't had any experience with a jog dial or touchscreen cellphone before, so I don't feel the position or placement of buttons weird, like ppl who have used e.g. SE
P1i might feel. Feels like I could control the phone with jog dial plus keypad better if I were left-handed :p
Walkman buttons are on the bottom of the screen and they're inactive unless you start the walkman player, then you can use them for scrolling, play/pause.There's an extra quick-menu bar under a little arrow in the screen's top left corner.
Basically, you can click anything on the screen and see what it will do.
The stylus is a new thing to me and so far I've got used to it fine, the screen hasn't got any scratches even if I don't use a protective foil some ppl would recommend using. Everything you can do with the stylus can also be done with a finger except for typing on the screen
qwerty keyboard - unless you have baby fingers. The stylus isn't handy to be used e.g. on bus or when walking, coz it needs quite a precision in use. Its socket's located on left top corner and hadn't you known it was there, you might not notice soon, as also the colour of phone helps to conceal it perfectly.
If you get used to it, typing an sms on the screen qwerty keyboard can be really fast.
There's also handwriting recognition option, but then you have to "handwrite" the letters according to the manual and it's just not much close to the way I normally write, so I haven't really used this and I don't think I would. It's rather just for fun than being really useful.
Software
Sony EricssonPC Suite on the CD allows you to synchronize phone with your computer, create backups and transfer files.
The file transfer can however be also used in simple USB mass storage device mode, where the speed is amazing - 6 to 8MB per second!! That allows you to transfer your music library into the phone quite quickly, especially since there's 8GB of flash memory to fill, plus 160MB phone/media memory.
When making backups (before firmware update, e.g.) I recommend to save your music, video and other large files to your computer and then use the PC suite to backup contact list, settings etc, else the backup will take ages.
Firmware update - a new option exclusively for some of the newest SE cellphones for home use! Check your firmware version on SE website and then you can update your FW yourself. However, here comes a warning: The FW update process is lengthy and if interrupted, it can't be resumed or refreshed and your phone will be left not working unless you have it fixed at an SE service point, so be careful and don't run too many applications risking your comp getting stuck.
I've just finished my FW update successfully, altogether with first installing the PC Suite and backuping contacts+settings+smses it took about 40 mins, which isn't that bad considering the phone rebooted like 5 times during the process.
Office and organizer
Quickoffice version 3.6.62.1. - reads, creates and edits .xls, .doc files, this is awesome if you wanna keep/edit the files for work, school or just keep large lists or even books in electronic form and have it always with you.
PDF reader
Business card scanner
Clock + alarm, calendar, notes, tasks, anniversaries, timer, stopwatch...advanced version of all the standard things you might wanna use sometime and that come really handy, so you hardly need an agenda book or anything else.
Today's entries and 15 menu shortcut icons of your choice (you can even select whatever picture to use for a shortcut icon) can be displayed on the desktop but can also be completely hidden - that's the only option how to display big clock on the desktop.
I like to keep the notes and quickmenu on, coz that makes you really not forget stuff you're supposed to do.
InternetThe phone has an internet setup wizard, however that didnt work with me, so i had to set the connection manually, which was pretty easy.
W960i works in
GPRS,
UMTS (3G) and
wireless LANnetworks. Some might miss EDGE and HSPDA.
It's possible to use it as a modem to get internet into your computer, but I don't see what's so useful about this, when everybody has internet already and it's the cellphone I wanna get the internet into now, to be really mobile and not have to carry my laptop with me all the time. The screen's 2 inch and that's quite comfy for web browsing, especially if you switch into horizontal view. This is where the stylus comes really handy.
You can set the preferred way of internet connection (WLAN, WAP, GPRS/UMTS), so you always know how do you get connected.
Fun
Games - only golf and quadrapop installed on phone, with the newest firmware you will get a
snowboardaction game, too. I don't care much about
games, but loads can be downloaded and installed, as the phone supports both IUQ3 and Java stuff.
Camera
3.15 Mpix resolution with 2 flash LEDs grants good picture quality and of course I prefer to carry my big camera with me if I know I'll wanna take pics, but the pics I've taken with W960i so far really satisfied me. Just like all applications, the camera takes like 5secs to start, so it's not so superfast if you wanna take a pic instantly. Of course you can also record videos with sound, up to 8 hours!
You can shoot normal pics, burst mode, macros, select the resolution and pic quality, white balance, night mode, effects like sepia, black+white, negative; self-timer, shutter sound, where to save files to. I've done a fair amount of pic shooting with my old W800i when I haven't had my big Sony camera and its only function I miss in W960i is the panorama pictures.
Second camera for videocalls purpose is in the top left corner.
Walkman music player - Music in its perfectionBeautiful and amazing.
Very user-friendly and cute looking interface, fast to browse. Visualisation can be activated and that makes music even more enjoyable, even when the applicatin runs only on the background. You can create playlists or use those made on computer, rate songs and add moods to visualization which changes colour and speed. Megabass is the best of preset equalizers (normal, rock, pop, party, dance, jazz, classical, spoken word, loudness, treble boost) and the sound is clear and I just love the earplug headset! You won't hear anything but the music with full basses and depth on, just look around carefully if out, might be dangerous walking the streets deaf.
Some people might be disappointed there's not the 3.5mm jack to connect any
headphones, but:
1) the SE factory connector needs to be pulled and tilted at the same time to be unplugged, so it won't happen by mistake or simple pulling while in your pocket. This has saved my phone from hitting a tile floor, which would have been painful, I reckon.
2) I can't imagine what better earplugs could you wanna use! Ok, if you don't like the earplug, that might be the case, but otherwise I don't think there's an earplug set to compete with SE's
HPM-70.
Sleep is a cool function that allows you to set in what time th eplayer would be turned off, in case you wanna fall asleep listening to music/radio.
FM radio has the RDS, you can save 20 stations by both manual and automatic search.
Supported video formats are: .3gp, .mp4, .ram, .rm.
Task managerSomething unknown to me to the point of buying W960i. If you close an
application/menu folder, they will still run on the background until you exit them in the file manager. Like this you can switch through them and they load faster, but you can end up having loads of applications running and using up the
RAM, when the RAM's overloaded, the phone will reboot itself and you can't stop this. The only way is to keep in mind to shut applications in task manager.
Minus points
- W960i doesn't have classical profiles - sound profile (SMS tone, ringtone, email tone etc) are included in themes but you can override them with tone of your own choice. The sole sound profile is silent mode.
- opening applications takes time
- impossible to control the phone fully using only keyboard
Conclusion
Wonderful device that contains all you might need from a phone, in a nice body. I was disappointed in Nokia and I'm a minion of Sony
Ericsson now and for good, since I've learnt that what they do they do for a reason and for the user.
I would absolutely recommend SE W960i to everybody who wants to have more than a cellphone, to ppl who have been using SE
phones and are happy with them but look for an upgrade, to anyone who wanna be both organized and have fun as well as to those who like to explore and play, since this
toy gives a lot of ground. Besides lots of useful functions the interface is very much editable to your liking, which makes you feel like the phone's really personalized and yours the way you want it.
W960i...Bravo, Sony Ericsson!!! 
