I began my mobile phone career with Nokia's and I was once the proud owner of a Nokia 3310. The novelty of being able to switch covers to give the phone a whole new look was just too hard to resist.
As with all products, curiosity arises and I decided to try Sony Ericsson. I've had quite a few from this brand over the years and I have always been very pleased with the phones on the whole.
Unfortunately, as the phones became more and more advanced and started boasting a whole new range of features, the quality seemed to suffer greatly and I began to find the phones becoming more and more unreliable.
My last Sony Ericsson became redundant when the ear piece stopped working completely. I could only make phone calls if I used the speaker phone feature which soon became very annoying. I gave the phone the benefit of the doubt. After all, I had been using it for around a year, but thinking back to older models, you could expect them to last for years and years. My old Nokia's still work to this day. But thankfully not long after this happened, I was due for an upgrade.
I'm very indecisive when it comes to choosing a new mobile and I am contantly worried if I made the wrong decision. The thought of being stuck with a phone that I don't really like for 12-18 months is not worth thinking about. This time, I narrowed it down to two possible candidates, and unfortunatly, I chose the W995.
What first attracted me to this model was the look. Compared to other phones that were available to me at the time, this one certainly had the edge. I liked the fact that it was a slide phone as these are usually much more compact.
It has a great screen size (240x320 pixel) although the phone itself is pretty small and measures just 3.8 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches. I also liked the fact that it was pretty lightweight and weighed just 113 grams.
The features were another thing that swayed me towards this. An 8.1 Megapixel camera was not to be sniffed at. It's great to know that if you find yourself in a situation where you just have to take a photograph of something, you can do so with ease and expect great quality photos. It also saves the need to carry a separate digital camera around with you.
I am an avid texted and much prefer texting to making phone calls so the button layout on any phone is very important. I find texting with this model very easy. The buttons are of a generous size even considering the phone's size and are spaced well making it easy to text efficiently.
I have to say that the pictures I have taken with this phone have so far been of great quality which has let me very impressed with the camera. Sadly, this is really the only feature that I can talk so highly about whilst reviewing this phone.
I am someone who takes a lot of care of mobile phones. As soon as I buy a new one, I look for a suitable case so that the phone doesn't get scratched. I have had this now for around 11 months and it still looks as new and shiny as the day I received it, scratch wise that is!
Within about a week of having this phone, I noticed that the Sony Ericsson logo was peeling off both on the front of the phone and on the back. This was very disappointing because I did absolutely nothing to cause this.
The actual build of the phone is of a very good quality and the slide mechanism seems robust enough to stand a generous amount of use. This phone certainly doesn't feel flimsy in the hand. The only real problem I have with the exterior of the phone apart from the peeling logo is that the battery cover on the back of the phone isn't very tight and keeps coming off, even when you are just casually holding the phone. Unfortunately there really isn't a lot holding it on.
Apart from this problem, the phone worked great for a while and overall, I was very pleased with my choice. Then the problems really started.
The first thing I noticed were quite minor things. The screen would freeze up now and again and become all jagged and distorted. I rectified this by turning the phone off and on again which solved the problem but it just kept happening more and more frequently.
I then began to notice that the phone would just turn itself off for no reason at all, and when checking the battery, there was more than enough life in it so I really couldn't understand why it was happening.
Gradually, the phone began to get slower and slower to the point where it would take a while to even open messages. Everything just seemed delayed which was very frustrating.
It would also cut me off during phone conversations because again, it just decided to turn itself off for no good reason. As this began to happen more and more, I found that it was getting increasingly harder to turn the phone back on.
Sometimes it would just not respond at all to the power button and it sometimes too me up to a few hours to turn the phone on. There were times when I became so frustrated with this that I felt like launching it through the window. I certainly didn't expect this sort of performance from such a well established brand, especially considering the price tag at the time which was in the £300-400 bracket.
Then came the problem with charging the phone. When plugged into the mains, very often the phone would not charge. When it did, it would either charge half way and then lie and tell me the battery was full, or it would appear to be charging, but when unplugged, it hadn't charged at all, leaving me with a battery as flat as a pancake and in a worse state than when I first started. So very frustrating, especially if I needed to go out.
The battery life isn't too good, especially when you are using the internet. I find that I need to charge the battery every day and I don't use the phone for the internet or to talk all that much.
Another fault that I found is when using the internet and trying to scroll back up the page, all the information becomes jumbled to the point where I am unable to read any information. I also find the internet quite slow, although this probably also has something to do with T Mobile.
I have also found that I have problems with signal which I believe is down to the phone. T Mobile doesn't offer the best service in my area, but since having this phone, I am barely able to make a phone call from my house at all. If I do manage to have a call connected, I usually get cut off after abour 5 minutes because the signal just disappears. I have been with T mobile for several years now, and never have I had such bad signal.
Overall I am totally disappointed with this phone. It looks great but there's no point having a great looking phone if you can't really use it that well. My experience with this is the worst I have ever had with a mobile and I'd go as far as to say that I very much doubt I will go near a Sony Ericsson again! At least not until they sort themselves out anyway!
--TechSpecs--
Size - 97.0 x 49.0 x 15.0 mm
3.8 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches
Weight - 113.0 g
4.0 oz
Screen - 240x320 pixel
Memory Phone memory - 118MB*
Memory Stick MicroTM (M2TM) support (up to 16GB)
Networks GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
UMTS/HSPA 900/2100
Music listening time: 20 hours --Camera--
- Flash / light type - Photo flash
- Smile detection
- Digital Zoom - up to 16x
- 8.1 Megapixel
- Photo feeds
- Geo-tagging
- Video stabiliser
- Video recording
- Video light
- Send to web
- Image stabiliser
- Photo fix
- Face detection
- Auto focus
--Internet--
- Web browser - Access NetFrontTM Web Browser
- Full Internet browser with support for standard protocols, images and video.
- Bookmarks
- Web feeds
--Entertainment--
- Tracker
- Radio - FM radio with RDS
- Walk Mate
- Video Clip
- Video streaming
- Java
- YouTubeTM
- Motion gaming
- 3D games
- Media
--Connectivity--
- Synchronisation PC
- WiFiTM
- USB support
- USB mass storage
.*GSM internet dial-up support - BluetoothTM
- DLNA CertifiedTM
- Wayfinder NavigatorTM
- Google MapsTM
- aGPS
- 3.5 mm audio jack
- PictBridge
--Messaging--
- Sound recorder
- Predictive text input
- Instant messaging
- Picture messaging (MMS)
- Text messaging (SMS)
- Exchange ActiveSync®
- Email
--Other features--
- Torch functionality
- Timer
- Tasks
- Stopwatch
- Phone book
- Notes
- Flight mode
- Calendar
- Calculator
- Alarm clock
**Also on Dooyoo under the same username**
I can't wait for an upgrade! 
