Sony Ericsson W810i Walkman

*** Sony Ericsson W810i Walkman Phone ***

After about a year of owning a Sony Ericsson K750i phone I decided it was time for a change and after an evening spent on the net looking up phones I finally decided on the Sony Ericsson W810i Walkman phone in White. My initial reasons being that it was Sony Ericsson and it was a walkman phone so I would be able to store more songs on and use the walkman at work instead of taking my mp3 player in. So I ordered my phone on O2 pay as you go for £149 out of the Littlewoods catalogue. Three long days later my new phone arrived.

After inserting the sim and battery I turned the phone on and it started up. The start up was and still is reasonably quick. Upon switching the phone on you are given the choice of Start Phone or Walkman Mode. Start phone mode enables you to use the phone normally as a fully functional phone, walkman mode lets you use just the walkman part of the phone and knocks out all signals enabling you to listen to your music safely without breaking any rules in places like aeroplanes and hospitals. Anyway, I gave it a couple of minutes before I started pressing buttons and working my way through the various menus, which are as follows...

The Menu is split into 12 sections, each with its own sub sections, they are as follows:

• Messaging - The place where you will send and receive your text and picture messages, message memory is reasonably good at approximately 200 messages. Typing a message is fairly simple with the usual option of predictive or non-predictive text. Overall an easy area to use.
  
• Walkman - In my opinion a fantastic thing to add to a phone is a walkman! I use the walkman everyday at work, due to the fact it saves me taking my mp3 player with me, the headphones included with the phone are extremely comfortable and the sound quality from the walkman is fantastic considering phones are usually quite tinny, this one isn't. The walkman works with or without headphones, which I often find quite useful if I have a song that I know a friend likes at work. Due to the large memory card included with the phone you can store up to 175 songs depending on file size.

* File Manager - This section is where you will find all your pictures and videos taken on your camera and also any files you may receive through Bluetooth or media messaging. Also in the file manger section is your music folder where all the music files for your walkman are kept and also all your ringtones. The ringtones included are few and far between and are not of high quality with about two catchy ones I ended up deleting them and replacing ringtones with my favourite songs instead!

* Contacts - As it sounds, this is the area where all of your contacts and their numbers are stored and can be edited. This section is very easy to navigate through and easy to edit people if needed.

* Radio - Simply as it sounds, this is a radio! The radio can only be used when headphones are attached, once they are in the radio is simple to use and you can tune in and store your favourite radio stations easily. The sound quality of the radio is surprisingly high and I do use the feature on a regular basis if I fancy a change from my own music.

* Calls - In this section you will find separate lists of all you missed, received and dialled calls. Easy to use and quick to access if you need to check details of a call as it tells you the date and time of the call as well.

* Organiser - Contained in the organiser are items like your alarms, calendar, calculator and light. I have found the alarm very effective and often use it as my sole alarm clock as it is very reliable and I can choose to be woken up by a song I like rather than some annoying beep! The alarm works even when the phone is switched off or in silent mode. The calendar is ok, I tend to only use it to make random notes in and it can be used to set yourself reminders too, it is easy to navigate around. The calculator is useful for its purpose if needed and no alternative is available, however I did find this a bit awkward to use at first. The light on the phone is absolutely fantastic and has come in use many a time when camping and the torch batteries run low! It is a very powerful light and quite capable of lighting up a bedroom possibly more than a side light would! The only downside is if you use the light to the extreme or for long periods it can really drain the battery.

* Settings - As it sounds this is the area to go to if you wanted to change any settings on your phone, again easy to navigate around and simple to use.

* PlayNow - To be honest I have never used this section, however it is a direct connection to the net for downloading songs and ringtones to you phone.

* Internet Services - This is the section of your phone where you can connect to the net, I use this feature a lot, especially at work, hmm this is starting to sound like I don't work a lot, but I do, I watch a print press all day which does get pretty boring once it is set up so I have a bit of time to relax and play with gadgets! So anyway internet on the phone, I have found it to be reasonably quick, it is great for checking email on yahoo or hotmail, however for larger sites like eBay and facebook I do have trouble as it displays a message about content being too large to display. MSN chat works well on here though so this is usually what I can be found on!

* Entertainment - This is where the games are, the games included with the phone are reasonably addictive and good for passing time. Also in Entertainment are Music DJ, Video DJ and Picture DJ, I have found these to be fun for editing pictures for amusement, however I cant really see a use for them other than killing time!

* Camera - The camera is a 2 Mega pixel camera with video option. The camera has a flash which is very bright and highly effective. The picture and video quality is reasonably high, although if you don't hold the phone steady it can blur the picture easily which is quite frustrating!

*** Computer USB Cable ***

There is a data pack and USB cable included with the phone, this whole package is easy to install and use for adding and removing data such as pictures, videos and music.

*** Battery Life ***

I have found the battery life to be very good considering how many features I use on a daily basis! I can use the walkman, camera and text and make calls everyday and find that usually about halfway through the second day I am looking for the charger.

*** Call Quality ***

Obviously a very important part of the phone, I have found the quality of calls to be excellent, I always seem to have high signal strength and calls are clear and rarely break up during a call. During calls you can access the main menu with ease, which can be handy if you receive a message or want to give out a number in your phone book. You are also able to send a text while you are in a call.

*** Other Features ***

The only other features I can think about are Bluetooth and infrared which are included. I have found Bluetooth easy to use and great for sending files between friends. I have attempted to use infrared once but failed miserably as the connection was nowhere near as strong as Bluetooth.

The memory included on the phone is a 512mb SD memory card, this enables you to store up to 175 songs or over 300 pictures or a combination of the two. I think this is great as I can have lots of music and pictures and not have to worry about finding the time to empty the phone as the memory is full.

The phone is quite funky looking and is available in two colours as standard, white and black, I purchased the white as at the time I thought it was fairly unusual, however a year later I have bought a nice bright blue cover off eBay for less than a fiver with the special tool required to fit it, fitting the cover was fiddly but not too hard to do with a bit of patience.

*** Problems ***

I have had this phone just over a year and so far I have had no problems with it, so I am extremely pleased with it.

*** Overall ***

Overall I would recommend this phone, it is easy to use, it is lightweight and funkily good looking. The call quality is always excellent and the range of features is great, this phone meets my needs and more. Recently as you may have read in one of my previous reviews I had been using my Sony Ericsson W890i phone that I got when I decided to get a contract, however with all the problems that I detailed in that review I have swapped back to this W810i and I have no regrets at all I really like this phone!

Thanks for reading! Lou x

Please note: I am also on Dooyoo as loulou22 so if you see this review on there it isn't a copy :)