Sony Ericsson Walkman W910i motion-controlled phone
The shake of things to come
Review Sony Ericsson takes moving to the music literally with its motion-sensor based “shake control” track-changing gadgetry. But there’s far more to the HSDPA 3G-enabled Walkman W910i phone than slick moves.
The W910i's slick sliderphone design also nods firmly in the direction of Sony Ericsson’s W880i slimline candybar - reviewed here. At 12mm thick, the W910i is a relatively skinny slider, although with a large face - 99 x 50mm - to accommodate a sizeable display. This 240 x 320, 262,144-colour LCD also employs motion-sensor technology: in media mode, the phone switches orientation automatically between portrait and landscape views as the phone’s tilted - just like Apple's iPhone, reviewed here. It’s interesting to see Sony Ericsson and Nokia adopting this technology in the wake of the Apple handset.
Sony Ericsson's Walkman W910i: shake to play
Aside from its motion-sensor slickness, the W910i’s spec follows a familiar formula of quality music player and a spread of decent multimedia features that’s made the Walkman phone brand such a hit. This particular one has HSDPA 3G - plus quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge - which ups download and surfing speeds. There’s no Wi-Fi here, however - you’ll have to check out the new 8GB-packing W960i if that’s what you’re after in your Walkman.
Despite beefing up the shooting capabilities of recent Cyber-shot phones, Sony Ericsson has been parsimonious with pixels on this Walkman model. The camera on the back is a basic two-megapixel shooter that does without a flash or photo light. It does do video recording at 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA) at 15 frames per second, and there’s a secondary, lower-quality camera perched above the display for video calling.
The W910i is a surprisingly lightweight 86g, and with its tactile rubber-feel casing, feels comfortable in the hand. It comes in several colour options – noble black, hearty red or Havana gold, depending on network – that thankfully go easy on the trademark Walkman phone orange.
The slider action is smooth and solid, while the keypad beneath is makes efficient use of large keys arranged in a no-nonsense grid. Some may prefer them raised a little higher, but we found them perfectly fine for texting.
The display dominates the front of the closed phone. Beneath this you get a silver navigation control that’s also marked up with music player keys. A familiar arrangement of soft-menu keys and call/end buttons flank this, while there’s the regular Sony Ericsson menu key and a Clear button.
Above the display are two unmarked keys. In standby mode, they whizz you straight to your latest photos or full camera album, broken down month by month according to when snaps were taken.
COMMENTS
N81 wannabe?
Without WiFi .... and a shake and bake sensor.
Been shaking since about 1998
Compaq Itsy http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/WRL-2000-3.pdf
Life imitates art?
"A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive — you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme."
--from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
-daniel
Compares nicely with the W580i
I've had a W580i since it first came out (and it's certainly the best phone I've ever had - and I've gone through quite a few), and they sound like very comparable devices. The W910i looks a bit slimmer, and it has an additional camera, and HSDPA instead of EDGE, but otherwise they seem pretty much identical.
The only downside to the W580i is the same one mentioned regarding the W910i - the charge/headphone connector going on the side. I ended up getting some Bluetooth headphones to mitigate the nuisance of the headphone adaptor, and now I have only one device in my pocket where I used to have three (phone, iPod, and PDA); of course, my phone+PDA combination has been taken care of nicely by Sony Ericsson phones for quite some time.
Also, the shake-to-shuffle doesn't seem to actually do anything, but I'm actually a bit glad for that since I like listening to music with album-based playlists (generated by SyncTunes for OSX) and I'd hate for my music to get disrupted every time I have to run to cross the street or whatever.
Had mine since release day
Got mine as an upgrade from my w810i, and is a good phone, keypad can be a bit irritating sometimes, but you just need to get used to it.
Problem I found with the media player is that it can run a bit slow sometimes, and for some reason occasionally mine goes into 'standby' mode, a red light comes on the back and it wont turn back on (even though the screen is on (black) and the button lights come on) ... and the only way to get it back on is to take the battery out and start again.
Other than that, good bit of kit.
