Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman
Last shot for the not-so-smart music phone?
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Review Recent figures may show that smartphones are now outselling no-so-smart mobiles in Europe, but that’s not to say ordinary handsets are dead and buried. New to their ranks is Sony Ericsson’s Mix Walkman, which attempts to put some life into the old dog by exploiting Sony’s music player branding.
The Mix is rather chunky - it's more than 14mm thick - but is still small and light enough to drop into a pocket and be forgotten about. That's important for anything designed to be used as an MP3 player as much as a phone.
The UI looks like a Sony Ericsson Android skin, but isn't
The Mix's front is dominated by a 3in, 240 x 400 capacitive touchscreen. The only control on the face is the home button, which, like the side-mounted volume controls, has a solid action. The Mix is a well-made device.
The operating system and interface lurking underneath the screen are Sony Ericsson’s own despite the home screen mimicking some of the company's Android skins. Each corner of the screen sports a shortcut icon, each of which can be user-specified with a simple press-and-hold.
Bit in the chunky side
As budget phone interfaces go, it’s slick and fluid. The screen reacts promptly and accurately to both touches and swipes. But using the Mix for anything other than its basic functions is hampered by the absence of a virtual Qwerty keypad.
While you don’t get 3G - hardly a shock at this price - you do get 802.11g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1. This strikes me as an acceptable trade off between functionality and cost, especially as the target market is unlikely to have generous data plans.
The raison d'être of the Mix is the Walkman app, which apart from looking good and being easy to use, produces a very nice sound indeed. It’s also mercifully short on bewildering IQ options and sound modifiers. Sadly, it’s also short on volume. Even at full belt, it’s not loud enough to drown out the background racket of an airliner cabin or tube train.
Next page: In the Mix
COMMENTS
That...
...is a very nice looking phone, from the front anyway. The UI isn't half bad either, although possibly not to everybody's taste (assuming it's roughly similar to the Xperia)
Shows that good phone design isn't restricted to generic black rectangles and little coloured squares - guess Apple might have had a point in rapping Samsung's knuckles, given that they could have gone a multitude of different ways - this being one of them.
</ducks and prepares to be flamed by anti-Apple zealots>
Weak Audio?
OK, so it suffers from the European ear protection disease. But what exactly is the sound level it puts out? An early Apple iSnot Nanu (G2) delivered a measly 2.5 milliwatts into my 32 ohm earbuds while a cheapo Korean MP3 player blasted 25 mW into them. I want a milliwatt figure, not just "weak sound level".
the 995 is metal and a mans phone for building sites etc, while engineers have the filofax of the iphone
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