Finally, here I get the chance to post about something close to my heart: my new mobile phone, Sony Ericsson W810i - my love for the past one month now, and going steady!
I started scouting for a mobile in the Rs. 10K-15K price range a couple of months back. A lot of names flew around – the Nokias, Motorolas, Samsungs and Sony Ericssons. I was fascinated by the extensive range of phones available in this price range. This was my first move to a mobile featuring more than the usual voice and data features and I wanted the best one for the money I’ll be paying. I started doing extensive research on the mobiles. The Univercell website was the reference for comparing the price and featured of the mobiles. In addition, the Mobile-Review site provided a wide coverage of various mobile phones and their features. Check out this site if you want to have a look at a different view about the phone.
My initial shortlist included the following mobiles:
- Nokia : N70, N73
- Motorola : A1200 (Motoming), Moto Rokr
- Samsung : D600, D900i
- Sony Ericsson : K750i, W810i, W830i, W610i
Every person has his/her own reasons for buying a mobile. There is nothing called “the best mobile” in any price range as we have to factor in the competing products. Ultimately the final rationale for selecting a particular mobile over the rest is solely an individual preference. And this is exactly the reason why there are so many products in the market with scores of unique and differentiating features, competing to grab the attention of the unsuspecting customer. To cut the long story short, whatever reasoning I give below is my personal choice made out of my own set of preferences which I try to put as rationally as possible. This need not be the best choice for the whole world, but has worked great for me. Hence I’m putting it.
I’ll first give the reasons for eliminating the mobiles I didn’t want.
The two Nokia models were the first to go out for two reasons. First, I didn’t need a 3G phone as there is no network operator providing the service in India and it’ll take some time before 3G networks are rolled out and the price becomes feasible enough to use the service. Second is the inherent suspicion about the high end Nokia models. This has got to do with many of my friends who used to complain that Nokia phones are slow and hang frequently. Though I don’t like to make generalisations, this piece of news was always running in the back of my mind when I look at Nokia phones. Plus, these two models weren’t the greatest looking on the planet.
Next follows the slide phones. It’s not that I don’t like slide phones as such. In fact, I was too impressed by Samsung D900i and Sony Ericsson W830i. I had to forego W830i because of its poor camera (a 2 megapixel without autofocus). In addition both D900i and W830i had a keypad which didn’t have good reviews for fast typing and usage. This is especially important for me as I need keypads which are fast and easy to use. With heavy heart I had to let go of Samsung D900i, as it looked really great with respect to all the other factors under consideration.
Considering the necessity for a keypad (atleast in the near term) I had to rule out Motoming and Moto Rokr. I was impressed by both these models, especially Motoming for its amazing looks and use. But then, I’m still not into the corporate life and don’t need a mobile with PDA features or one which requires the use of stylus.
Finally, I was left with 3 models, all Sony Ericsson – K750i, W610i and W810i. All the three models have similar features. K750 is a highly successful model – a milestone for Sony Ericsson. However it’s now a piece of history. In place of K750i come W810i and W610i – both walkman phones and great looks. I settle for W810i as the camera has relatively better protection compared to W610i, though the mobile is a little thicker.
W810i
My decision to purchase W810i was partially inspired by my college friend Hariprasad, who bought the same mobile a month before I bought it. This gave me ample time to know how the mobile is performing before deciding to purchase it. The black bar-type phone with orange logo markings and orange display is reason enough for me to fall in love with this mobile at first sight.
My impressions about the phone and its features after one month of usage:
Overall Design
SE W810i is a pretty compact phone with no wastage of space anywhere. The display is big enough for a bar phone. The camera, flash and the speakers are well integrated in the rear. The camera button and the zoom buttons are available on the right, while a customisable play button and the memory slot are available on the left. The integrated port on the bottom and the power button on top complete the overall design. The keypads are soft and very easy to use. The main reason for this is that each number key is designed as a standalone button that makes it easier to feel and use.
Walkman
The phone has excellent playback capabilities. Put on your handsfree and set the equaliser mode to Megabass, that’s it. You cut out the rest of the world and can enjoy music in your own world of eternal bliss. If you are too bored to put on the headphones, simply connect the speakers that come with the package and listen to the same music in a room with the effect of big speakers. The only problem I faced with this phone is the lack of option to jump to a particular section in a song/video being played. This was a nuisance, especially when playing a movie when you may want to go back or forward a few seconds to see a particular scene again.
Camera
The 2 megapixel, autofocus camera provides excellent photos in daylight. Night-time photography is a suspect with the appearance of lots of grains in the image. The phone has a macro mode to take close range shots of small objects and three picture size options. The flash is very weak and is not of much use in dark. It’s more of use as a flashlight in dark to guide you around than as a camera flash. We can take photos of 3 different sizes – small (160x120), medium (640x480) and large (1632x1224). There is no option to turn off the shutter sound (except in silent mode). This is a small nuisance. The video size is very small at 176x144 pixels when the camera can take photos upto 1632x1224 pixels. The camera doesn’t have a protective cover. But this has not created much of a problem as the phone design is such that the possibility of scratches happening is minimal.
Some photos that I took with this camera:
File Transfer
File transfer is one of the notorious things in this mobile. File transfer is possible in 3 options: using USB cable, Bluetooth or plugging the memory card into the computer. I normally prefer Bluetooth file transfer for small files and using memory card directly for large file transfer. The data transfer thought USB cable is painfully slow, though the feature list indicates that the phone supports USB 2.0. The company has provided a memory card reader that can be used to directly transfer data from a PC or laptop to the memory stick. We can remove the memory card without switching off the mobile, which saves a lot of time and energy.
There are many other features which I can comment about. But there are scores of websites available with these information. Hence I’m refraining myself from doing that.
If I were asked to suggest a major change in this mobile, I would like to see the port for the headset separated from the rest. This way the mobile can be used as a walkman when it is being charged or when some file is being transferred. I hope Sony Ericsson would look into this and make changes in the subsequent designs so that this mobile can do complete justice to its role as a walkman phone.
