Since Sony Ericsson first added its Walkman cellular phone line final 12 months, music-pleasant phones have had combined fulfillment within the United States. Though they are lauded by way of customers and critics alike, collectively with us, U.S. Vendors have not clamored to include their lineups’ handsets. Sure, Cingular offers the W600i. However, that is the exception as opposed to the rule. Sony Ericsson no doubt has taken the word of this discrepancy, which may be a purpose behind the Sony Ericsson W300i.
While previous Walkman telephones were packed with the most high-priced features, the W300i objectives to be a low-stop Walkman cellphone, although you continue to get Bluetooth, a VGA camera, and the total range of Walkman track compatibility, the complete impact is a step down from fashions just like the Sony Ericsson W810i. We were not crazy about a few design elements; however, call quality turned into correct, and we commend Sony Ericsson for bringing the cellular track to the masses. No service becomes set at the time of this review, so that the GSM handset will run you $299.
So ways, Sony Ericsson has caught to swivel and candy bar designs for its Walkman phones, so we had been happy to peer the enterprise roll out a flip smartphone within the collection. From the exterior, it is quite fashionable; our model got here in black, but You can get it in white too. It does not endure much of a resemblance to the employer’s few different flip phones; we like the clean traces, the looped antenna, and the textured covering on the lowest of the front flap. The smartphone is reasonably compact at 3.5 through 1.8 via 1.Zero inches, so it’s effortlessly put in maximum wallet. It’s also quite light for its length at three. Three oz., but the trade-off is that the all-around production feels just a bit flimsy. We did not have any troubles whilst using the cellphone, but it felt almost too mild in our fingers.
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In the middle of the front flap is the postage stamp-length outdoor display. Although monochrome, it is quite brilliant and presentations the standard records, not to say the date, time, battery life, sign power, and caller ID (where reachable). You are not capable of alternate the backlighting time. However, a brief flick of the volume rocker will prompt the display for inspection. Above the screen are the VGA camera lens and a self-portrait mirror (however, no flash); simultaneously, the speaker is on the top of the rear face.
The aforementioned quantity management is on the left spine and control for activating the song player and gambling and pausing tracks. The infrared port is on the proper backbone, simultaneously as the connection port for the charger, the stressed-out headset, and the USB cable is on the lowest of the handset. One design flaw of the brand new Walkman smartphone connection port is that you can not join two cables right away.
Inside the smartphone, you’ll discover the 1. Seventy-five-inch (128×160) interior show. Sony Ericsson always does an excellent task with its presentations, and the W300i is not any exception. Radiant and shiny, it presentations all 262,144 colors fantastically and is perfect for viewing pictures and movies, gambling video games, and scrolling thru the user-friendly menus. You can exchange the brightness but now, not the font size or backlighting time.
On the alternative hand, Sony Ericsson would not have a superb track record with navigation controls and keypad buttons. While it made advantageous strides with the W810i, the W300i shows a slip lower back to bad habits. The five-manner toggle is massive and doubles as a shortcut to 4 consumer-described functions. However, it is flush with the smartphone’s surface and accordingly takes time to get used to. The flat gentle keys, clean button, and lower back manage are spaced a long way from the toggle. However, they may be pretty small given the telephone’s length. While this isn’t a bad component, preserve in thoughts that maximum Sony Ericsson telephones do now not have committed Talk and End keys.
The keypad buttons are worse, on the other hand. Designed similar to overlapping circles, they’re flat with the smartphone’s floor and slippery, which made for some misdials. Even extra, they don’t lend themselves to short texting. On the upside, they have got a brilliant orange backlight. Below them are a devoted strength manager and a button for activating the Walkman player; however, those are lots too little. The Memory Stick Micro slot is underneath the plastic battery cowl, but fortunately, you do not need to do away with the battery to get at it.
The W300i has a 1,000-touch smartphone ebook with room in each access for 5 telephone numbers, email and Web addresses, enterprise and home street addresses, a birth date, and notes (the SIM card holds an extra 250 names). You can classify contacts into companies, pair them with a picture for caller ID, or connect them one in every of 28 (40-chord) polyphonic ring tones. Support for MP3 ring tones is a gift, and be informed that caller ID pics do no longer appear on the outer display. Other functions encompass a vibrate mode, textual content and multimedia messaging, voice dialing, a calendar, a venture list, a notepad, a calculator, a timer, a stopwatch, and a code memo for storing passwords and other comfortable records.
There’s also a recorder for both voice memos and calls; duration is sparing by available memory. Although the W300i is considered an access-degree Walkman phone, it comes with a quite desirable number of enterprise-friendly packages. Inside, you may find a speakerphone, PC syncing for contacts and calendar appointments, a newsreader for accessing RSS feeds, USB cable support, and complete Bluetooth for no longer simplest connecting to a headset however additionally for wirelessly replacing documents and digital business playing cards. And like many different Sony Ericsson, You can use the telephone as a modem and use the Bluetooth feature as a faraway manipulate to connect to other Bluetooth gadgets.
The W300i’s Walkman tune player doesn’t vary plenty from the previous handsets within the collection. It helps a broad range of formats, including MP3, MP4, 3GP, AAC, and WAV files. Opening the participant takes you immediately to the principal menu, in which You can prepare a song by using an artist, song call, or playlist. Settings encompass album/track shuffle and loop, Sony’s Mega Bass, and an equalizer. Toggling among the mobile telephone and the track player is seamless, as music mechanically stops whilst you receive a call. Hang up and mash the dedicated track key and your song choices up from the point you left off. There’s a plane mode that lets you concentrate on your tunes in flight with the cell telephone powered off, and You can minimize the player even with the use of other capabilities. There are stereo speakers additionally but still no stereo Bluetooth profile.
Music potential is sparing with the aid of accessible memory. The internal area is relatively tiny–just 20MB–and I think that considering it is shared with other packages, your real storage space may be less. We sell investing in a Memory Stick Micro for the extra area; our test phone got here with a 512MB card. Getting tune on the cellphone is fairly smooth. As properly as using the blanketed USB cable and Disc2Phone software, you can send tunes through electronic mail, a multimedia message, Bluetooth, or an infrared port. You also get an FM radio with 20 presets, While you must use it with a headset, which acts as an antenna. You can set it to mechanically test and application Radio Data System info from stations that digitally broadcast their names and make contact with letters. You can use the radio as an alarm clock.
Since the W300i is supposed for an extra or much less average cellular smartphone consumer, Sony Ericsson blanketed a VGA shooter in place of a megapixel model. You can take photographs in three resolutions (640×480, 320×240, 160×120) and choose from a ramification of modifying options, collectively with four color consequences, a nighttime mode, fine settings, a self-timer, 19 fun frames, and a brightness manage. There’s also a digital zoom, which varies via the image’s length–at the bottom resolution, it is 4X. However, it is no longer accessible at the very best decision. Other unique photo effects consist of a burst mode for taking 4 photographs in speedy order and a nifty panorama preference. For audio results, You are capable of Choose from 4 shutter sounds. However, there is no silent desire. The camcorder takes MPEG-4 films in two resolutions (176×144 and 128×96) with sound and offers a comparable set of editing alternatives. Clip length is capped at two mins for multimedia messages; otherwise, the length is sparing using the available memory.
Although we comprehend the camera is a VGA, photo satisfaction became as a substitute insufficient. Shots were blurry and grainy, and colorings washed out. Likewise, the video pleasant was run-of-the-mill. Still, the W300i does offer some creative programs for beginner photographers. With Photo DJ, You can upload one among six amusing frames, inverse the shot’s orientation, and use various image outcomes, including brightness, comparison, tint management, and photo marking. There’s also a Video DJ. If that isn’t always satisfying, more photograph-, video-, and multimedia-modifying alternatives are on the software program CD, together with QuickTime, Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition, and a multimedia message composer. Moving photos and videos of the smartphone are painless. You can ship them in a multimedia message, import them through Bluetooth or the infrared port, or use the included USB cable and software.
You can customize the W300i with an array of themes, wallpaper, and screensavers. You can always buy greater selections and ring tones from Sony Ericsson through the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. Alternatively, the cellphone comes with a Music DJ software for making your own ring tones and a quirky utility known as Music Match that plays guitar chords and piano notes. Though it was a laugh, it wasn’t relatively gifted. Gamers can experience 3 Java (J2ME) titles, Neopets, QuadraPop, and PuzzleSlider, with extra titles handy for buy.
We tested the quad-band, dual-mode (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Sony Ericsson W300i international telephone in San Francisco using Cingular’s carrier. Call fine changed into quite suitable with first-rate clarity and extent. We had no trouble getting a sign and infrequently were met with static or interference. Callers mentioned equal situations, and they may make us out under most situations. Speakerphone caliber changed into slightly worse–voices sounded hollow. However, it changed into the fair as an entire. We connected to the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset and became met with admirable call caliber too. The EDGE connection becomes sufficiently rapid for transferring small files.
Using the protected Disc2Phone software and USB cable, which also expenses the phone, we attempted loading music onto our W300i. Switch time becomes highly sluggish at 30 seconds for a 5MG tune, so you’ll have to be patient for a big import. However, the software is straightforward to install and exhibited few of the quirks we observed on previous models. And any other aspect, the phone didn’t switch off automatically when we disconnected the USB cable. Music first-rate was on a par with that of different Walkman telephones: clear and crisp, Though one transferred song had a few very minor hiccups. The W300i might not replace a stand-in, my own MP3 participant; however, it does the activity admirably for quick stints.
Our one actual disapproval changed into that the smartphone tended to freeze during normal operation, including when we had been going through a menu or using the USB connection. We needed to restart more than one time, but greater often, the telephone unfroze after a couple of seconds. The W300i has a rated speak time of nine hours and a presumed standby time of 16.5 days. Our communicate-time check result got here in a little short at 8 hours, but it’s still decent. According to FCC radiation tests, the Sony Ericsson W300i has a virtual SAR rating of one. Forty-two watts in keeping with kilogram.
