Hands0n
14th December 2005, 09:15 PM
This is a mini-review of the Vodafone-supplied Sony Ericsson W900i Walkman/Phone. Ben has already waxed lyrical about his SIM-free version of the handset that he bought a short while before it was officially released on Vodafone. I will not make any attempt to needlessly cover the ground that he has excellently done already. Suffice to say that I am broadly in agreement with pretty much all that he has said about this very exciting handset.
A bit of history - I have two contracts (Orange and 3) that have either matured or are just about to. Thus, I am in the market for replacement handsets of the 3G variety and at this time am on a Nokia 6680 (3 3G) and SPV-C500 (Orange 2G). I had absolutely no intention of taking on a SE W900i as I do not find much time to listen to [personal] music during the day, and my evenings are spent doing all sorts of other stuff. So my own Walkman, MD and MP3 players only see the light of day on holidays or extended breaks. The SE W900i for what it does is therefore pretty much 50% useless to me! Or so I thought.
Kid decides that she wants one of these for Christmas and after a bit of haggling with the parents (me and the Boss) she gets her wish. I placed the order with Vodafone Thursday 8 December 2005 and on Friday 9 December I get an email from them saying they are out of stock, and that I should receive my order within 7 - 10 working days (i.e. right up to 23 Dec!!).
A bit of chasing around without success ensues. Then, on 14 Dec the very nice Mr Postman arrives with an anonymous package. Inside is the W900i, someone is going to be a happy bunny tonight :)
The SE W900i is packaged in a rather flashy plastic carton arrangement, suitable for on the shelf display purposes. Getting into the case is only a matter of breaking a pair of security seals and the lid comes off readily. The internal packaging falls away easily to release the W900i, charger, headset, remote, software and a small pack of manuals, very small!
The phone took around one hour to fully charge up the first time, the battery had a good strong latent charge in it.
Setting up the phone was trivial and I only needed to refer to the manual to find out how to take the back cover off, it was not immediately obvious. From then on, though, it was all plain sailing.
First power-on brings up a configuration utility that gets the Language, Time and Date established in the handset. The menu system on the W900i is highly intuitive and it was a snap finding my way around these. There are a number of shortcuts and specific buttons - this took a short read of a couple of pages of the lightweight manual to find out what they did. Again, once you know they are there, and what for, use is very intuitive.
Using the 2 Megapixel Camera was, as you'd expect by now, was very easy. The menus are clear and easy to use in both stills and video modes. The quality of the images in highest mode are excellent. A nice touch is the way that the SE W900i automatically resizes the image for sending via MMS if you choose to do that. This handset really does do all that it can to make it easy for you to make practical use of it.
Using Vodafone Live! was very polished and slick. The page selections came up very quickly and without any significant delay. Surfing around the "Live! with 3G" portal was quick and easy.
I had to try out Vodafone's streaming TV while its free. Gosh it is good, very good indeed. This implementation knocks the spots off MobiTV/OrangeTV as there is no problem with stalling video and sound. The W900i automatically presents the video in "widescreen" format - this requires you to rotate the handset onto it's side to watch, but this is no problem as the image is so clear and watchable. It is a very nice size too, easy on these old eyes of mine.
This handset is a perfect match for Vodafone "Live! with 3G"
And so now to my dilemma - I want one too! In about half an hour's time the kid takes it off of me!
I always enjoyed using my SE T610 in its day and the W900i feels as comfortable and familiar to use as that did then. I was holding out for the Nokia 6280 - but I'm now seriously considering getting a W900i for my own use instead and leave Nokia for another time altogether.
Decisions, decisions :D
A bit of history - I have two contracts (Orange and 3) that have either matured or are just about to. Thus, I am in the market for replacement handsets of the 3G variety and at this time am on a Nokia 6680 (3 3G) and SPV-C500 (Orange 2G). I had absolutely no intention of taking on a SE W900i as I do not find much time to listen to [personal] music during the day, and my evenings are spent doing all sorts of other stuff. So my own Walkman, MD and MP3 players only see the light of day on holidays or extended breaks. The SE W900i for what it does is therefore pretty much 50% useless to me! Or so I thought.
Kid decides that she wants one of these for Christmas and after a bit of haggling with the parents (me and the Boss) she gets her wish. I placed the order with Vodafone Thursday 8 December 2005 and on Friday 9 December I get an email from them saying they are out of stock, and that I should receive my order within 7 - 10 working days (i.e. right up to 23 Dec!!).
A bit of chasing around without success ensues. Then, on 14 Dec the very nice Mr Postman arrives with an anonymous package. Inside is the W900i, someone is going to be a happy bunny tonight :)
The SE W900i is packaged in a rather flashy plastic carton arrangement, suitable for on the shelf display purposes. Getting into the case is only a matter of breaking a pair of security seals and the lid comes off readily. The internal packaging falls away easily to release the W900i, charger, headset, remote, software and a small pack of manuals, very small!
The phone took around one hour to fully charge up the first time, the battery had a good strong latent charge in it.
Setting up the phone was trivial and I only needed to refer to the manual to find out how to take the back cover off, it was not immediately obvious. From then on, though, it was all plain sailing.
First power-on brings up a configuration utility that gets the Language, Time and Date established in the handset. The menu system on the W900i is highly intuitive and it was a snap finding my way around these. There are a number of shortcuts and specific buttons - this took a short read of a couple of pages of the lightweight manual to find out what they did. Again, once you know they are there, and what for, use is very intuitive.
Using the 2 Megapixel Camera was, as you'd expect by now, was very easy. The menus are clear and easy to use in both stills and video modes. The quality of the images in highest mode are excellent. A nice touch is the way that the SE W900i automatically resizes the image for sending via MMS if you choose to do that. This handset really does do all that it can to make it easy for you to make practical use of it.
Using Vodafone Live! was very polished and slick. The page selections came up very quickly and without any significant delay. Surfing around the "Live! with 3G" portal was quick and easy.
I had to try out Vodafone's streaming TV while its free. Gosh it is good, very good indeed. This implementation knocks the spots off MobiTV/OrangeTV as there is no problem with stalling video and sound. The W900i automatically presents the video in "widescreen" format - this requires you to rotate the handset onto it's side to watch, but this is no problem as the image is so clear and watchable. It is a very nice size too, easy on these old eyes of mine.
This handset is a perfect match for Vodafone "Live! with 3G"
And so now to my dilemma - I want one too! In about half an hour's time the kid takes it off of me!
I always enjoyed using my SE T610 in its day and the W900i feels as comfortable and familiar to use as that did then. I was holding out for the Nokia 6280 - but I'm now seriously considering getting a W900i for my own use instead and leave Nokia for another time altogether.
Decisions, decisions :D