Sony Ericsson W800i

Reviewed by

Kent German

on 10/07/2005

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Page 2

Say cheese: The W800i's camera rivals stand-alone snappers.

The Sony Ericsson W800i's powerful camera comes with an amazing range of features, but it takes pictures in just three sizes (1632x1224, 640x480, and 160x120); we expected more choices from such a high-quality camera. Criticisms aside, other options include four shoot modes (Normal, Panoramic, Frames, and Burst), a 4X digital zoom, an autofocus, a macro setting for close-up shots, a night mode, a flash, a time and date stamp, a self-timer, four picture effects (Black and White, Negative, Sepia, and Solarize), white-balance settings, and two picture-quality modes (Normal and Fine). The MPEG-4 video recorder takes clips with sound to any length that the available RAM will permit. There's a choice of two resolutions--176x144 and 128x96--and a choice of editing features similar to the still camera's. To further channel your inner artist, activate the W800i's PhotoDJ (there's also a VideoDJ), where you can add one of six fun frames; rotate the shot's orientation; and use various image effects such as brightness, contrast, tint control, and photo marking. And if that doesn't satisfy, there are more picture, video, and multimedia editing options on the software CD. When finished with your shots, you can save them to the phone or send them to your friends. Photo quality was quite good for a camera phone, with sharp colors and little of the blurriness that we usually encounter. Videos, on the other hand, were choppy and pixelated.

We like the W800i's photo quality.

Our test Sony Ericsson W800i shipped with two Java (J2ME) games: PuzzleSlider and QuadraPop. You can personalize the handset with a selection of wallpaper, themes, start-up screens, or screensavers. You can always download more personalization options and more ring tones if you want them, or you can create your own ring tones with the MusicDJ application.

We tested the triband (GSM 900/1800/1900) Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman world phone in San Francisco using Cingular's calling network. Call quality was good, with fine clarity and volume. Although callers could tell we were using a cell phone, the signal remained relatively strong, and we had little interference from other electronic devices. Occasionally, callers sounded hollow on our end, but it wasn't anything that bothered us. Be advised, however, that Cingular primarily uses the 850 band in the United States. On the other hand, T-Mobile concentrates on the 1900 band. As a result, coverage with Cingular will vary depending on your location.

Calls using the speakerphone diminished slightly in quality, which isn't anything out of the ordinary on a cell phone. We tried using the W800i with the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset and were able to pair the two devices quickly; plus, the sound quality was good throughout calls.

Using the included Disc2Phone software and USB cable, we tried loading 40.4MB of music on to the phone. Transfer time was relatively slow at 3 minutes, 30 seconds for the entire selection. The software itself, however, is easy to use, and we were up and running in no time. Music quality compared quite well to the Motrotola Rokr E1's and was much better than that of most MP3 phones we've tested. Still, it won't please as much as a stand-alone MP3 player.

The Sony Ericsson W800i has a rated talk time of 9 hours and a promised standby time of 16.5 days. In our tests, we got 8 hours of talk time on a single charge. Music-only time is rated at 30 hours; although we made it to 23 hours in our tests, that's still respectable. According to FCC radiation tests, the W800i has a digital SAR rating of 0.57 watts per kilogram.