Music capacity is limited by the available memory, but internal space is just 20MB--skimpier than we would have liked for a media phone and less than both the W600i and the W800i. And keep in mind, it's shared with other applications, so your actual storage space may be less. We recommend investing in a Memory Stick for extra space. Our test phone came with a 512MB card, but the slot can accommodate the newer 4GB Memory Sticks. What's more, we liked that you could see separate lists for files saved to the phone and the memory card. Fortunately, you can set tracks as ring tones. You can send tunes via e-mail, multimedia message, Bluetooth, or infrared port. You also get an FM radio with 20 presets, though you must use it with a headset (which acts as an antenna). You can set it to automatically scan and program Radio Data System info from stations that digitally broadcast their names and call letters, and you can use the radio as an alarm clock.
Though it has a 2-megapixel camera, the W810i takes pictures in just three sizes: 1,632x1,224, 640x480, and 160x120. As with the W800i, we expected more choices. That said, other options are plentiful. There are Normal, Panoramic, Frames, and Burst shoot modes; a 4X digital zoom; autofocus; a macro setting for close-up shots; night mode; a flash; a time-and-date stamp; a self-timer; Black and White, Negative, Sepia, and Solarize picture effects; white-balance settings; Normal and Fine picture-quality modes; and four shutter sounds, though no silent option. We especially liked that you can use the zoom at the highest resolution.
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 editing features similar to the still camera's. To further channel your inner artist, activate the W810i's Photo DJ, 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. There's also a Video DJ, and if that doesn't satisfy, there are more picture, video, and multimedia editing options on the software CD, including QuickTime and Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. When finished with your shots, you can save them to the phone or send them to 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.
You can personalize the W810i with a variety of themes, wallpaper, and screensavers. As always, you can purchase more options and ring tones from Sony Ericsson via the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. Alternatively, the phone comes with a Music DJ application for composing your own ring tones. Gamers can enjoy two Java (J2ME) titles, QuadraPop and JC Does Texas, with additional titles available for purchase. We were disappointed, though, that the W810i lacks the gaming controls found on the W600i.
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Sony Ericsson W810i world phone in San Francisco using the Cingular network. Overall call quality was satisfactory, but we noticed static and patchiness on more than one occasion. While the random fade-outs didn't last more than a second or two and could be related to the network, the phone's audio performance didn't quite measure up to that of its Walkman phone brethren. On their end, callers didn't report problems, but they could tell we were using a cell phone. On the upside, however, there was plenty of volume.Speakerphone calls were about the same, with a slight echo effect, but the volume level was surprisingly loud, even when the speaker sat face down on a table. We successfully paired the W810i with the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset for acceptable audio quality. We also used Bluetooth to connect to the Sony Ericsson W600i and easily passed photos between the two handsets. The EDGE connection was sufficiently speedy for transferring small files, but game downloads took a couple of minutes.
Using the included Disc2Phone software and USB cable (which also charges the phone), we tried loading 40.4MB of music on to our W810i. Transfer time was relatively slow at 3 minutes, 20 seconds for the entire selection, so you'll be in for a wait if you're trying to move your entire music library. Moreover, while the software was easy to set up and had a simple interface, it wasn't without its quirks. For instance, when exiting the software after transferring some music, the W810i didn't recognize that the USB transfer was no longer active. And when we disconnected the USB cable, the phone froze for a few seconds. On the PC side, it prompted us for a driver every time we plugged in the phone. Though we didn't need to reinstall the software with each use, it was a bit annoying. Criticisms aside, music quality was on a par with that of other Walkman phones: clear and crisp, though one transferred song had some very minor hiccups. The W810i won't replace a stand-alone MP3 player, but it does the job admirably for short stints.
The Sony Ericsson W810i has a rated talk time of eight hours and a promised standby time of 14.6 days. In our tests, however, we got a little more than six hours of talk-time battery life and 12 days of standby time. According to the FCC, the W810i has a digital SAR rating of 1.04 watts per kilogram.
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Where to buy
Sony Ericsson W810i (AT&T):
$200.00
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