The W980's 3.2-megapixel camera shoots photos in four sizes and two quality settings. Other options include three color effects, a night mode, white balance and brightness adjustments, a digital zoom (usable only at the VGA resolution), 16 frames, and four shutter sounds, plus a silent option. There's also a self-timer, a multishot mode, and an option for taking panoramic shots. The camcorder takes clips with sound and offers a set of editing options similar to the still camera. Clips meant for multimedia messages are capped at 20 seconds; otherwise you can shoot for as long as the memory permits. The W980 comes with PhotoDJ and VideoDJ applications, and you can connect the phone directly to a photo printer and upload photos to a blog. Photo quality was just OK. Colors were natural and we had enough light, but smaller images were slightly blurry. And, as previously mentioned, we'd prefer to have a flash
You can personalize the W980 with a variety of themes, wallpaper, screensavers, and clock styles. Some of the themes also support control vibrations as you navigate menus. As always, you can purchase more options and ringtones from Sony Ericsson via the WAP 2.0 Web browser. Alternatively, the phone comes with a Music DJ application for composing your own ringtones. Gamers can enjoy seven Java (J2ME) titles, Sudoku, Need for Speed, and Lumines Block Challenge, with additional titles available for purchase.
Performance
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) Sony Ericsson W980 world phone in San Francisco using T-Mobile service. Call quality was quite decent in most respects. The volume was loud and the signal and voice clarity was respectable. At times, the audio sounded a bit harsh on our end, but it wasn't too bothersome. We could hear well in noisy environments and the phone didn't pick up excessive background noise.
On their end, callers said we sounded fine. They could tell we were using a cell phone, but that's a common experience. A few had trouble hearing us when we were calling from a loud place but that could very well be a problem on their end. Automated calling systems could understand us most of the time.
Speakerphone calls were quite decent, thanks to the loud output of theW980's twin speakers. Voices were a bit muffled, which is to be expected, but the clarity was respectable on the whole. Callers could hear us, as long as we were speaking close to the phone. Call quality with a Bluetooth headset was fine as well.
The W90 supports EDGE and 3G service. Yet, it supports only the 2100 band (UMTS and HSDPA), which works exclusively outside North America.
The W980 menus are rather sluggish, particularly under certain theme settings. It wasn't a big distraction, but it was noticeable, indeed. A bigger problem was that the W980 took almost 30 seconds to completely start up. That is the time from when we pressed the power button to the handset being ready for use. We're not sure why it took so long, but it was annoying.
The W980's music quality is up to the usual Sony Ericsson Walkman standards. Even on the phone's external speakers, our tunes were sharp and clear with a decent range. Deep bass is lacking when using the speakers, so we suggest a headset for the best experience. The W980 also comes with an audio cable for connecting the phone to a stereo speaker to better blast your tunes.
The W980 has a rated battery life of 9 hours talk time and 15.42 days standby time. The W980 has a tested talk time of 8 hours and 40 minutes. According to FCC radiation tests, the W980 has digital SAR rating of 0.67 watt per kilogram.
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