Sony Ericsson W610i Review

In my opinion all the Walkman phones by Sony Ericsson, like the W880i are great portable music players. The latest addition — the W610i — is no different, although we have had some unusually bad experiences with the piece we got for review. I’ll talk about those later however. Although I’ll also mention here that after getting it replaced we observed some rather unwelcome behavior.

Design

At first glance, the phone casts a lasting impression.

It’s a sleek and elegant piece of work. At 102 x 46 x 14 mm and just 93 g it’s not just appealingly slim, but also comfortably light.

The display is a 262K colored TFD (Thin Film Diode) supporting 176×220 pixels. Although TFD is a far more ancient a technology than TFT, it helps burns less battery power than the latter making it ideal. Although TFD screens have a fast enough refresh rate, it still can’t beat a TFT screen.

The keys on this one will need a lot of getting used to. The keypad has tiny protruding keys that, with my moderately plump fingers, pose a bit of a challenge. While typing messages you will often end up hitting the surrounding keys and after a lot of jabbing, the keys will begin to hurt your fingers.

The four-way D-pad is a circular ridge that works fine, and can also be assigned as shortcut. On either side of the D-pad are the regular - back, select, cancel and menu buttons. Just a small thought about these buttons — they are bit of a hassle. To begin with, they aren’t comfortable to press, considering the protruding nature. And the fact that they are designed with a semi-circular shape, leaves you with more surface space to long for.

On the same side, below the play/pause button is the Memory slot that houses Sony’s proprietary M2 stick (Memory Stick Micro). And at the bottom the earphone/charging/USB slot. I have spoken about this on many previous occasions — it’s a very inconvenient and annoying feature to have a shared slot. I can’t listen to music or talk using the earphones while it’s charging. A total handicap!

The camera and the volume/zoom keys are on the right hand side. At the back, you will find the camera, the loudspeaker and two flash LEDs. All good here!!

Performance

Now that we’re on the subject, let me tell you that the first piece that we got wouldn’t show up on any of the computers here, obviously a problem with the USB. Also the ear-piece of the handset got spoilt. Yes! at the same time. So the only way to talk was through the hands-free. So we got it replaced.The second piece had no connectivity issues, but the battery acts up a lot. Despite a full charge it lasts only for half an hour (or less) every time I took it out for use (be it music or talking over the phone). I’m sure this is a problem with the piece, but having gone through this twice, doesn’t speak in favour of the phone.

The UI of the phone is simple and first time users will not find it very difficult to adjust to the W610i. The menu icons look brilliant; in fact with the choices of themes available, you can apply these to suit your attitude and style. The gSharp theme in particular is my favorite —it only illuminates the current icon in white and blackens the rest of the screen. The phone also quivers every time you move from one icon to the other. I like it!

The W610i doesn’t have anything new to offer from… let’s say the W880, but does have everything you would normally require from a phone. It has an inbuilt memory of 80MB. The phone also offers a wide range of connectivity options — Bluetooth with A2DP support, Infrared and EDGE. The Sony Ericsson W610i comes with many every day features, which include an alarm clock, calendar, calculator, task list, notes, business card exchange, stopwatch & timer.

The W610i doesn’t have anything new to offer from… let’s say the W880, but does have everything you would normally require from a phone. It has an inbuilt memory of 80MB. The phone also offers a wide range of connectivity options — Bluetooth with A2DP support, Infrared and EDGE. The Sony Ericsson W610i comes with many every day features, which include an alarm clock, calendar, calculator, task list, notes, business card exchange, stopwatch & timer.

Media

Considering the phone is aimed as a one-pick solution to a mobile phone and a media player, the 610i does pretty well in this category. The music output, although not very loud, is still one of the best I have heard in mobile phones. What gives the music player that additional boost is the bundled earphones. The earphones go right into the ear (can be really irritating if it doesn’t go well with you), and blocks out unnecessary sound. This enhances the clarity, although using these with any other loud music players can damage your eardrums.

If you don’t like the proprietary earphones, you can use any 3.5mm ones. This is another feature about this phone that really appeals to my liking. Even though you are required to plug the cable into the earphones slot, it has a 3.5mm jack on the other end, which can be used with earphones. Great! The player is simple and offers a lot of built-in presets, including Sony’s trademark Megabass.

The phone also has the TrackID feature that is free of cost. You can record a song using the voice recorder and using this feature you can access the Gracenote database and get information regarding the song. You will need to have GPRS activated obviously.

The loudspeaker of the phone is what I would call ‘LOUD’. At times it is irritatingly loud, but it doesn’t jar. It keeps the sanctity of the music coming out of it intact, and you can even feel the lows a little bit. Also for people who are planning to buy this phone primarily for the music player, I would say go ahead. To supplement your musical needs, the phone comes bundled with a pair of speakers. They are tiny and useful only for a small room, but I’m impressed with the output. The sound is clear, and when we used it in a quiet room, all the frequencies were well defined. You can’t obviously use it to blast music.

Camera / Battery

The W610’s 2.0 megapixel camera, in my opinion, is bad. Pictures taken during daylight seem to be slightly overexposedand the colors are just average.

The camera is below par with it’s night mode. The only good thing about this camera is that it has an auto focus feature. All in all, not a great camera, but use-able! Nighttime shooting is supported with two flash LEDs, and I have to admit, the flash rocks.

The phone comes equipped with a Li-Polymer battery. Obviously, we weren’t able to assess the life of the battery, because it kept giving up on me every half an hour of usage. We didn’t replace this one, because it was already a replacement piece, the first one having already given us connectivity issues. But if I were to make a judgment based on the older piece I’d say you wont have to worry as the old one’s battery lasted for a little over 2 days with normal usage (music, calls, messages and EDGE). So if you’re lucky enough to get a good piece you should be okay.

Conclusion / Specs

The phone looks good, but doesn’t feel right. I’m referring to the badly designed buttons of course. There is really nothing new that the phone offers, with regards to any other phone in its category, save the music quality. To attest this, you can check the accessories when you open the box. It supports all the latest technologies with regards to connectivity, but I have my doubts in relying on the USB. The phone has it’s own handicaps, like the shared slot and the just plain average camera. In my opinion, unless you’re a die-hard Sony Ericsson fan, this is not what you should pick. Charging Rs. 15,350 for W610i, in my opinion, is not worth it