The Sizzling Star : Sony Ericsson W580i
So it was Rakshabandhan the blissful day for all the Indian brothers. I was adamant to gift something special to my sister unlikely the 101 Rs. that we used to give along with celebration pack
.. Recently my cousin brought a HTC Touch , so I thought it would be great if I present my Sister with a new handset since she'd been using her old K750i and was herself planning to get a new phone so I thought this gift would be the best for her.. So lets take a look a of the detailed review of the phone ..
Introduction
Ordering/ Buying
So talked lot now its Judgment time . First I went to the Motorola Showroom.. The guy showed me 4 Models as per my request of mid/high range phone. The guy showed me The Motorol E6 which I rejected at first site. Then Z6 same I did as I did with E6
. Then one another set which I fail to recall and then Razr 2 .. the Razr looks was striking.. Though was good but some how the Clamshell factor never attracted so I left the Moto showroom saying Chodo Moto. My next spot was Sony Ericsson .. though I was interested in Nokia but their filthy shaped obese set diverted my mind to buy one of em'. So I entered SE showroom with great reliance. The Show room guy was friendly and a bit techy asked me what kind of set I am in need of .. So after telling him what I need, he showed me 5 sets namely W810i , S500i,W200, K810i and W580i. Seeing these 5 I got baffled. I rejected W810i saying its damn old and W200i since it has nothing in it.. Left is K810 which personally I love to have for Cam POV but since my Sis.. has no camera ardour so I left that too..
The only thing left is sound quality.. I listened both the phone and finally settled over Se new "W"gun in town i.e W580i .. The phone exquisite looks dazed me. Seeing the gorgeous looks I endorsed it for final approval by Mom. Finally popped up at the Showroom and got the phone
Specification
The phone has decent specs when compared to its nominal price tag
.. So lets take a quick look what are the main/basic features of the phone Announced 2007, March
Status Available
Size Dimensions 99 x 47 x 14 mm
Weight 94 g
Display Type TFT, 256K colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2 inches
- Wallpapers, screensavers
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (72 channels), MP3, AAC
Customization Composer, download, order now
Vibration Yes
Memory Phonebook 1000 contacts, Photo call
Call records 30 received, dialed and missed calls
Card slot Memory Stick Micro (M2), 1 Gb card included
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
HSCSD Yes
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0
Features Messaging SMS, EMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/HTML(NetFront), RSS feeds
Games Yes + downloadable, order now
Colors Style White, Urban Grey, Boulevard Black
Camera 2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels, video(QCIF)
- TrackID music recognition
- Walkman 2.0 music player
- Java MIDP 2.0
- T9
- FM radio with RDS
- Organiser
- Pedometer, calories counter
- Voice memo
- Built-in handsfree
Stand-by Up to 370 h
Talk time Up to 9 h
- Intriguing design at only 14 mm thickness
- Comfortable keypad
- 2" 262K color TFT display with a QVGA resolution
- Light effects
- 2 megapixel camera
- Memory Stick Micro card slot
- Walkman 2.0 music player
- FM radio with RDS
- Bluetooth with A2DP support
- GPRS and EDGE
- Pedometer and fitness application
- Data cable, quality headphones, MPS 60 Speakers. and 1Gb memory card in the package
[BREAK=Features & Accessories]
Features & Accessories
The phone is full of electrifying set of features ..The phone developers have put in lots of effort to make this a new Mobile a complete Juke box .. The phone comes out with the hottest shaking feature.. This feature let one change track just by shaking the phone . Isn't this great.. Ya sounds great but watching my sister practicing this. I was worried that some one is going to get hurt badly :rofl: . Jokes apart really great feature and lets you quickly change track.. Shake in different direction to do backward and forwards of the Music Track
..The phone has old Se exclusive Music Dj, Photo and Video Dj which let user to customize their data into a more vibrant and jazzy style.The next feature is the side light .. This is some what an eye catching feature the lights just get on after you slide up and keeps on changing their colour after regular interval .. The phone packs up in with Calorie Meter , Walkman Options like Flight Mode, ..The flight mode did not support Phone Call thus provide higher backup for Music Playback .
The main eye candy the phone sports is its looks. Acc.. to phone gurus this the hottest slider ever released . Really after my sister opened the box. I was drooling. The games bundled with the phone are 2 in number 1 is similar to tetris blocks type game and other is Sims 2 .
Track Id: - W580i handset has TrackID service similar to that of W610i, the feature allows to find out the song Title when you are hanging on Radio or recording song via Microphone . . Unlike other models,W580i you can not only get song title, but also buy it. Service is interesting , swift and instinctive ability of buying song you were looking for makes this a great feature. It’s hard to say something else about this service. The attempt to boost popularity of this service is natural – the manufacturer has even granted it an own menu item.
- 1 Gb Memory Stick Micro [M2]
- 2.0 Speakers MPS-60
- 1 set of headphones HPM-70
- Compact Disc contain PC suite .
- User Manual.
A Closer Look
The phone packs p with the latest software and options .. So lets take a closer looks at each and every part of the phone ..
Design & size : Design is down to personal preference, But I personally love it....W580 has sprung from a non-music phone: the Sony Ericsson S500. As regards design, the new W580 follows the latest style trends. Shedding weight is obviously on most makers' minds. The phone is very ergonomically built to suits young generation hand.. Though if you have monstrous hand then this baby is not for you.Intriguing design at only 14 mm thickness. This phone is sleek ...The W580i measures up at 99x47x14 mm, weight 94 grams. The device is fairly diminutive to be carried in any desired way.The slop on the front is awesome and provide the Xfactor to the phone ..
Keypad : The phone comes in with all the buttons that were added on earlier W series phone.. The Walkman button on the front . Though it does not allow you to stop/play the music just do the work to Open Main menu and Minimized Media Player ..The Activity Menu is on the left.. The Se special back key and the c button is still retained by this set..The Numeric Keys are concocted with plastic.. and are mounted on horizontal rows.. The Keys seems to be stiff and uneasy by their looks but the touch and feel are contrary to the looks. The number pad is a cinch to use. Though I hardly use it but still its pretty good.All buttons are lit in white, which is well-visible in various environments.
USB : The phone has three mode to be selected when you are connecting via USB.
- Phone Mode
- File Transfer Mode.
- Print Mode.
In Data Transfer Mode user will be allowed to use phone to transfer data to Memory Card only.
The Print mode allows data transfer to both the storage medium.
After you select the mode the phone will restart and then you will be able to do in accordance to the option you have chosen.
Though the phone comes with USB 2.0 but connectivity through USB is hell painful.. Copying 500-600 Mb of songs take 30 mins. the data transfer rate was too low ...
My personal experience with USB was terrible.. Though there was no fault with the M2. The card provide excellent transfer speed ..
Storage Medium : The handset comes equipped with about 18 Mb of user-manageable memory, as well M2 1Gb memory card. You can always swap cards on the go, as long as they don’t exceed 2 Gb in size.
Display : The display shows up to 262 K colors at 240x320 pixel resolution (2 inches diagonal, TFT.). Similar to other sony sets the W580i utilizes mirror layer that improves its readability while in the sun and allows its picture to stay crisp and visible.The display boasts enhanced image sharpness and contrast, the colour are more Vibrant and saturated in this set.
Speakers/ Ear Piece : The Music player is terrific and the sound quality is astounding .. The inbuilt speaker are very loud.. and are very clear though the inbuilt speaker sometime lacks in producing good clarity in few songs but they did laudable job. The High and lows are well produced and the bass too was neatly produced.. The inbuilt speaker though are not really good for regular music listening ..
The phone bundle HPM-70 headphone which are very clear and a great set of ear piece. The sound quality is awesome. I was mesmerized by hearing each and every beat of the instruments so loud and clear.. the bass was very well produced so as Mids and Highs. The ear piece offer replaceable rubber headphone for enhanced listening experience. You can also use your own headset with the standard 3.5 mm audio jack..
The A2DP-enabled Bluetooth makes wireless stereo headphones arguably the best option.The MPS 60 speaker that usually comes with W810i is very loud and produce very good sound quality.
Walkman/Music Player : The entertainment package is dominated by the Walkman® music player compatible with MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA file formats. Tracks are filtered by artist or album. You can choose to list all tracks or create your own playlists. Loop and Shuffle modes are available, as well as a stereo enhancement and equalizer setting. The equalizer offers a Mega Bass function and manual settings. The music player has three color themes (skins): black, gray and orange.The video player works with 3GP and MP4 formats.
Entertainment is enhanced by an FM radio with RDS functionality. It will search automatically and store up to 20 radio stations in you area. The FM radio is only operable with the hands-free connected.
W580i is equipped with a 2 MP camera with a CMOS matrix without auto-focus. The device supports three possible resolutions - 1632x1224, 640x480, 160x120 pixels. Two types of data compression (Normal and Fine) are at your disposal. The majority of the sample photos are in the Fine quality. The photos differ in size almost two times depending on the resolution. Thus a photo in the Normal mode takes up about 300 KB while the Fine quality results in 500-600 KB
- Shutter sound. You can choose on of the three shutter sounds but not turn the sound off.
- White balance. A possibility to choose between an auto-mode, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight.
- Effects. Several effects may be applied to the photos, these are Negative, Solarize, Sepia, Black & White.
- Timer is activated for a certain time period for self shooting.
- Night mode is for shooting in the dark. Noises raise on a photo, exposure time gets increased (you shouldn't move the device in order not to get a blurry photo).
- Shooting mode. Normal mode, that takes ordinary photos. Multishot-mode (Burst 4) allows taking four photos in a series. Landscape is a very interesting mode that allows taking rather fetching photos; the market hasn’t seen anything similar to date yet. The last mode is taking photos with frames, photo resolution is decreased automatically.
Here are few pics taken from this phone in ample light.. The Pictures in Light are very nice and clear ..
Battery : - The back cover fits firmly and very accurately in slot seems like its permanently joint. But removing the cover is pain. One can break the plastic slot if firmly removed.. Removing it reveals a 900 mAh Li-Pol battery. As the maker claims, with this the W580i provides up to 350 hours of standby and up to 9 hours of talk time.W580i claims to provides up to 350 hours of standby and up to 9 hours of talk time. On nominal usage 1 noticed that battery last around 2 and half or 2 days .. On heavy usage it last only half and more than it ...
Performance & Addons
The Se W580i is a good phone with nice response time. . I filled the whole phone and Card Memory but there were no performance drop .. The response time is very good. Low screen resolution, relative to the senior models, has had a positive effect on its performance, the interface seems extremely speedy. There are no limits on JAR-file size, HEAP size – from 512 Kb to 1.5 Mb.
The phone has very good specs which adds to the value of phone.. There are few faults/lack of features.
Addons Se has added few addons link Fitness mode and Light Mode. The Fitness mode was present in W710i too.. the light mode allows you to set different light across the side of keypad ...
Conclusion and Verdict
The funkier look, great features, awesome music playback options, bundled accessories add to the +ve of the phone .. Any 1 looking for mid range sleek slider with plethora of options and gr8 music player should definitely buy this. People searching Cam in Phone should stay away as it has no Auto focus and Flash options.. Though the cam quality is pretty good in Ample light but still can't be neglected when considering a phone for cam.The reception part is in line with other products by the company – in other words, it’s very fine. .At a decent price tag of 13k this phone is really gr8 for those who are looking for complete package at mid end budget :hap2: ..
- Music Player : - 9/10
- Bundled Accessories : - 9/10
- Camera : - 7.5 /10
- Ease Of use :- 8.5/10
- Performance : - 8.5/10
- Overall : - 8.5/10
- Stunning Music Output.
- Bundled Accessories.
- Shake Feature.
- Sleek Look.
- Ease Of Use.
- Response.
- Camera without Auto focus and Flash.
- USB slow data transfer.
- No 3g.
- Bit Overpriced.
Regards Ds.