Sony Ericsson W850i tested
October 03, 2006

The new 3G Walkman from Sony Ericsson is above all a master of music. It is also the first slide mobile from the company, where the phone can be slid apart to reveal the keypad. Mobil Magazine has tested it.

Music players in all respect, but to get the epithet master of music an extra effort is needed. The W850 is the first Walkman phone that takes music in the mobile one step beyond ”just” having a good build-in mp3 player.

Still, we will start with the music player itself. It can be reached by pressing a solid orange button straight across the phone below the screen. When the player is started, the orange button is lit. Version 2 of Sony Ericsson's Walkman player has a different graphical look, and it feels like Sony Ericsson has improved the sound quality when comparing listening to the same song in W850 to the older W800. It has a somewhat broader sound with a better depth, even if the difference is subtle.

The player works in a logical and simple way. The songs are sorted according to artist, album, song name and play lists. A new feature is that when the songs are sorted according to album, the album cover is also displayed. There is also an option to sort according to music genre, like jazz or classic. That information is stored in the ID3 tag, for instance when you are ripping music files from a CD.

Track-ID is magic

The music player is still similar to the ones in the earlier Walkman mobiles. The differences are definitely larger in other places than in the player itself.

Track-ID is the almost magic feature that records a few seconds from a song off the phone's radio or from some other source. When the phone has been recording for a few seconds, it sends the sample to the huge Gracenote database. In return, you get the data available on that track, artist, alum cover and song information.

The idea is that the mobile operator will also provide a link to an online music store to allow for purchasing the track directly from the mobile web browser.

This undoubtedly takes mobile music one step further. For the downloading of songs to work smoothly it was a necessity to make the W850 a 3G phone. The phone also supports OMA DRM 2.0, a standard for digital rights management used by online music stores.

The included headphones are of the in-ear type that can be plugged straight into the ear. If you would rather use other headphones that is also possible. The headset cord is divided. There is a 3.5-millimeter slot in the middle of it for your favourite headphones.

As mentioned, the music player is started by a press on the orange button below the screen. After having started the music, one more push on the button minimizes the musicplayer, allowing you to use the phone for other things while the music is pumping away in the headphones.

Immediately below the screen there is a set of other buttons to control the phone. In the middle just below the screen there is a kind of trackpad. In the middle there is a selection button that will also start and stop the music. Around it there is a pressure sensitive area to navigate the menus, up, down, left and right.



These pushbuttons to steer one's way through the menus are unfortunately sluggish and answer poorly to key pushes. It is not a particularly good ergonomic solution compared to other trackpads. Since the menu navigation is something there is a great need for, this clearly brings down the grade for an otherwise good and innovative mobile phone.

Web browser with zoom

Among the control buttons below the screen, there is also a quick access button to the web browser. It is a good Netfront web browser. A small inconvenience at the beginning was that the high resolution screen made the text on the web pages so small that it was hardly possible to read. Luckily, there is also a zoom function allowing adjustment of the text size. By zooming to 180 per cent it was possible to get reasonably sized characters.

In addition to the web reader, the W850 also includes the Sony Ericsson RSS reader, making it possible to subscribe to RSS feeds. For those of us used to consuming news this way, this is a great plus!

The W850 has double cameras. There is a simpler camera on the front side for video calls. On the flip side, there is a 2 mega pixel camera, but without auto focus. The images are okay, but not at all as good as on phones equipped with auto focus. Light and colour also feel good, and the phone handles weak light indoors well.



Images and video clips can of course be sent via MMS to other phones and web addresses. The function to create an MMS has been greatly improved. By clicking on small icons in the lower part of the screen, it is quite easy to add images, sound clips and videos.

On the whole, Sony Ericsson has improved their messaging functions quite substantially lately. The entire inbox is well-arranged with small icons showing which messages have been answered or forwarded. The e-mail has also been subject to a graphical make-over and works flawlessly. However, it is not possible to open mail attachments.

The address book also sets a good example. All the contacts are sorted in a list, and by clicking through from right to left in the list, I can get hold of different phone numbers and e-mail addresses without opening the complete contact. By clicking on the selection button, all the contact data is displayed. It is also possible to enter a lot of other data on each contact, like a picture that appears when a person is calling, or the contact's birthday. It is also possible to enter a special ring signal for the contact.

Good syncing capabilities

Included in the cardboard box is also Sony Ericsson's PC Suite program and a USB sync cable for PC connectivity. It also works fine to connect the phone wirelessly via Bluetooth to synchronize all the contacts, the calendar and notes from Microsoft Outlook. Five numbers can be stored for each contact. The maximum number of contacts is 1,000.

The W850 is most of all a really good music mobile. Besides the Walkman player and the Track-ID feature, there is also a program called Music Mate included in the phone. It consists of an electronic tuning-fork, a metronome to keep the right pace, and a superb function showing guitar chords - really useful for all of us who like to both practice and listen to music!

Images

By: Jonas Kämpe, Linus Brohult

	Sony ericsson W850i (Orange)	40 GBP
	Contract Duration: 18 Months. Phone features include: camera, MP3 player, FM radio, 3G video calling..
	Carphone Warehouse
	Sony ericsson W850i (Orange)	119.99 GBP
	Contract Duration: 12 Months. Phone features include: camera, MP3 player, FM radio, 3G video calling..
	Carphone Warehouse
	Sony ericsson W850i (Orange)	30 GBP
	Contract Duration: 18 Months. Phone features include: camera, MP3 player, FM radio, 3G video calling..
	Carphone Warehouse
	Sony Ericsson W850i W850 Original G..	5.99 GBP
	Data Kits LTD
	Sony ericsson W850i (T-Mobile)	40 GBP
	Contract Duration: 18 Months. Phone features include: camera, MP3 player, FM radio, 3G video calling..
	Carphone Warehouse

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