The new Sony Ericsson W980 is the latest and one of the best (so far) walkman-mobile phones by this manufacturer.
Intro:
Sony Ericsson W980 is not on the market yet, get when it hits the shelves it will be for sure worth looking upon. The camera has 8 GB of internal memory (but no card slot), touch-sensitive keys, really god battery life, nice sound system and shake control. Apart from that it has all the functions that a mobile phone should have and some interesting ones that are not so necessary, but add to the general impression.
The design:
The Sony Ericsson W980 is not a bug mobile phone, it’s only 92 x 46 x 16.9 mm and weighs 100 grams. The design of W980 is attractive and it is made of high quality materials, so it seems that it will be quite durable. The phone has two displays, the main one inside and a secondary display on the front panel. The secondary display is useful for managing the music, but more on that in the nest section. The secondary screen displays the info in 262K colors and has the resolution of 176 x 176 pixels. Below it are 7 touch-sensitive keys, the music player controls. The main display has 2.2-inch, QVGA resolution and interesting looks. Above it you will find secondary, video-call camera. Below the main display is the keypad which is comfortable to use, apart from the dedicated keys which are a bit too small and may be difficult to use for people with larger hands. Sony Ericsson W980 has two built-in good quality speakers which assure great sound quality. At the back there is the 3 megapixel camera lens, but no flash.
Performance:
Apart from the obvious telephone functions Sony Ericsson W980 has a lot more to offer. Making phone calls is easy with the large phonebook, but what is most probably more interesting to the majority of Sony Walkman phones are the Walkman features. Sony Ericsson W980 comes with several predefined equalizer presets and a dedicated key to launch the music player. You can control the music player without opening the phone, just by using the secondary display. The touch-sensitive keys serve this purpose really well. And when you add to it the shake control function and volume control on the right side of the phone, it is really all that you should need. And if you do need anything else it is probably radio, but do not worry Sony Ericsson W980 comes with a built-in FM radio which suports RDS and memory for 20 stations.
The next quite important feature of Sony Ericsson W980 is the built in camera. It is placed at the back of he phone but in a slightly uncomfortable place. Moreover, it lacks autofocus and even flash. But when you don’t need those functions the 3 megapixel camera which takes photos in 2048 x 1536 resolution. Unfortunately the camera does not have a dedicated button, so it may take a while to turn it on. The camera can also record videos. In the pre-release version inly in QVGA at 15fps, but it can still be improved before the Sony Ericsson W980 hits shelves.
Menus / user friendliness:
There are four different settings of layout of the menus in Sony Ericsson W980. The standard one is a 4 x 3 grid, but you can easily switch to a different one. The Sony Ericsson W980 can operate in Flight Mode, but t requires a reboot, and a SIM card has to be inserted. The user interface looks really attractive and works smoothly. The phonebook allows you to save up to a 1000 contacts and up to 7 phone numbers per contact. Additionally, you can add a birth date to each contact, assign a picture and a ringtone.
All in all, the phone is really attractive, but as always it has certain disadvantages. Among the most important ones are lack of autofocus and flash in the camera, unfortunate lens location and the fact that the price is not yet known.
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