Simply a stunning piece of industrial design, Sony Ericsson's latest entry into the Walkman range is one of the thinnest 3G mobile phones ever released. The W880i features a sleek, brushed steel face, a 2 megapixel camera, push email support, and a 1GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) - all of this squeezed into a device measuring just 9.4mm thin.
With the W880 Sony Ericsson hopes to have the same success as with previous walkman phones. "Our Walkman phones have proven to be phenomenally attractive to our consumers - we have sold 20 million Walkman phones since launch - and we are continuously developing the portfolio to extend their appeal," says Steve Walker, Head of Product Marketing at Sony Ericsson.
Appearance and design
Dimension: 90 x 47 x 15 mm; weight: 115g.
At 9.4mm, the W880i is possibly Sony Ericsson's slimmest phone so far and ranks among the thinnest 3G candy bars in the cellular market today. The Samsung Ultra Edition 8.4, which is currently one of skinniest 3G candy-bar phones, measures 1mm thinner, but sports a slightly wider and longer footprint.
Despite its thin form factor, the W880i feels solid, thanks to its sturdy construction and stainless steel front cover. The rubberized finish used for the rear casing also provides a firm grip, a thoughtful feature for slim models since there's a greater tendency to slip. Overall, we found the W880i lightweight at 71g and slim enough to slip easily into tight pockets.
Like most Walkman phones, the W880i is designed to stand out from the conventional grey or black handsets with its bright colors. The unit loaned to us, which sports the trademark orange and black tones, will appeal to those who want an eye-catching mobile. Those who fancy more subtlety and elegance will find the silver-grey edition more attractive.
Keypad
Being so compact, the W880i naturally has small controls and buttons. These consist of a five-way navigational pad (with Walkman controls), two selection buttons, back and clear keys and dedicated buttons for Internet and shortcuts. Obviously most would prefer larger keys, but once users are familiar with the phone's interface, they work quite well. The only complaint is with the Internet key; you can bump it accidentally while using the back or selection keys.
The W880i's keypad consists of three clearly defined rows of thin, chrome keys. Although small, they are very responsive, and the generous spacing between keys means that users should be able to achieve reasonable, if not lightning fast messaging speeds. Both the keypad and controls have a bright, white backlight, so using the phone in the dark isn't a roblem. Despite being so thin, Sony Ericsson hasn't failed to include any controls
. Additional buttons
I didn’t like the tiny rocker switch on the right side panel as this requires a bit of dexterity to use for adjusting the volume or zooming into an image
. For all their size, the Walkman and camera buttons on the sides proved surprisingly responsive, possibly because they are single buttons. Sizes, Ports and Slots
The left side of the W880 incorporates the regular Fast port used for charging and for connecting the headset and the USB cable. Just below it still on the same left side one can see the cap of the Memory Stick Micro M2 memory card slot which offers true hot-swap functionality. The Fast port seems a little bit out of place here, and we would have liked it better if it had a cap on.
The SIM card bed is not the usual Sony Ericsson one. The slot is positioned in the bottom part of the battery housing and the SIM card is rather easy to get in or out - just the opposite of the situation with the rest of the Sony Ericsson mobiles.
Display
TFT, 240х320, 262 000 colors
The display measures just 1.8 inches and is capable of showing up to 262 000 colors it uses TFT technology and has QVGA resolutions (240x320 pixels) , it can accommodate up to 8 text and 3 service lines. The quality of the screen is great, all the color are bright and vivid.The display shares the same specs as the K800i,but in real conditions the K800i show a better picture than the W880i because of the 2 inch diagonal.
Camera
2Mpx, Video, ZOOm
The W880i is a 3G phone, so it includes dual cameras - a 2 megapixel camera on the rear for taking photographs and a VGA camera on the front for video calling (which can't be used for taking photos). Unfortunately, the camera doesn't include auto focus or a flash
, but it does have 2.5x digital zoom. Although not suitable for any sort of serious photography, the W880i camera should be enough to keep users happy for the odd photo thanks to panorama, frames and burst shooting modes, night mode, a 10 second self-timer, black and white, sepia and negative effects as well as the ability to adjust white balance.
The W880i can also record video (with sound thanks to the built-in microphone), but its quality is below average at best. Photos can be stored on either the 16MB of internal memory, or the included 1GB Memory Stick Micro (M2).
Menu
The menu is typical for any latest phone from Sony Ericsson.The main menu is composed by 12 icons placed in a grid. You can assign shortcuts to most menu items very easily.If you press the "#" key a list of the available languages pops and you can easily switch between.
The W880i also offers plenty of entertainment options. In addition to the Walkman feature, there is a video player and games, as well as some of Sony Ericsson's proprietary applications such as VideoDJ, PhotoDJ and Music DJ. There's also remote control and sound recording functions as well as Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity, with Sony Ericsson including a USB cable in the sales package, along with the latest version of their PC Suite software. Unfortunately there is no included FM radio. Push email support is a feature of the W880i, and it also offers regular SMS and MMS messaging with T9 predictive text input. The Sony Ericsson email client supports POP3 and IMAP protocols and it is capable of managing several accounts simultaneously. Users can choose to download only headers or headers and text, and the W880i can automatically check for new emails at a preset time.
The key feature of the W880i, however, is still its digital music player which is easily accessible by pressing the tiny Walkman button on the right. It runs the Walkman 2.0 player which can be found on the newer Sony Ericsson handsets such as the W850i and the recently unveiled W660i. The second-generation music player features an updated, more user-friendly interface that allows users to add album clipart and manage playlists. It also adds stereo widening, visualization and skin effects on top of the equalizer and play mode functions. I like that the player allows you to run music in the background while performing other tasks such as SMS texting or surfing the Web
. Imaging
Digital Camera
2.5 x Digital Zoom
Macromedia Flash Lite™
SVG Tiny 1.1
Video Record
Video Player
Video Clip
Video Streaming
Video Call
Picture Blogging
VideoDJ™
Picture Wallpaper
Wallpaper Animation
Messaging
SMS (Text Messaging)
MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
SMS Long
Email
Push Email
Predictive Text
Sound Recorder
Sound
Walkman® 2.0 Music Player
Polyphonic Sound
Music Tones
MusicDJ™
PlayNow™
TrackID™
Mega Bass™
Melody Composer
Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
Entertainment
3D Games
Java™ Games
Organiser
Phone Book
Alarm Clock
Stopwatch
Timer
Business Card Exchange
Calculator
Calendar
Contacts
File Manager
Flight Mode
Notes
Tasks
Conference Calls
Speakerphone
Vibrating Alert
Connectivity
3G
Bluetooth™
Fast Port
GPRS
UMTS
USB
Network
Tri Band Technology (GMS 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900)
UMTS 2100
Internet
Web Browser
RSS Feeds
Memory & Talk Time
16 Mbytes Memory Plus Memory Stick Micro™
Talk Time TBC
Standby TBC
Weight & Size
71 g
103 x 46.5 x 9.4 mm
Pluses
Slim
Attractive design
Solid build quality
1GB memory card
3G
Loud speakers
Minuses
No autofocus and flash
Buttons are too small
No FM radio
Tinny sound quality
Conclusion
The model is due out in the end of March at a price of not less than 400 Euro. The model causes commotion among both women and men – it does catch everyone’s eyes. No one among those, who had a chance to play around with it, has remained indifferent and cold to it, the W880i is a portion of candies for your eyes. This model is a sort of a milestone, which means that it will be successful and demanded on the market.
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