Review: Sony Ericsson W810
Form
Basics
Extras
Video
Wrap-up
Comments 42
Is It Your Type
Body
Three S's
Apr 20, 2006, 12:16 AM by Eric Lin
In-depth review of the new Sony Ericsson W810 Walkman phone. with Video Tour.
When the W800 Walkman phone was released last year, no American carrier picked it up, despite the fact that it was a vast improvement in every way over their last high end model here, the S710. It had better battery life, a better camera and a better music player. But it didn't include the 850 band or EDGE.
The W810 is everything Americans (and more importantly, American carriers) wished the W800 would be. It combines all the best features of the W800 and W600 into a small, stylish candybar. With this best-of-all-worlds approach, the W810 is far too versatile to name one group of users that it is best for. Shutterbug? Check. The W810 has the same 2 Megapixel auto-focus camera as the W800. Music lovers? Check. Walkman software for the phone and PC and a nice stereo headset make listening to music a pleasure. People who want an easy-to-use smartphone? Check. Decent email and web applications - plus the power to run many third party Java applications other phones choke on, like ShoZu or Opera Mini - give the W810 a smartphone feel without complicated smartphone software.
The W810 is a great phone for a variety of people, but we can think of two groups of users who still should look elsewhere for their dream handset: people who just want a basic phone to make calls, and data-centric users who care more about email and browsing than taking pictures, playing music or other diversions.
Editor's Note: Because the W810 shares the same software as the W600, some sections of this review have been copied from our review of the W600 with only minor changes to reflect bug fixes or additional features added to the W810. Those sections are: Calls / Contacts, Messaging, Browse / Customize, and Other.
Sync with Gmail ?
I use gmail calender day in day out. I cant live without it. I cant remember my appointments without it! It is basically and unemployed person's Outlook, Lotus Notes, or whatever u may wanna call it. Can I sync my gmail calender to my phone and import my schedule to my phone ?
Flash menus
Hello,
Does anyone was able to use the Orbit theme with the Flsh menus(Orbit.swf). That makes the menus like a PSP...
If anyone have that .swf file please let me know.
Thanks
🙂 🙂 🙂
Text Messaging Alert? anyone w/ phone can u please answer
I used to own a T616 a long time ago. One thing I disliked about that phone was that if I received a text message and didn't open it, then if a 2nd message came through, I wouldn't get a tone/vibrate alert until I had opened the previous message. Is this still the case? I send/receive a lot of text messages so this is important to me. If anyone with the phone already can let me know, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
FM Radio
Does the FM radio require a headset to work?
Yes, the headset cord acts as the antenna.
Infrared Abilities & Video Formats
Very comprehensive review, kudos! 🤤
Can you tell me more about the IR features,
does it control/learn other common IR Sony
devices like TVs, DVD players, Home HiFi, etc?
If not, what does the IR work with?
When loading videos onto the Pro Duo cards
can it play back .mpg .avi .wmv files? And
is there a 220x176 limit on video size, or
does it just condense to fit on screen?
Anyone have feedback please help, thanks!
Is that 20 Years of Dischord I see??
Nice choice of tunes.. all 3 discs
about the dropping calls...
you guys said that the phone dropped calls on the tmobile network, so then that must be a software glitch correct? i'm planning to get this phone pretty soon & i'm on the tmobile network, so will i be able to fix that once they get shipped to the us and have fixed that problem?
Coming to T-Mobile USA?
Rich or Eric, is this coming to T-Mobile USA, or was the display saying T-Mobile just from the SIM card?
that is not some clue about a forthcoming carrier. in fact, you'll notice t-mobile doesn't sell any sony ericsson phones. while it hasn't been confirmed, it's highly unlikely this will come to TMO. but you can always buy one unlocked and use it with t...
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From http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id =1859986
"At our press time, Sony Ericsson hadn't announced a carrier for the W810i, but we're confident Cingular will pick it up. The W810i will sell for $499 unlocked, or $249 to $299 with a contr...
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according to some of cingular's data staff the W810i and W300 are most likely be the next SE's besides the Z525a to hit the market for cingular. of course it's all rumour but this is the same staff that has had cingular branded v3i for the past 2 mon...
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It's coming to Cingular late this year. No news yet with T-mobile...
no psp menu icons... /;|
I really liked the menu icons I saw in the preview and was really diappointed to see them not change between themes once I got my phone. Any idea why? Did the preview phone you guys got have some newer firmware/OS on it than the one that shipped with my phone? Or is my service provider just a lamo that tweaked the default setting to pix it to one set of icons so that they can have their own crap on the menu (Rogers Mall). I'm with Rogers. What did other Rogers customers and folk with other service providers experience?...
Wrote Sony Ericsson with this question and got a really quick response (!).
They said that the phone does have that feature (changing icons), but the PSP icon theme doesn't ship with it. Do you guys still have the phone used for the demo? If so, ...
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Hi I need a phone that will play I-Tunes encoded music in your video you stated that this phone will
Hi I need a phone that will work with I-Tunes. In your video you stated that this phone will. Further you mentioned it will play apples AAC files. If so I will buy it, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Could you confirm this capability. Other wise I will have to get the Razr V3i to play my I-Tunes because they are AAC encoded. The Razr V3i seems to have less capabilities as compared to the w810. I realize the w810 may not work directly in I-Tunes but being able to play AAC songs would be huge. As I have invested a lot of money in my music and caring around one less item is what I'm after.
Regards
Sony Ericsson say that it plays AAC on heir website. That probably good confirmation of what was said in the preview here.
HEY RICH OR ERIC SERIOUS BLUETOOTH QUESTION!
i own both the s710a and w600i. transitioning from s710a to w600i didn't go very well for me because 2 main factors SCREEN SIZE and BLUETOOTH. my s710's bluetooh allows me to manipulate which folder i wish to take bluetooth transferable files from and the w600i doesn't. for example: i can tap into my moto v557 with my 710 and it shows 3 folders audio, video, and pics. out of the 3 i can choose one and take a file from my motorola without having to force the moto to send it. as long as their was approved connection from the moto. now with the w600i i've noticed i can send from and recieve but i can not TAKE or TAP INTO (for lack of better word) a folder from any bluetooth device i sync to the w600i. do any of you guys know if the W810 will al...
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Media Player
On the SE site, I was looking at the specs on W810i and it stated it had a media player. But so did the specs on the W600i, but I can't upload movies from my pc to my W600i, does the W810i support movie downloads like the Nokia 6682's Media players.
in the video review we play back a movie that we transcoded on our pc and copied over.
Camera compared to MM-A800 2MP/Auto-Focus?
Just curious...
I second that. Something tells me it's comparable, but not better than the MM-A800. And they said the flash was the brightest of any camera phone in the U.S.? Again, I'd have to see a side-by-side with both phones cameras.
dolo
Apr 21, 2006, 7:44 PM
Watch Video Horizontally?
Eric & the rest of the PS squad.
As usual, great review. Your continued thoroughness and updates are awesome for the community. Thanks again.
Question is: would it be possible, to watch videos in a horizontal format? For ex: when taking pictures the camera shows on screen in a wide screen format.
I am curious if there is an option to watch videos in vertical as well as horizontal format.
Also, could you comment on web browsing as well as overall gprs/edge speed on the device?
Regards,
dolo
One other point I forgot to include 🙂
I am having a serious debate between this or the ROKR E2 as a non-pda based phone.
I would love your take on this scenario if you wouldn't mind Eric.
Regards,
dolo
when will it be available?
does anyone know around when this phone will be avaliable, and a price? and is there any date info on the K790?
W600i or W810???
OK...so I had a W600 for 4 days before the dreaded "white screen of death" happened. I've been waiting for cingular to go through with the SE W810 for over a month already. I just wanted to know if its worth the wait, or just to go back with with the w600i with the upgraded firmware. I've been using my antique nokia 7210 in the meantime, since I smashed my S710a. I miss my sony ericssons!!
I would totally wait for the sony ericcson w810.
FM Radio
Hey, am i just missing this in the article? But dosen't this phone have a radio? If it does, how well did it work?
It does, and it will work great.
multitasking OS?
i read somewhere(i think it was the SE page) that this could do 3 diferent tasks at a time, the example they give was showing the phone with a game, they press a button and it takes them to a text message, they press it again and it takes em to the music player, they press it again and they go back to the game almost instantly
sorry if my other message was not very readable but I was using opera on a motorola v551 and it is really painfully slow when typing a lot of text, well my computer seems to finally run smooth so I'm just gonna make clear what I meant on the other mes...
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Nice Review!
very informative, as always 🙂
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Sony Ericsson W810
