Sony Ericsson W600i / W550i
Phone Scoop Review
Jan 18, 2006 by Eric Lin
In-depth review of the new Sony Ericsson W600 Walkman phone for Cingular. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
This phone is different but fun
Ive owned this phone for two weeks now and I still really like this phone. It took some getting use to but was easy to pick up and find out how to work the different functions without reading the instructions. Ive overall had good reception with this phone. I have Cingular and Im in the southern California region zip code 91737. The camera is really well implemented, it takes good pics if ur in good lightig conditions. The fm radio is also really good its like listening to the radio in the car.
Pros
good screan 262k
faceplates(orange/blue) more comming out soon
good keypad(atleast for me
camera
The phone shows up as a mass storage drive on the pc
Cons
sometimes my signal fluctuates from four bars to one. and when it gets tyo the red I have to wait till my signal comes back before I can make a call or text.
web browser not all pages come up and a error message appears and sometimes boots me off the web.
usb 1.1(kinda slow)
whats neutral is the memory that comes with the phone. I have bout 55 songs that are about 5 hours of music. I also have a 512mb mp3 player so the memory is not that bad for me.
very nice...
So its been two weeks that i've had the w600i and i have to say that it's not bad at all. Everyone says the orange cover looks funky but i think its looks cool. ok, so here goes nothin...
PROS:
-beautiful screen
-loud speaker (both ringers and speakerphone)
-excellent bluetooth speed (45K/sec to my laptop to transfer ringers and such)
-very fast GUI
-outlook synchs flawlessly with the phone
-theme support is awesome
-reception is great in the LA area (definately better than the RAZR i had)
-EDGE data speeds are decent
-1.3 megapixel camera
i'm sure i forgot something
CONS:
-camera doesnt do nearly as well as my nokia 6230 did with low-light pictures/videos
-browser doesnt load large pages without cutting them off and giving an error that theyre too big
-the games are all demo versions
-theres not a way to delete all text messages at once or to have the phone automatically overwrite them
overall the phone is great... don't get me wrong. i wish the camera took better low light pictures though... i take a good amount of them and the nokia 6230 worked WONDERS. that thing took pictures when there was practically no light and not even blurry! oh well... maybe next time!
Great phone, but would be Excellent with a memory card slot
Sony Ericsson w600i
Design
This is the second swivel phone from Sony Ericsson, the first being the s710a. The swivel makes it slightly awkward to use, especially with one hand. But, you only need the keypad to input numbers or type something (like text message or memo, etc) so you can do without opening the phone most of the time. The bright orange faceplate is very eyecatching...which can be both a good and bad thing. Thankfully, theres a navy blue faceplate in the box (Cingular branded version, not sure about unbranded versions). It has a nice weight too it, not too light, but not too heavy. Construction is solid. No creaky plastic or anything. the swivel clicks in place solidly, and the phone just feels very well put together.
Features
This phone has pretty much everything you can think of. The 1.3 megapixel camera is better than most phone cameras. It didnt come with many ringtones, but who would use the stock ringtones when you can use MP3 ringtones? This phone also has EDGE high speed data, and quadband GSM 850/900/1800/1900 makes it truely a world phone. The Walkman music player application is great and easy to use. Some other features include speakerphone, bluetooth and infrared.
Battery Life
In a word, its great. I used it a lot yesterday, listening to music (two full albums--connected to external speakers), radio, taking pictures, and making several calls. At the end of the day, it still had 63% battery life left.
Call Quality
Call Quality is excellent. Of course, this is assuming you're in an area with good reception. Voices dont sount "tinny" like on many phones. Calls were clear and earpiece volume is pretty loud.
Overall Opinion
I LOVE THIS PHONE! I thought I would hate it at first because of the swivel form factor and because it doesnt have dedicated send/end keys. Both turned out to be a non issue. The only gripe is no expandable memory slot. I find myself having to encode MP3s at 96kbps just so I can fit more songs on there.
WILL NOT BE DISSAAPOINTED
i bought this phone recently and it is great.It has everything in it and alot of little features in it to play around with. One thing people are complaining about is the memory stick. It already has 256 isn't hat enough? The s710a only has 32 withe 128 expansion that is still less than this one. Also this is smaller. So LONG LIVE THE w600i!!!
Good Phone, but not S710a
FYI I buy the newest of the new as soon as it comes out, so here's my input.
This phone obviously doesn't hold a candle to my S710a, but at the same time is twice as fast. The screen size is significantly smaller, and there's some "bar" thing on the top. For what? So Sony decreases screen size and puts this awesome bar on there right? The walkman is a nice feature, but a very limited ammount of memory is available. Changable faceplates option is alright, but not a deciding factor in my purchase. The operating system is fairly identical to the S710a for those already satisfied. Overall I love the huge screen and removable memory on the S710a, but this phone is REALLY FAST and that makes a huge difference to me.
Hmmm .... its coo
Well, ive had this phone for about 6 months now and yea it was cool. I downloaded songs into my Mp3. And it was sorta confusing and all, but then i dropped it in its case ... once and later when i checked it there was no light. SO i couldnt use it in the dark . ugh i was so mad .. well now i got another phone so yea ...
Pro:
nice phone
u can change da cover
mp3
aim
Con:
confusing mp3
jus more things. .. ugh
I like it, But has a couple problems!!
OK, i have had this phone for a total of 2 weeks and i like it and i dont at the same time...
first the good PROS:
-loud speaker
-good mp3 player
-speaker phone
-no dropped calls
Mostly opinion on the features
Now the CONS:
-hard to texted quickly with one hand
-SOMETIMES slow interface
-shuts off sometimes or frequently (changes in time)
-scared of white out death (WOD)
(white out death is when the phone screen goes white and nothin works)
I had it for 1 day and it had a WOD and lucky cingular replaced it for free. But then the new one shuts off frequently on some days and others its fine. Sometimes when i receive calls...i open it to answer and it shuts off...
I few bugs but if new firmware comes out it should be fine.. I like the features on the phone... just needs slightly better software/ bugs worked out.
Cool lookin, way bulky
I've had this phone for a few days and quite honestly, I'm already disappointed. The phone looks great, the colors very vivid, the features on the phone awesome. the bad? way too bulky. I've also find the software kind of complicated to use.
This phone is SOLID!!!
I just bought this phone yesterday and I can already say that i'm satisfied with what I've paid for it. Also I am a previous Razr V3 owner, but after getting this, it destroys it by far!
Pros:
-Impressive speaker quality
-Quick data transfers
-Solid build and small for what it is capable of doing (3.66" x 1.83" x 0.89")
-Signal is excellent everywhere I've been so far
-Interchangeable faceplates for those of you who are insecure of holding a bright orange phone
-Very user friendly, I didn't even need to take out the manual to figure out how to use everything
-It is way faster than my Motorola Razr V3
-Overall it's one of the best phones i've owned for awhile
Cons:
-The little bar over the top is there to take up half an inch of space for some reason (could be an antenna?) kind of ugly though, but you get use to it, it's not as bad as I thought in person
-No additional memory can be added to the 256 MB that is in it already (only for the tweakers who need a lot of stuff in their phone get mad about that)
-Other than that bar over the top I don't believe there is anything negative about it for now
Learning Curve Required, But Overall Worth It
To be frank, I almost sent this thing back after I opened the box. The new SIM card didn't activate right, I lost all my address data off my (truly terrible Sony Ericcson T637), and frankly I was very annoyed and overwhelmed at the complexity and all the paperwork, manuals, inserts, cards and other litter that came with the phone. A good phone, but it has a lot of solutions to things that aren't problems, but it does grow on you and I like it much better now. I would order this phone again as a replacement with no problem.
PRO'S
- Easy to use dialing buttons ...sooooo much better than the slippery raised Sony T637 buttons
- Great signal, nice graphics
- Sony finally added a directory search feature (finally) and other improvements in the logic and layout that are much more intuitive and user friendly
- Bluetooth is at least 5 times better than Bluetooth in the Sony T637. Signal is stronger and clearer in your earpiece, and the battery power (in Powersave) truly lasts all day, vs. Sony T637 where you could watch the power levels dropping as you used it in Bluetooth mode.
CON'S
- Make SURE you like and have the feel of swivel phones first. On the go, it's like trying to open up a boy scout knife one-handed when you're driving. You either get the hang of this first, or you'll hate it.
- Garish 1970's orange color is unprofessional and child-like in business settings, couldn't switch covers fast enough to the navy blue when I got it.
- If you already have Sony Ericcson, get ready to have to replace everything to buy this phone, travel charger, car cord, desk stand - the works. You would think Sony would standardize this stuff. Martha Stewart was right (her outburst at the Sony stockholders meeting) - we're really being had here on this.
- If you buy the accessory Sony desk stand to use as a recharging station, it takes a LOT of fiddling to line up the recharging prongs into the base to merely set this thing in the station. Bad design on this
