Sony Ericsson W910i

DESIGN
Wow! what a great look thanks to our resident miracle worker, your friendly neighborhood Phone-Man, yours truly managed to get his greedy little paws on the not-yet-but-soon-to-be-released Sony Ericsson W910i Walkman phone. Now this is not strictly a review – I only managed to get a prototype piece that didn’t have 100% functionality, but it came close enough for me to be able to whet your voracious appetite for more. So here's what you can expect from this super slim slider.







FEATURES

The W910i Walkman phone is slim and sleek, and slides smoothly like a knife through warm butter. It looks familiar enough – just like any other Sony Ericsson slider, in fact – but it has a pleasantly large 2.4 inch screen with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution and 256K colors.

The buttons are also much the same as you'd see in any Sony Ericsson slider, with shortcut keys and a five-way nav-pad. There are also two keys placed on top of the display. I must say I found the keypad very annoying. The keys aren’t small but they could have been bigger – it’s not as if there’s no space. They’re also a little hard, but hopefully Sony Ericsson will rectify this when it's released.

The phone has 40MB of internal memory and supports M2 cards for external memory. It’s HSDPA enabled, with 3G capabilities, and supports video calling through the VGA camera located in the front. The main camera is 2 megapixel and really quite good. It doesn’t have too many settings, but the ones that are there do help. It also has EDGE class internet connectivity which is a improved class technology for an absolute replacement for GPRS.

MEDIA

I wasn’t the only one impressed with the new media interface that Sony Ericsson has incorporated into the phone. Not only does it have a new look but a new feel as well. As odd as that may sound, the W910 seems like it harbors intentions of running against the fabled iPhone.

The new interface allows you to automatically change viewing modes by simply turning the phone. The mode will automatically change from portrait to landscape. The gyroscopic sensor is awesome if you’re watching movies or viewing images.

The next-gen technology doesn’t end there. It’s even incorporated into the music player and the games. For instance, if your keypad is closed and locked and you wish to skip tracks, all you need to do is keep the Walkman key pressed and simply flip your wrist in the direction you want to skip tracks – left to go back and right to go forward.

The games include Marble Madness 3D which requires you to tilt the phone in the direction you have to move the marble. Although you’re going to look quite odd doing this in public, trust me, it’s a lot of fun. The rally game (also preinstalled) is a great way to pass the time. You can select to play in landscape mode and use the top key above the display as the accelerator and control movement with the nav-pad.

The music player is okay too, with EQ presets and a customizable option, with 3D surround and album art or visualizations. The external speaker unfortunately failed to impress.



APPLICATIONS

Sony Ericsson has graciously included some really great applications for their customers' benefit. One happens to be the Plus application which is very similar to Nokia’s Catalogs. You can download content fro specific servers using this app.

Although the W910 already comes with MusicDJ, VideoDJ, and PhotoDJ, another application included is the Music Mate 4 that is a sort of 3D-ish Music DJ application which appears more vibrant. Unfortunately I was not able to test it past the startup screen since this was a prototype piece. Hopefully this problem won't be there in the boxed set. Oh, and there’s also an Audible Player application preinstalled.

Apart from these the W910 has the usual features – calendar, memos, appointments, reminders. It supports Bluetooth with A2DP support and a remote control function for controlling your media player on the PC or a presenter or desktop.
First Impressions
Everyone’s first impression of the W910 was – awesome! I’m eager to review this phone ASAP. I love the view switching feature! What a crazy fun game! It looks cool! Clearly this is one phone that's created a stir already.