Sony Ericsson W580i First Impression

I’ve been wanting to get a new cellphone for some time now and thought it would be a good time just to jump in and get a phone. Sure I researched a bit between the phones that are available and people’s opinions about them but I also had to take into account my budget for a new phone.

I am a customer of Rogers Wireless (yea there are goods and bads) and I am unfortunately locked into a 3 year contact with them. My current phone, Motorola Razr V3, has been giving me more and more grief the older it becomes. I’ve been looking at new phones and possibly using the upgrade a phone feature with Rogers but when it will cost me at least $190 with a 3 year renewal I decided to look into buying a phone separately from a contract. As you might not know if you’re not living in North American, we buy our plans and phones together. We don’t get to buy a phone, and then add a plan to it which would be ideal for most of us.

I’ve been talking to my brother about his Sony Ericsson phone and asked him about the voice/audio quality of it. He likes it, as do other people when I was browsing over the reviews at CellPhones.ca, so I thought at looking to get a Sony. I’m not big on all the features cellphones have these days, I just want one that offers me a slim-design, good audio and voice quality and is pleasing to the eye. I don’t care about camera quality, MP3 abilities, or that I can make a mocha with it. I just want a phone for its original intended purpose; to call people.

Sony Ericsson W580i

When I first looked at this phone I thought the sliding feature was pretty neat. I personally like flip phones but the sliding style works in a similar way; to hide the keys from accidental dialing!

Looking over the Roger’s website (among other wireless providers) they were selling the Sony Ericsson W580i for over $300 without a contract. A bit steep for what I am looking to spend. So what do I do when I want to get a good deal on an electronic device? Search through Cragslist. I found the phone I wanted at the price I was willing to spend and agreed to meet the seller.

When I got the phone home I immediately removed it from its packaging and looked it over and compared it to my Motorola Razr. The W580i is the same thickness, roughly the same length, and a bit narrower than my Razr so already the W580i is making me smile.

I inserted my SIM card, slid in the battery and turned it on. Right away I noticed the clarity and brightness of the LCD screen the Sony Ericsson W810i has, much nicer than my Motorola Razr was.

Navigation

Navigating around the W580i is pretty easy. You use the little circular pad to navigate in the typicsal ways (up, down, left, right, select). The other buttons are left-select, right-select, back, clear, and walkman. You can also customize the jog dial to your liking as well.

Connectivity with Bluetooth

The nice thing about new phones is their Bluetooth feature. This allowed me to transfer all my contacts that are stored on my Motorola Razr over to my Sony Ericsson W580i with ease. Instead of recreating each contact on my phone, I just told my Razr to send them over to the found device via Bluetooth (which was the W580i). You can also send MP3s, Ringtones, photos etc via Bluetooth to devices that support it too.

Eye Candy

Of course with new technology there is always the Eye-Candy factor. The Sony Ericsson W580i definitely scores with this category. Not only does its gray finish look sexy, it also lights up with multicoloured LEDs and can show them off in various patterns. Did I mention you can set your phones contacts to do various flashy LED sequences? I think that’s pretty cool, not very functional, but cool nonetheless.

Walkman – Taking Fitness to a Cellular Level

I have not played much with the Walkman feature yet or the camera feature but I’m sure I’ll tinker with them a bit later. I don’t have use for the Walkman (MP3) player but it does have a fitness function so that I can use it as a pedometer or a stopwatch. It will tell me the distance I have gone, for how long and what my speed is as well. I can enter personal data (weight, height, gender), have it count my calorie burn rate and even keep track of my results on a day-by-day basis. Pretty cool for a phone right?

Ready, Aim, Click

The camera is a 2.0MP set focal length toy. I say toy because it really is a basic point and shoot that isn’t all that impressive at first glance. I only used my Motorola Razr’s (vga 600×400) camera to take at most 20 photos so I don’t really see myself using my cellphone again as a camera. My Canon SD750 is what I would normally use and produces far better photos.

So overall I am happy with my purchase. I’ve used the phone for calls twice now and the clarity of the person on the other end is quite good. They too say they have an easier time hearing me and are glad I upgraded my phone. The more I play with my Sony Ericsson W580i the more I like it and the more I’ll look at doing a more in depth look of all the features it has to offer.

Would I recommend it? Yes

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the ultimate in electronic gadgetry and 1 being something you should set on fire) I would give this a nice 8. I am sure my rating will go up the more I use the phone but right out of the box it’s pretty cool.