Sony Ericsson MBW-150 Music Edition watch review

The promise of Bluetooth was that one day we'd carry around digital devices that were all in communication with each other. The Sony Ericsson MBW-150 Music Edition is a rather clever watch that tries to deliver on this promise.

It costs around £200 and has Bluetooth onboard so it can stay in constant contact with your Sony Ericsson phone.

Strengths
Sony Ericsson actually offers three versions of the watch: the Classic, Music and Executive. They all share the traditional rounded face design and are waterproof to a depth of 30 metres, but come in different colour schemes and with different straps. We had the Music Edition, which is supplied with a black rubberised strap and has orange flashes to match the company's Walkman range of phones.

To charge the watch, you attach a plastic spring-loaded clamp that snaps into place on the left hand side of the watch face. After around two hours, the watch will be fully charged and you can then pair it with your phone.

The pairing process is fiddly, but when it's completed you shouldn't have to repeat the process again. Once paired, the two stay in contact with each other as long as they're within a 10 metre range.

The watch has a small single line OLED display that's used to show text and icons. For example, when an incoming call is received, the watch vibrates and shows either the name of the caller if it's in your phone's address book or the number if it's not. You can mute the call by pressing the top right button once or reject it by pressing the button twice. The watch also notifies you with a vibrate and an envelope icon when you receive a new text message.

We reckon the watch's most unusual feature is its ability to control your phone's music player. The music controls are spread across three buttons on the left hand side of the watch. To start a track playing you press and hold the centre button and to stop playback you quickly press it once. The other two buttons act as volume controls or track skip buttons when you hold them in.

Naturally, there are also controls to let you turn off the Bluetooth transmitter and drop the connection with your phone when you're on a plane or in a hospital.

Weaknesses
The watch isn't the easiest thing in the world to use. You'll need to keep the manual close at hand when you're going through the tricky pairing process and as the watch has more functions than buttons, many of the buttons have dual roles making it difficult to use.

There are also a few other niggles we came across. The date is shown in the year, month and day format, which is the American rather than European way of doing things. Presumably this is because the watch is actually manufactured by Fossil, an American company. However, it's annoying that it can't be switched over.

Also, track information wasn't passed to the watch from our W880i Walkman phone, even though this is meant to be a supported feature. A quick check of the manual found that this function doesn't work on all phones. However, we would have expected Sony Ericsson to guarantee that it worked on all Walkman handsets, especially as we were using the Music Edition of the watch.

Conclusion
The MBW-150 isn't exactly a must have gadget and its controls can be problematic to use, but for the most part it does what it says on the tin and looks reasonably stylish. If you need a new watch and have a Sony Ericsson handset, at £200 it may be worth looking at.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Jon Squire