The multimedia experience is also let down by a poor user interface -- something's that's excellent on some other Sony Ericsson phones, like the C510 Cyber-shot. Photos, video and music are hard to find in the media browser. It's also hard to navigate once you're in the photo-viewing application. We struggled to find photos that we'd just taken, and had to trawl through unsorted wallpapers, slowly scrolling past one image at a time.
Tiny buttons
The user interface also proved a problem when we wanted the W302 to act as a
dedicated music player. The W302 has a Walkman button, which launches the music
player without having to navigate to it from the home screen. But the button
doesn't wake up the handset from slumber, which we found annoying -- the camera-shutter button does wake the handset, and this is a music phone, not a camera
phone.
The keypad buttons are very small, but they're well separated, so they passed our sausage-finger test. The function buttons are not as easy to use, especially the Walkman, camera-shutter and volume buttons on the side, which are tiny and as narrow as a toothpick.
The W302 is cheap but, except for a plastic back plate that wobbles when you take it off, it feels and looks neat. Our black review model had a brushed plastic front and a pleasantly dimpled back, with two rubber feet to stop it sliding on the dashboard. It's also agreeably small and thin, with a restrained colour screen and just a hint of silver around the bevel of the screen. With its smart good looks, no-one ever has to know that it's a budget handset.
Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson W302 Walkman is a small, particularly light music phone
with great sound quality. It has some other features, like a low-end camera,
but they're just padding out the specs, and we think they're better off
ignored.
We'd like better music-transfer software and a standard headphone jack, but we're willing to forgive these failings in a budget-level handset, especially because it includes a headphone adaptor and a new Sony Ericsson media manager is on its way. Essentially, the W302 does a good job of sending texts, making calls and playing music, and it does it without emptying your pockets or weighing them down.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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User reviews2
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mayank.shah 20 July 2010
Good: Easy music, easy to use
Bad: Extremely Slow, not much use apart from music
Comment: I have had it for nearly a year now .. it was a bit disappointing when i opened the box to be honest. i found it was perfect for music when i didnt want to take my ipod around. the buttons do take some getting used to but are fine after. the phone is extremely slow and sometimes i find there to be huge amounts of lag even when typing
Ranny 8 July 2010
Good: Very small and compact - fits into pocket well.
Bad: No 3.5mm headphone jack, Very poor camera, unreliable signal problems.
Comment: First lets start with a positive: This phone is very small and it is a fantastic size! The phone easily slips in and out of a pocket and it is very good in this respect.
However, the phone has quite a few problems. First, the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack. On primarily a music device, you would expect a standard jack so you could use your own headphones. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if the suppied set of headphones were decent, but they are not - bad quality and uncomfy in the ear.
Also the camera is bad, especially the video capture. It can take a semi-decent shot outside in sunlight but inside and when it is dark, the camera is rubbish. Worser still is the video capture. It has such a low resolution and fps that it is very hard to actually tell what is in the shot!
Also, there is a signal problem which is very annoying. Often the phone says it has full signal but actually there is none and you can't send or recieve texts or calls. This is fixed by turning the phone off then back on again, but this is not ideal.
I am not going to mention the lack of features such as 3G because you wouldn't expect that on a £60 device but the features it should be good at, it simply isn't.
Only get this phone if you want a cheap phone which is small and for the occasional text - that is all it is good at.
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