The Sony Ericsson W890i is one of the latest additions to the Walkman phone family. As the successor to the Sony Ericsson W880i, will it be just another thin phone with titchy keys or is this possibly one of the best Walkman phones yet?
It's available from several major networks for free on a monthly contract.
Design
Although similar to the W880i, the W890i has a much better design. It's thicker in size than its predecessor but still markedly thinner than most other phones. Because of its metal casing, it's also a tougher handset, but it's the overall quality feel of it that had us excited. Unlike many thin phones, the W890i is solid.
You don't feel like you have to protect it with your life and it can definitely take a few tumbles.
Sony Ericsson also has put much more thought into the user experience with the W890i, adding a larger screen that makes viewing pictures and Web pages on the phone much more enjoyable. The navigation keys follow a much better specification -- they're easier to press and the keys on the keypad are larger and have a better layout. One of the reasons we didn't give the W880i higher marks was due to its tiny rice-grain-like keys, but we're happy to report that the W890i instead features larger, albeit still small keys that are easy to press unless you have massive thumbs.
Our only issue with the W890i's design is the proprietary headphone jack that's on the left side of the phone, which aside from making the W890i awkward to pull out of your pocket when headphones are plugged in, it also means you can't plug standard 3.5mm headphones straight into the handset without an adaptor.
Features
We were impressed by the W880i's features, so we were keen to see what Sony Ericsson could cram into the W890i. As a Walkman phone, its music features are very similar to the W880i's but with a few added extras. Uploading music is easy using the provided Media Manager software that lets you drag and drop music straight on to the phone using a simple software interface. Using Media Manager, you can categorise individual tracks by mood in the same way as you can on the Sony Ericsson W960i.
Once uploaded, you can create playlists, adjust the equaliser and control your music using the four-way navigation key that doubles up as individual play, pause, forward and rewind music keys. The pre-installed Walkman Player 3.0 app is intuitive and neither under-featured nor packed with too many frills.
As we mentioned, you can listen to music using the provided headphones or by plugging your own pair in via the 3.5mm adaptor. If you're too cool for wires, you can use a pair of Bluetooth stereo headphones, but keep in mind using Bluetooth drains more battery power.
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Emma Fawn 12 April 2011
Good: the memory
Bad: switches itself off all the time n takes ages to come back on
Comment: if it wasnt for the fact that it switches itself off even when you in the middle of a call this fone would be great, ive had it for a couple of yrs now and its really getting on my nerves
james_dickson83 25 March 2011
Good: Good MP3 player, the basic functions you would expect of any mid-range phone
Bad: Poor software means everything runs slowly, relentlessly switches itself off and on,
Comment: After having this for a 2 year contract I'm seriously annoyed with it's lackluster performance. At the time of buying, I had noted in others reviews that this phone is liable to take on a mind of it's own and will turn itself on and off again and I ignored those comments at my peril. A phone is useless if you can't control it as and when you want as it turns itself off and on again virtually everyday of it's life. As such, this phone is uselss and not even eligible for any software updates, and I'm assuming it's the software that is at fault here.
This fault aside, the software is clearly not up to scratch, as any task undertaken on it's own (without any other features running) causes the phone to slow up. It's like internet in the '90's. Just dont bother with it.
I can get £8 if I recycle it. Alternatively, I can vent 2 years frustration by relentlessly kicking it and smashing it into tiny, little, even more useless pieces. I'm currently inclined toward the latter.
Ady1968 4 July 2009
Good: Menus
Bad: Everything
Comment: This has been the worst piece to technology I have come across.It kept switching itself off, dropped calls in good signal areas, the camera refused to work when asked and would switch itself on in your pocket with the keys locked, I couldn't get my music library on iTunes to work as it wouldn't work with my iMac, so I had to resort to using Bluetooth as if I used a card reader and export to the card, the phone refused to open any files, what a pain. Also it kept locking up so I tried to install the firmware update, but all that did was for it to lock up and refused to switch off and I had to remove the battery and after that it took an age to boot up again and it still wouldn't work properly and I had a repeat of the above !! I Plus points - the menus were quite good when it worked. I have a W810i and I don't rate that much either, but at least it doesn't crash as often. Summary - simply awful.
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