Sony Ericsson W810i review

Sony Ericsson W810i Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 11 May 2006

Sony Ericsson is undoubtedly a frontrunner in terms of mobile technology. With phones like the W800i Walkman phone and the K750i camera phone storming the mobile charts over the past year, and the upcoming W950i and K790i set to do the same later this year, it's been interesting to see what Sony Ericsson has been doing in the meantime.

It appears that Sony Ericsson really liked the W800i Walkman phone, so much so that it decided to upgrade it in black, add some new keys and call it the W810i. Then, in an unexpected move, they launched the W700i, which is literally the W800i in gold. Is the W810i really an upgrade though, or is it another transformer-like W700i that looks like a new phone but is actually a W800i in disguise?

Design
There's no hiding the fact that the W810i is an upgrade of the W800i, especially since they share practically the same dimensions and weight. The W810i is black, though, which is a huge improvement if white and orange isn't your thing. The entire handset including keys is black except for the dedicated Walkman key, a Walkman symbol on the bottom and back, and an orange portrait mirror. The other immediately noticeable design features are the new keypad, navigation button and soft keys.

The new keypad has oblong-shaped buttons that are more spaced out than on the W800i. In between the keypad and the screen, a new navigation button has replaced the sometimes troublesome joystick and is made up of a silver circular four-way button with a separate OK button located in the middle.

Either side of the navigation key are two soft keys. On the left soft key is a dedicated metallic orange Walkman key that takes you straight to the Walkman application, and next to that is a soft key that consists of two parts within one button. The top half lets you access calls and the bottom half is a return to previous page key. On the right side of the phone is an identical grouping of buttons that features a dedicated shortcut menu key that lets you access several shortcuts to applications, and next to that is another two-in-one soft key. The top half lets you access the menu and the bottom half is a cancel key.

Above these new keys is a familiar screen -- exactly the same as the one found on the W800i -- which features 262k colours and a 176x220-pixel resolution. The sides of the phone are also similar as they are again exactly the same as on the W800i. There's a Memory Stick Duo slot on the bottom left side and a play and pause button on the top left side. On the top is an infrared port and the on and off button. On the top right side there's a volume up and down button, which also doubles as a zoom in and out button and on the bottom right is the dedicated shutter button. The bottom houses the charging port and also doubles up as the dedicated headphones port.