Sony Ericsson W710i review

The handset comes with a belt clip and arm strap. You need these when using the fitness software as it's based around a pedometer -- if you don't wear the phone either on your waist or arm the pedometer won't work, and it won't work when the phone is open either.

The pedometer has two fitness modes -- walking and running -- and you can calibrate it by walking (or running) a certain distance and telling it how far you've gone. It calculates your stride length from this information but there's a problem with this -- if your stride length is not constant, the distances measured won't be accurate. If you tell the phone your height, weight, gender and year of birth it'll also have a stab at working out how many calories you burn.

The pedometer resets itself at midnight and stores past infomation so you can check back.

The buttons on either side of the screen are brought into play when you are wearing the phone. They can be used to skip about between music you are playing, start and stop measuring or start a new lap counter. This works a lot better than the Nokia 5500 Sport's tapping system.

Aside from the sports features and music player, the Sony Ericsson W710i has a lot more going for it. There's an FM radio, and you can choose to use your own headset. Sony Ericsson's offering is two-piece -- the end with the FM antenna has a proprietary connector to the phone but halfway up is a 3.5mm jack.

The camera shoots stills at up to 2 megapixels. It's mounted on the front of the casing, and when you open the clam the main screen becomes the viewfinder with the camera pointing away from you. The front screen does act as a sort of self-portrait mirror but it's awkward to use.

You can browse the Web, though the small screen isn't ideal for this, and access RSS feeds. A calendar and the contacts database can synchronise with your computer and you get the software and USB cable to do the job.

There's also a sound recorder, a timer, a stopwatch and a calculator, and MusicDJ, PhotoDJ and VideoDJ for fun editing. You can photoblog from the handset too.

Performance
The Sony Ericsson W710i was fine for voice calls with clear, sharp sound, and music playback was good, too. When we tried to use the phone on a run we found the belt clip was not all that secure with Lycra running shorts -- the arm band suited us better.

We like that you can calibrate the pedometer as this gives a more accurate measure of distance travelled, but it's still not a substitute for GPS-accurate kit aimed at serious training. If your chosen activity is anything other than jogging or running -- or just counting how many steps you take during the day -- you are going to need to look elsewhere.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Kate Macefield