Sony Ericsson W880i review

Sony Ericsson W880i Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 23 February 2007

Performance
The audio quality on the W880i's Walkman Player is great. Music sounds crisp and you can set the volume quite high without any significant distortions at the high or low end. We particularly like the MegaBass option in the equaliser that really pumps up the bass.

Listening to music over the loudspeaker should be avoided if you don't want to annoy people around you -- or yourself, as it's very tinny. You can listen to music with a pair of stereo Bluetooth headphones, which sounded fine but drained the battery much faster than using a wired pair.

Audio quality during calls was good and there was no distortion or muffling, but we would have liked it if you could turn up the speaker volume a little more. The speakerphone mode was acceptable, but we recommend you use the provided pair of headphones and in-line mic to make hands-free calls as it sounds much better.

The 2-megapixel camera didn't overly impress us due to the lack of auto-focus and flash or LED photo light. If you just want to take the odd photo as a memento or send a photo to a friend via MMS then it's okay. If, however, you want to print out larger pictures or look at them on a large screen then you might well be disappointed.

Pictures taken in low light weren't great, even with the night mode turned on. Pictures taken in good light looked okay on the W880i's small screen, but when we viewed them on a computer screen they were blurry, particularly if you don't hold your hand totally still when you take a picture.

Battery life lasted for about two days of moderate use before we had to recharge it. We found that turning off the 3G connectivity and setting it to GSM only saved a lot of battery, as did dimming the screen's brightness.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Nick Hide