Sony Ericsson W610i review

Sony Ericsson W610i Review

Reviewed by: Frank Lewis

Reviewed on: 22 October 2007

The W610i is essentially a cut down version of Sony Ericsson's W880i. Unfortunately, it doesn't share the W880i's slim dimensions, but it does borrow its distinctive metallic keypad and top notch music playback features.

It's available for free on most contracts and around £100 on some pay as you go plans.

Strengths
Although the W610i is a good deal thicker than the ridiculously slim W880i, it's still an attractive looking handset. It's available in two colour options. Our review sample had a black front with a rather striking metallic orange paint job on the rear, but it's also available in a white and black combination if you prefer a more traditional colour scheme.

For taking snaps, you'll find a 2-megapixel camera mounted on the back of the phone. It has both autofocus and dual LED flash, so it produces good results even when working in dimly lit conditions. The 2-megapixel resolution means the pictures it takes are not great when printed out, but they're fine for uploading to a Web site. The phone also has nifty picture blogging software built-in, which automatically creates a blog that you can upload pictures and comments to directly from the handset.

The W610i falls under Sony Ericsson's Walkman range of handsets and it features the Walkman 2.0 music player, which is accessed via a dedicated button on the front. The player is excellent and as good, if not better, than many dedicated MP3 players on the market and a 512MB M2 memory stick is included for storing tunes.

You can browse tracks by artist, song or album title, create playlists and tweak EQ settings to your hearts content. There's also a FM tuner with good reception, for when you're bored of your own selection of tunes. The sound quality from both the music player and FM tuner is excellent, as Sony Ericsson has included a pair of top quality sound-isolating headphones that also double as a handset-free kit.

The phone also has good connectivity. It's quad band so you can use it in the US and it also has Bluetooth, with support for A2DP for beaming music to a stereo wireless headset or speaker kit, and infrared for swapping files with a laptop.