Sony Ericsson W610i review

Sony Ericsson W610i Review

Reviewed by: Frank Lewis

Reviewed on: 22 October 2007

There's also an excellent RSS reader which provides a great way to quickly check the latest news or footy results. But if you want to actually browse Web sites directly then you'll find that the phone's Web browser is excellent and has a handy smartfit function that automatically resizes pages to make them more readable on the small screen.

Both the phone's call quality and the reception were excellent and the battery life is also very good. You'll get around seven hours of talk time out of it and it'll run for over 14 days on standby.

Weaknesses
The W610i is one of the cheaper handsets in the Walkman range so it lacks some of the really premium features. The phone doesn't support 3G so you're limited to GPRS download speeds when using the Web browser and there's no video calling facilities. Also, the screen has a noticeably lower resolution than some of the other Walkman phones, making icons and text look rather blocky.

The biggest issue most people will have with the phone concerns the keypad. Although the phone's keys are thin metal strips similar to those on the W880i, they're actually longer so more comfortable to use. However, Sony Ericsson has also made the soft keys at the top of the numerical keypad into circular strips and these are more fiddly to use. In fact, we found them downright annoying at times.

Conclusion
The W610i is a solid, rather than outstanding Walkman handset. It has great music features and good connectivity, but the screen isn't as impressive as you would find on the premium Walkman phones and its buttons can be fiddly to use. However, if you like the W880i, but can't quite afford it, this phone would still be a good second choice.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Jon Squire