Okay so I have had this one for over 3 weeks now. I was thinking of doing a review on this for quite some time but then again something or the other always kept interrupting. It’s not a new phone, so I’m pretty sure that this wont be so exciting. Also, this is not a technological marvel of a phone, which results in a not so interesting review. But then again, I checked the reviews & previews section, and couldn’t find one for this phone, so I thought why not review this. I will try to keep it short and concise 
.
Anyways, so here it is people, the Sony Ericsson W950i review.
[Break=The Package]
1. Sony Ericsson W950i.
2. Stereo Earplugs (HPM-82 with playback controls).
3. Two Port Charger.
4. USB Fastport Cable.
5. Manual and PC-Suite CD.
6. Try and Buy CD.
7. Few pamphlets
The packaging contained all the accessories and I have to say, quality is pretty good here.
Packaging/Bundle – 10/10
[break=Design & Build]
The design of the phone is typical candybar. Measuring 106 x 54 x 15 mm it’s a bit on the wider side of things, but it’s surprisingly lightweight, weighing a mere 112 grams. It’s also really slim. AFAIK, the phone comes only in one color, Mystic Purple, but anyway, it looks good. The screen size is 2.6 inches and has a native resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The 256K TFT screen is said to support a maximum possible video bit rate of 1200 kbps (don’t know how that is possible). Below the (huge) screen is the keypad of the phone with all the letterings and numbers and an orange colored Walkman logo on top. The keypad features a plastic sheet instead of real buttons; which makes it pretty inconvenient to type on. The W950i doesn't have a QWERTY keypad like the P990i or the M600i. Luckily the screen is a touchscreen, and this phone supports handwriting recognition too, so you won’t have to worry about much. There is a dedicated Walkman key on the left side. Pressing it brings up the Walkman music player, and three hidden keys, Rewind/Previous Play/Stop and Next/Fast forward light up, just below the Walkman logo. On the left side there is the Jog dial key, and a back button. On the right side, there is again a Play/Stop button which works only when Walkman is active. If the Walkman application is running, even in the background, then you can use that button to Play/Stop. Below the Play/Stop button is the volume control. Pressing it in standby mode brings up the main volume control application, where you can customize the various volumes like multimedia (music/video), ring tones, sms alerts, alarm. There is a checkbox for the silent mode. Checking that mutes all the sounds. The stylus, included in the kit, on the left side housed above the jog-dial key, is quite handy. However this only factor one can get upset with is the orange color, applied to some parts of this item. Fastening of the stylus is well-made – it’s firmly fixed in the slot. Overall the build of the phone feels very sturdy, and its surprisingly light weight for the size it looks.
Build – 9/10
Design – 9/10
[BREAK=Software/Messaging]
Software/Messaging –
The Sony Ericsson W950i has the Symbian OS v9.1 UIQ 3.0 operating system. The W950i is the third phone to use the Symbian OS v9.1 with UIQ 3.0. The phone seems fast and powerful, but not as much as the "P" series from Sony Ericsson, which are really fantastic business phones. However there are times when the phone feels slow and the interface feels sluggish, like while opening messaging and walkman player together. The phone has a 208 Mhz processor with 64 MB RAM which is pretty sufficient for day to day usage. The W950i's UIQ interface is version 3.0. AFAIK, it has seen a lot of improvements, but a major grouse of this version is the handwriting recognition software. It can recognize only letters and not complete words. It’s quite irritating at times. Luckily there is an on screen keyboard, that also supports “guess the next wordâ€, which is pretty nice. Like for example, when you have entered the word “Where†, it automatically pops up a suggestion for next words like “are you" or "is this†etc. I find it pretty helpful, considering the phone fails miserably in the handwriting recognition department.
This is the most irritating part of the phone, or so you thought. A very weird thing about this phone is that you cannot quit an application. Whenever you open a particular application, say file manager, or messaging etc, you only have the option of going back. This is instructed in the very beginning of the configuration setup (while booting for the first time). There are two back buttons; one is on the phone, and the other on the screen. The setup says that using the button on the phone, you can quit/close any currently running application. But it is not so. They all stay open no matter which button you use. The only option to kill them is by using the Task Manager. So, unless you remember that none of the applications are killed, the phone will start to slow down with gradual usage. Pretty irritating IMO.
Software/Messaging – 6/10
[BREAK=Walkman v2.0 & FM radio]
Walkman v2.0 & Fm radio –
The remaining features are typical Sony Ericsson. However, the Walkman music player deserves a special mention. This is the version 2.0, and has added features like rating a song by mood. So, depending upon the rated mood, you can browse the songs and play them, without having to make an explicit playlist. There are four moods namely Happy, Sad, Energetic, and Chilled and each of them can be assigned a color. The color assigned reflects on the visualization selected. There is also the option of rating the songs on a scale of 1-5 stars. Sound clarity is very good indeed and the bundled earphones sound great. The headset has a 3.5 mm jack so you can plug in your choice of phones, and coupled with my EP-630’s they sound great. The equalizer has a really good choice of well set presets. And the MegaBass option feels awesome. The rest is the standard of the Walkman v2.0; Album Art and Visualizations with plenty of details on the player's main screen with regards to song being played. Here the visualizations form the background of the player. The big screen makes all visualizations look splendid.
There is an FM radio, which is a typical FM setup on any other phone. Reception was good. There are the same visualization and equalizer preset options seen in the FM tuner as well.
Walkman/FM Radio – 9/10
[BREAK=Video Playback]
Video Playback –
The W950i can also be used as a video player; its big screen in sideways orientation provides for a widescreen experience. I was having trouble with playing .mp4 files on the phone, but the problem disappeared once I flashed it with the latest firmware (although I had to flash it twice). For now I am using a pocket pc converter and ripping videos to .avi format, with 300+kbps video bit rate and 128 kbps audio bitrate with a resolution of 320 x 240 and playing them on the phone using DivX player. Videos look absolutely fantastic, as the screen plays nearly everything flawlessly without any lag whatsoever. A 700 MB video converted to around 400 MB at highest quality of video, which is very acceptable and covers the full screen in 4:3 aspect ratios.
Video Playback – 10/10
[BREAK=Connectivity options & Battery life]
Connectivity options & Battery life –
The W950i has a lot of connectivity options. It offers GPRS Class 10, 3G, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, Infrared, and USB 2.0. Although it’s missing WLAN and even missing EDGE. Pretty sad considering what the phone is capable of. One thing I noticed was that the USB 2.0 is amazingly fast. It transfers at almost USB 2.0 speeds just lesser than a minute to transfer 400 MB of data. The phone shows up as a Mass Storage device and doesn't require any drivers .Simple Drag-n-Drop feature makes transferring files a breeze. The battery is a 950 mAh unit. It is supposed to deliver a standby time of 300+ hours and 7 hours talktime. I use it daily for some 3-4 hours of video watching. 3-4 hours of calling. And 1-2 hours for browsing the net and general stuff like messaging and all. It gives me roughly 24 hours standby. Pretty good considering the screen is the biggest power hog.
Connectivity/battery – 8/10
[BREAK=Conclusion]
General topics and Conclusion –
Well, all said and done, the proper price for this phone in the market with bill and warranty is 29k’s. That is clearly outrageous, even though it packs in 4 GB of memory, which is more than enough for 99 percent of people. I got it from Sifymall for 10.9 k’s, which IMO is a great price for this thing. Yes it doesn’t have a camera/wi-fi. But then again, I didn’t need wifi. Although they could have given a decent 2 megapixel cam with it, still, it doesn’t hurt that much. Plus, the screen is so fantastic, that I hardly find time to take my eyes off from watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and take a look around to take snaps.
Finally, it does great what it’s supposed to do. It’s meant to be an entertainment device, and it performs wonderfully. Video playback is awesome, walkman is great, net browsing is good, the phone slows up a bit yes, but that’s only if you keep a whole lot of applications running, otherwise, even when loaded to 3.8 GB’s, the phone was as fast as when it was empty. No lag at all while accessing the memory. At least it’s a lot faster than any symbian device with 4 GB of memory. Even the N76 that I gifted to my girl slows up while going through photos and all, but this doesn’t.
Overall – 8/10
My second review on TE, so I do hope I have managed to elaborate and improve a bit more from my last one. Do leave your valuable comments
And last but not the least, this review is incomplete without saying a very "heartfelt" Thank you to Rahul, without whom this review wouldn't have been possible.
:hug: :hug: Thanks a ton bro. :hug: :hug:
P.S - it's 6 in the morning, and i've been awake all night, so if there are any mistakes, pardon me please :ashamed:, oh, and i don't know how to give page breaks, so apologies for that too
. Anyways, so here it is people, the Sony Ericsson W950i review.
[Break=The Package]
The Package –
1. Sony Ericsson W950i.
2. Stereo Earplugs (HPM-82 with playback controls).
3. Two Port Charger.
4. USB Fastport Cable.
5. Manual and PC-Suite CD.
6. Try and Buy CD.
7. Few pamphlets
The packaging contained all the accessories and I have to say, quality is pretty good here.
Packaging/Bundle – 10/10
[break=Design & Build]
Design & Build –
The design of the phone is typical candybar. Measuring 106 x 54 x 15 mm it’s a bit on the wider side of things, but it’s surprisingly lightweight, weighing a mere 112 grams. It’s also really slim. AFAIK, the phone comes only in one color, Mystic Purple, but anyway, it looks good. The screen size is 2.6 inches and has a native resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The 256K TFT screen is said to support a maximum possible video bit rate of 1200 kbps (don’t know how that is possible). Below the (huge) screen is the keypad of the phone with all the letterings and numbers and an orange colored Walkman logo on top. The keypad features a plastic sheet instead of real buttons; which makes it pretty inconvenient to type on. The W950i doesn't have a QWERTY keypad like the P990i or the M600i. Luckily the screen is a touchscreen, and this phone supports handwriting recognition too, so you won’t have to worry about much. There is a dedicated Walkman key on the left side. Pressing it brings up the Walkman music player, and three hidden keys, Rewind/Previous Play/Stop and Next/Fast forward light up, just below the Walkman logo. On the left side there is the Jog dial key, and a back button. On the right side, there is again a Play/Stop button which works only when Walkman is active. If the Walkman application is running, even in the background, then you can use that button to Play/Stop. Below the Play/Stop button is the volume control. Pressing it in standby mode brings up the main volume control application, where you can customize the various volumes like multimedia (music/video), ring tones, sms alerts, alarm. There is a checkbox for the silent mode. Checking that mutes all the sounds. The stylus, included in the kit, on the left side housed above the jog-dial key, is quite handy. However this only factor one can get upset with is the orange color, applied to some parts of this item. Fastening of the stylus is well-made – it’s firmly fixed in the slot. Overall the build of the phone feels very sturdy, and its surprisingly light weight for the size it looks.
Build – 9/10
Design – 9/10
[BREAK=Software/Messaging]
The phone –
Software/Messaging –
The Sony Ericsson W950i has the Symbian OS v9.1 UIQ 3.0 operating system. The W950i is the third phone to use the Symbian OS v9.1 with UIQ 3.0. The phone seems fast and powerful, but not as much as the "P" series from Sony Ericsson, which are really fantastic business phones. However there are times when the phone feels slow and the interface feels sluggish, like while opening messaging and walkman player together. The phone has a 208 Mhz processor with 64 MB RAM which is pretty sufficient for day to day usage. The W950i's UIQ interface is version 3.0. AFAIK, it has seen a lot of improvements, but a major grouse of this version is the handwriting recognition software. It can recognize only letters and not complete words. It’s quite irritating at times. Luckily there is an on screen keyboard, that also supports “guess the next wordâ€, which is pretty nice. Like for example, when you have entered the word “Where†, it automatically pops up a suggestion for next words like “are you" or "is this†etc. I find it pretty helpful, considering the phone fails miserably in the handwriting recognition department.
This is the most irritating part of the phone, or so you thought. A very weird thing about this phone is that you cannot quit an application. Whenever you open a particular application, say file manager, or messaging etc, you only have the option of going back. This is instructed in the very beginning of the configuration setup (while booting for the first time). There are two back buttons; one is on the phone, and the other on the screen. The setup says that using the button on the phone, you can quit/close any currently running application. But it is not so. They all stay open no matter which button you use. The only option to kill them is by using the Task Manager. So, unless you remember that none of the applications are killed, the phone will start to slow down with gradual usage. Pretty irritating IMO.
Software/Messaging – 6/10
[BREAK=Walkman v2.0 & FM radio]
Walkman v2.0 & Fm radio –
The remaining features are typical Sony Ericsson. However, the Walkman music player deserves a special mention. This is the version 2.0, and has added features like rating a song by mood. So, depending upon the rated mood, you can browse the songs and play them, without having to make an explicit playlist. There are four moods namely Happy, Sad, Energetic, and Chilled and each of them can be assigned a color. The color assigned reflects on the visualization selected. There is also the option of rating the songs on a scale of 1-5 stars. Sound clarity is very good indeed and the bundled earphones sound great. The headset has a 3.5 mm jack so you can plug in your choice of phones, and coupled with my EP-630’s they sound great. The equalizer has a really good choice of well set presets. And the MegaBass option feels awesome. The rest is the standard of the Walkman v2.0; Album Art and Visualizations with plenty of details on the player's main screen with regards to song being played. Here the visualizations form the background of the player. The big screen makes all visualizations look splendid.
There is an FM radio, which is a typical FM setup on any other phone. Reception was good. There are the same visualization and equalizer preset options seen in the FM tuner as well.
Walkman/FM Radio – 9/10
[BREAK=Video Playback]
Video Playback –
The W950i can also be used as a video player; its big screen in sideways orientation provides for a widescreen experience. I was having trouble with playing .mp4 files on the phone, but the problem disappeared once I flashed it with the latest firmware (although I had to flash it twice). For now I am using a pocket pc converter and ripping videos to .avi format, with 300+kbps video bit rate and 128 kbps audio bitrate with a resolution of 320 x 240 and playing them on the phone using DivX player. Videos look absolutely fantastic, as the screen plays nearly everything flawlessly without any lag whatsoever. A 700 MB video converted to around 400 MB at highest quality of video, which is very acceptable and covers the full screen in 4:3 aspect ratios.
Video Playback – 10/10
[BREAK=Connectivity options & Battery life]
Connectivity options & Battery life –
The W950i has a lot of connectivity options. It offers GPRS Class 10, 3G, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, Infrared, and USB 2.0. Although it’s missing WLAN and even missing EDGE. Pretty sad considering what the phone is capable of. One thing I noticed was that the USB 2.0 is amazingly fast. It transfers at almost USB 2.0 speeds just lesser than a minute to transfer 400 MB of data. The phone shows up as a Mass Storage device and doesn't require any drivers .Simple Drag-n-Drop feature makes transferring files a breeze. The battery is a 950 mAh unit. It is supposed to deliver a standby time of 300+ hours and 7 hours talktime. I use it daily for some 3-4 hours of video watching. 3-4 hours of calling. And 1-2 hours for browsing the net and general stuff like messaging and all. It gives me roughly 24 hours standby. Pretty good considering the screen is the biggest power hog.
Connectivity/battery – 8/10
[BREAK=Conclusion]
General topics and Conclusion –
Well, all said and done, the proper price for this phone in the market with bill and warranty is 29k’s. That is clearly outrageous, even though it packs in 4 GB of memory, which is more than enough for 99 percent of people. I got it from Sifymall for 10.9 k’s, which IMO is a great price for this thing. Yes it doesn’t have a camera/wi-fi. But then again, I didn’t need wifi. Although they could have given a decent 2 megapixel cam with it, still, it doesn’t hurt that much. Plus, the screen is so fantastic, that I hardly find time to take my eyes off from watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and take a look around to take snaps.
Finally, it does great what it’s supposed to do. It’s meant to be an entertainment device, and it performs wonderfully. Video playback is awesome, walkman is great, net browsing is good, the phone slows up a bit yes, but that’s only if you keep a whole lot of applications running, otherwise, even when loaded to 3.8 GB’s, the phone was as fast as when it was empty. No lag at all while accessing the memory. At least it’s a lot faster than any symbian device with 4 GB of memory. Even the N76 that I gifted to my girl slows up while going through photos and all, but this doesn’t.
Overall – 8/10
My second review on TE, so I do hope I have managed to elaborate and improve a bit more from my last one. Do leave your valuable comments
And last but not the least, this review is incomplete without saying a very "heartfelt" Thank you to Rahul, without whom this review wouldn't have been possible.
:hug: :hug: Thanks a ton bro. :hug: :hug:
P.S - it's 6 in the morning, and i've been awake all night, so if there are any mistakes, pardon me please :ashamed:, oh, and i don't know how to give page breaks, so apologies for that too
