With
six handsets,
three new Bluetooth watches, and an array of new accessories and peripherals, Sony Ericsson went for broke with today's announcement (heck, we'd go so far to say that they should've teased even a little more
than they did). Obviously that's a lot to digest, so we wanted to zoom in on the W910 and W950 -- the company's newest and fanciest Walkman-branded units -- and take a look at just what it is that sets them apart. Read on for details.
The W910 got hearts pounding as the
"Shinobu" before its official announcement, and by all accounts, it seems the hubbub was justified. HSDPA is still rare by Sony Ericsson standards, so we're happy to see it make an appearance here; sadly, though, 2100MHz is the only supported band. The slider users NetFront, which should make browsing a fairly decent experience. Internal storage is a meager 40MB, so the Memory Stick Micro M2 slot will likely see heavy use -- especially when putting that 2 megapixel shooter to use. "SensMe" is a nifty piece of kit that organizes music tracks graphically by tempo and mood to allow the user to circle groups of tracks they wish to add to their playlist. Perhaps the coolest feature, though, is "Shake control" -- flick the phone to change tracks, shake it to randomize the playlist. Word has it Shake can be used for gaming control, too. The W910 ships in the fourth quarter in red and black.
The W960, meanwhile, is Sony Ericsson's music-friendly heavy artillery. How heavy? 8GB of internal storage, for starters (no expansion, but we'll cut it some slack there). WiFi's on board, too -- a first for a Walkman phone -- along with 2100MHz UMTS, so you're pretty much covered in the data arena as long as you're in Europe. Like a lot of phones these days, the W960 advertises a touchable interface for browsing music and other goodies, though a stylus is onboard for finer operations. It gets a 3.2 megapixel cam, and oh yeah -- it's a fully-featured smartphone, too, thanks to
UIQ 3.1. Folks coming from a Windows Mobile device will be delighted by the ActiveSync support here, though they may be equally dismayed by the lack of GSM 850. The W960 drops in the fourth quarter of the year; you'll be able to have any color you want, as long as it's black.
posted Jun 14th 2007 5:00PM
Just be lucky those only work in Europe. I've got both a K610i and P1i, and those are the last SE phones I'll ever buy. Really the only complaint about K610i I've got is that it doesn't support A2DP, otherwise it does what it's supposed to and it does it reasonably well. It's not a smartphone, but I didn't expect it to be (and it still has 3G and such).
P1i, on the other hand, is something else. I found out it can't handle an email account AND syncing the calendar with my computer at the same time. I don't know what those two have to do with each other, but as soon as I removed the email account (by the request from SE support) syncing worked again. With the email account it only synced one-way. And that's supposed to be their flagship smartphone model? Yeah, right. In addition, it's just as slow as the damned Nokia 9300i I replaced it with, it crashes every now and then (and displays "Your phone was restarted automatically to improve the performance".. just when I was writing a message? Rrrright.
If only P1i would sync AND provide email and be juuuust a bit faster and more stable, I probably would say it's the best phone I've ever had. Now it's the reason I'll never buy another SE again. And I thought Nokia phones were crappy.. I've yet to see what I can buy next. :( iPhone might be it, but not as long as they force me to a 2yr slave contract. No phone is good enough to play with Sonera even for a week, not to mention to lousy and expensive plans they offer, not to mention almost nonexistent 3G coverage even in the center of our beautiful(?) capital :P
I thought I'd post this as a warning. Both phones sound nice from the first, but so did P1i. Only after buying it I was told that even though they have iSync plugin on their website they don't really support using Apple machines at all, and that the inability to both sync calendars and read emails on a BUSINESS PHONE is not really a bug, it's a feature. If you want a music player, buy iPod. If you want a phone, buy a phone, don't touch these. (Small wonder their profits are down..)
W910i only has a 2.0 MP camera.
I'm frustrated that these phones only operate on European HSDPA frequencies (at least, that's what I understand from this posting.) Additionally, no 850 band on the W910i? I take it that's not coming to the US in this version. . . .
In terms of memory card support on these newer Sony Ericsson phones - why the move away from Duo Pro? I have a 4gb card that it looks like I'll never be able ot use on anything other than my w810i (the finest phone I've ever owned.)
Ah well. These two sound great - but there are deal breakers that prevent me from going after either.
Yeah SE is really mean to the U.S. lol. What's up with that? We're not good enough for your phones??
I don't understand why they would let the U.S. waste away on the Iphone while these two phones are available. Plus they should have given the w910 a touchscreen interface and 8 gbs of internal storage as well.
I see an iPhone stomper!!! I love Sony Ericsson! :-) If we only had GSM 850.
Fantastic, but both these phones are basically a great big FU USA.
Guess I'll have to live with my W810i a little longer, although Nokia seems to be able to support '850 in their current products...and I want to upgrade.
Man, SE. Show us 'mericans som UIQ luv!
Please!