Sony Ericsson W890i Mobile Phone Deals
Best Music Phone Ever?
Ever since Apple raised the bar with the iPhone, the rest of the mobile phone/music player market has been scrambling to get something that aims at that niche. There have been several contenders from Sony Ericsson, with the most recent one unveiled in November of last year (2007) with the W890i, which is an update and revision of the W880i from last year. Like its predecessor, it’s an internet enabled Walkman phone.
The W890i has several “iPhone-esque” features, including the ability to sort through your music by looking at cover art and clicking the thumb-wheel. Like the iPhone, it’s built in and integrated to a wireless music purchasing service, this one from Sony, rather than Apple’s iTunes. Like the iPhone, it has a snapper camera built into the back.
It’s where the devices differ that the story gets interesting. Sony Ericsson doesn’t (apparently) have access to Apple’s multi-touch patents, so the phone isn’t a touch screen; it does have a surprisingly adept and adroit keypad – rectifying the W880i’s rice-grain keys, and it’s touch wheels are responsive. Like the iPhone, the W890i is a candy bar format phone, and it’s surprisingly thin, at 10mm.
Where the W890i shines is its connectivity, having access to the HSDPA networks for blindingly fast music downloads. The iPhone doesn’t have true 3.5G download capabilities. The W890i also has built in WiFi connectivity, allowing you to use hot spots in an airport to grab new music without racking up charges on a data plan.
The Sony Ericsson’s music player functionality is as smooth as all of the Walkman phones have had, and unlike the iPhone, it has an FM receiver as well. The inboard speakers are better than the ones the iPhone ships with, and the provided headphones are superb, as we’ve come to expect from Sony. A new addition to the interface is the ability to set up mood related play lists, and to categorize multiple playlists as you see fit. Nothing revolutionary in it, and a good interface for it.
Overall, the iPhone’s interface design still wins hands down; the W890i’s music player is better than the iPhone’s capabilities in terms of customization of play lists, but the iPhone is a better internet connection device and photo viewer. The W890i is arguably better as a phone due to more bandwidth.
The real benefit of the W890i comes from its price and expandibility; unlike the iPhone, the W890i allows inclusion of expansion memory (with the Micro Memory Stic, which is, alas, proprietary…), while the iPhone currently doesn’t.
It’s a bold attempt at carving a niche out in the mobile market against the iPhone, and it has its charms…but the iPhone is still better in terms of user interface design and flexibility, even if its capabilities under that shiny exterior aren’t quite as robust.
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