Compare & Buy Sony Ericsson W960i Contract Deals
An iPhone Inspired Sony
The concept of having a single device that does telephone duty, music player tasks and works as a snap camera has gone from “high priced novelty” to “standard equipment” in a very short span of time. Now, product differentiation comes on ease of use, and integration of features sets within the device. Ultimately, that’s a good thing for consumers, and results in more competition among mobile phone manufacturers. Apple set the bar high with the iPhone in 2007, and has left the rest of the industry scrambling in trying to integrate a multimedia platform with a touch user interface that can match it or exceed it, feature for feature.
The Sony Ericsson W960i is a refresh and enhancement of their W910i music player/slider form factor mobile phone. In use, it’s nice and substantial in the hand – it’s a tiny bit lighter overall. Unlike the iPhone it’s trying to supplant, it’s got a mixture of touch screen interface and mechanical buttons for the keypad. A jog-wheel on the upper right hand edge is used to skip forward between play lists and tracks. There’s also a row of multimedia keys for playback and song selections above the dialing pad on the front face.
The touch screen is the feature that gets the most hype, and while it’s sensitive enough that we could navigate through the menus on the display with a fingertip “touch and drag”, the onboard keyboard required the use of a stylus; fortunately one is nestled into the design.
The icons on the display are large, and well thought out, and it’s nearly the same Walkman user interface of the W910i, which is refreshingly easy to use. It does, of course, support every digital music format under the sun, and it has 8 GB of storage, which is a gracious plenty. Menus are responsive, and there’s a lot of functionality in the various menus. It’s not a full smart phone, but it does have basic 3G network connectivity, allowing you to do SMS messaging, plus internet searching and pulling up web sites.
It also comes with a good 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera. The flash is an LED variety, and while it’s good for snapshots, its lack of dedicated optics and controls mean that serious photography is still beyond the pale. Transferring photos from the camera is done by a straightforward mini-USB connector. The model we were provided with didn’t have the cable for it, but it’s the same cable that’s bundled with most USB capable cameras. The USB connection is a welcome sight – too many camera-phones seem to expect you to shove your photos through an expensive data plan, rather than transfer them by cable.
Overall, we rate the W960i a good value – it’s not the be-all/end-all of gadget lust, but it’s more than sufficient for what it claims to be – a good mix of commonly needed consumer functions with a good user interface. Recommended.
You might also be interested in: Sony Ericsson W910i cash back and free gift mobile phone deals or just compare the cheapest free mobile phone contracts and offers
