Sony Ericsson W890i review
Sony Ericsson W890i – 3G Walkman® phone
The Sony Ericsson W890i is a very slim 10mm thick and is another addition to the hugely popular Walkman® range. The W890i is available in 3 colours from Sony Ericsson, Sparkling Silver, Mocha Brown or Espresso Black. It is 104mm tall by 47mm wide and only weighs 78g. The stylish W890i oozes elegance with soft and curved edges finished in a metal style casing. Other phones in the Walkman® range include the SE W810i, SE W850i and the SE W880i
Music Player
The Walkman® music player is the main feature in this phone, allowing you to enjoy all your favourites tunes which can be sorted by artist, track or album. The SensMe™ lets you create playlists depending on what mood you are for. If you’re a gym freak you could create a playlist called ‘gym’ and assigned all your favourite up beat songs that get you in the mood to train. If you want to download songs directly over the network use the PlayNow™ feature which allows you to listen to the song before you buy. MegaBass® enhances the base line and give your songs more body. To ensure you never run out of memory Sony Ericsson have included a 2 Gigabyte memory stick which will let you store up to 500 songs. You can use anyone of your songs on your phone as your ringtone as long as it is in ACC or MP3 format. The W890i supports both Bluetooth® and USB, making it even easier to download music from your PC to the W890i. With the built in radio you can listen to your favourite radio station and view information on the screen using RDS.
Camera
The Sony Ericsson W890i features a 3.2 megapixel camera with digital zoom up to 3x. To view your photos the W890i has a 240x320 TFT display using 262.144 colours. As the W890i is a 3G mobile phone video calling is supported. The battery will power the phone for about 3 hours of video calling. You can capture all those memorable moments as the W890i supports video recording and allows you to edit your clips using the VideoDJ™ built in software. There is not much else to say about the camera, it is not the best on the market but then this is a music phone. If you want a camera phone you’d be advised to look at the cybershot range.
The W890i includes 3D java games and allows you to download more Java games. You can surf the internet using the installed Access NetFront™ web browser. You can get the latest news as it happens to the W890i using RSS and Web feeds, although you will have to subscribe. The W890i supports 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 GSM networks allowing this phone to be used across the globe. For super fast download support for EDGE has been included. The included battery will give you 9 hours 30 minutes off talk time or up to 360 hours (15 days) of standby time. The W890i supports all the standard messaging services including SMS with predictive text, MMS and email.
Summary
We really like the W890i because there are lots of features that are average and the ‘as expected’ stunning music player as this is in the Walkman%reg; range. We have seen lots of mobile phones recently that are targeted towards a specific function, i.e. music player or camera, which they achieve really well but let the mobile phone seriously down in other areas.
Sony Ericsson W890i specification
- 3.2 Mega-pixel camera with Digital zoom & Camera settings
- Devoted camera keys, photo light & photo fix, picture tagging & picture blogging
- Video Recorder, Video Clips, Video player, Video streaming & Video Blogs
- Video Calls
- 2 inch display with 262k colours & 320 x 240 pixels
- Music Walkman player with TrackID™, PlayNow™, SensMe@trade; & MegaBass™
- Bluetooth™ A2DP Stereo
- Built in RDS FM Radio
- Software for Disc2Phone
- Polyphonic & MP3 ringtones
- Messaging SMS, MMS, Email & Instant messaging
- Predictive text
- Built in Java™ games, downloadable games & 3D Games
- Personal organiser with Phonebook, calendar, converter, Notes & calculator
- Vibrating Alert
- Pictbridge printing
- Built in speaker phone
- Built in Flight mode
- 26 Megabytes of memory with Memory plus Micro™ Memory card support
- 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth™ & USB connectivity
- EDGE Technology
- Quad band 1900, 1800, 900, 850 GSM Network
- RSS Feeds & NetFront™ web browser
- Talk time 9.5 hrs
- Standby 360 hrs
- Size 9.9 x 46.5 x 104mm
- Weight 78 grams
Sony Ericsson W890i consumer reviews
Read what other thought of the Sony Ericsson W890i. Why not add you own Sony Ericsson W890i review by clicking the Add your Review tab above.Reviewed by Abdul Salam Muhammad from Vettathur, India on 14 February 2009
Rating:
Okay, but seen betterI 've been using this phone for the last couple of months with pleasing experience;camera and music player are fine though auto focus and flash are unfortunately missing.
Reviewed by Ardhi from Purworejo-central java, Indonesia on 26 November 2008
Rating:
AverageI think SE W890i is perfect walkman mobile phone..couse no others music mobile phone can like this..
Reviewed by Gregory from Adelaide, Australia on 02 September 2008
Rating:
Okay, but seen betterThis is a great basic phone that allows you to customise to a fair level. i have simple needs and this phone meets them well.
it is light and small and thus it meets my needs for jogging to music better than any other phone i viewed. i find the recharge time quite brief and the display to be vibrant and crisp. the navigation is not laggy like other units. 2G memory is ace.
my cat found the charger cord delicious.
i actually find the keypad good. i like the action on the raised keys to be good and i like the smaller pad more than my razr.
Reviewed by miles from London, UK on 13 July 2008
Rating:
Okay, but seen betterInitially I like this handset, very nice sleek design and feels solid in the hand. Everything works well and quite responsive (i.e.fast) BUT... for me there are 2 important things missing (and a few others): 1. Mac compatibility; One of the reasons I chose sony ericsson is I thought they were mac compatible and I assumed (stupidly) this phone was no different (so did the shop assistant), but for some unknown reason (maybe the iphone) this model is not supported, so the walkman function is more or less redundant, or long waits transferring via bluetooth. 2. It does not support WLAN connections. For me this is very short sighted, what is the point of having internet connection / video phone that costs an arm and a leg every month to run on top of your home connection costs? It says you can connect via bluetooth to a computer and access the internet - but thats all it says (no instructions on how to set it up). For sure the lack of WLAN will be main reason I will replace this handset quickly. Also there is no convertor (currency, weight, length etc.) I always found this useful on my old phones as I travel around a lot. I am surprised this was not included as I have had this on my mobile phones as long as I can remember... ? So to sum up; an attractive phone but totally eclipsed by the apple iphone in terms of functionality and design... I should have waited...
Reviewed by SE from Boston, US on 04 July 2008
Rating:
AverageGood phone with decent reception. Media player is actually pretty good BUT the controls are NOT that good. The middle control dial is TOO small and the options setting suck! The media software sucks, also and is best to just drag and drop files onto the MicroSD card and let the phone's media player update itself to recognize the files! The camera isn't that good considering it's a 3.2megapixel camera but it has NO autofocus or flash! It should at least have an autofocus!! The keypad isn't that bad except it's TERRIBLE for texting!! Thank goodness the SE finally included dedicated keys for Dialing/shutoff of phone vs. the usual "soft" keys! This is meant PRIMARILY as a music phone and is actually shaped like the Original Apple Nano! People should also quit complaining about the 2GB media card! Buy the 8GB MicroSD card! It's the largest capacity card currently available and can be bought for less than $50USD at a certain online auction site! Do NOT consider this phone unless you want either a decent phone and/or a media player. That's it!
Reviewed by sahilsaluja from new delhi, India on 27 June 2008
Rating:
I WANT ONE!! 
i bought this set..its awesome.....best of walkmen series
Reviewed by Anonymous from UK on 03 June 2008
Rating:
I WANT ONE!! Excellent phone! Music player is fantastic. So much more reliable than my old Apple Nano.
Reviewed by Del from London, UK on 18 May 2008
Rating:
Good mobile phoneIve had the Sony Ericsson W890i for a couple of weeks now. Really love this phone and was pleased to get a 2GB card included. There not alot of money to buy but it shows that Sony Ericsson care about their customers.
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