|
WITH
Sony Ericsson, the joint venture established in 2001 by
Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. and the
Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, emerging
from 2007 as one of the three mobile-phone companies to
have moved the most number of handsets from stores and
into consumers’ hands, the company is moving
fast-and-furious to not only maintain positive
performance but also extend its base, particularly in
emerging low-tier markets. To that end, it unveiled a
slew of low- to midpriced phones at the recently
concluded Mobile World Congress 2008 in
Barcelona,
Spain,
as among its 2008 releases, including the T270, T280,
R300 and R306.
Of
course, this is not to suggest that there will be a
drought of lust-inducing high-enders from Sony Ericsson
for those with deeper pockets and fatter wallets.
Needless to say, there is the Xperia X1, the
unbelievably gorgeous touch-fueled megasmartphone that
has generated incredible buzz since being unveiled in
Barcelona,
and is on schedule to hit markets midyear. Also coming
this 2008 are the G700 and G900 phones that the company
has referred to as “touchscreen organizers with a broad
appeal.”
Barcelona
also gave Sony Ericsson even more bragging rights as the
company won the Best Handset plum at the GSM
Association’s 13th Global Mobile Awards 2008 for the
W910i Walkman phone, which was cited for “redefining
music on mobile.” Even better news for those who always
have to have the latest and greatest, the award-winning
handset is available at your friendly neighborhood
mobile-phone shop not a quarter from now or just a month
from now but right now.
“We are
very proud to receive such a prestigious award for what
has proved to be a very popular product,” says Dick
Komiyama, Sony Ericsson president. “The W910i Walkman
makes it quicker and easier to transfer or download
music. It’s also about thinking beyond music, games,
videos and the Web.”
At a
mere 3.9x2.0x0.5 inches in physical dimensions and 86
grams in weight, this very slim slider phone only looks
and feels lightweight but within, it is a powerhouse
packing a host of exciting features in
entertainment-on-the-go and wireless-communications
technology. On the entertainment side, the W910i lives
up to the Walkman branding by making it easy to manage
and play music, with the dedicated control buttons
(forward, rewind, pause, play, stop) front and center
making it as easy to peruse music as on a dedicated
portable media player.
 I
have had the good fortune of playing with a loaner from
the local Sony Ericsson office for a few weeks now, and
it not only is idiot-proof to use indeed but also yields
an utterly pleasurable aural experience. There is, of
course, the very solid pair of stereo headphones that
come with the package, which fit comfortably but snugly
in the ear to cancel out ambient noise, while the Mega
Bass technology quickly makes music sound a hell lot
better, without me having to fiddle with various
equalizer settings (if you’re so inclined to fiddle
away, the W910i’s music-player application does have an
equalizer). I loaded everything from my music library
that the 1GB Memory Stick Micro card could
accommodate—Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Madonna,
Carole King, Tina Turner, Dinah Washington, Prince,
Phoebe Snow, along with some Puccini and Verdi arias by
Leontyne Price and Renata Tebaldi, plus several Nat King
Coles—turned the volume all the waaaay up, and
encountered only very minor distortion in the arias.
Now, any portable music player that doesn’t suffer a
nervous breakdown as Price just about storms the gates
of heaven in the final moments of “Visse d’arte” and
Tebaldi in “Si, Mi chiamano Mimi” is a damn fine piece
of equipment in my book.
Besides
solid-playback performance, the W910i also puts the fun
back in music. Consider: you’ve just tuned into your
favorite FM station on your handset and there’s that
song that has been your favorite for weeks but have no
idea who the artist is and so on. What to do? Just
deploy TrackID, which grabs a sample of the song and
sends this to the Gracenote Mobile MusicID database for
the deets. Want to switch tracks in a shake? Well, just
press on the Walkman key, give your wrist a quick flick
and voila! I know, it seems a bit gimmicky but it’s
seriously a hell lot of fun. Also, you can have the
handset play music according to the mood you’re in via
the SensMe feature.
As for
entertainment beyond music, the Sony Ericsson W910i is
no slouch either. Given the published list of media
formats supported by the handset—MP3, MP4, M4A, 3GP,
AMR, AAC, AAC+, AAC, WAV, Real 8, WMV and 3GPP—and a
screen real estate quite considerable for a slider (2.44
inches, 262k colors and QVGA resolution), it’s no
surprise that it can also double as a video player for
viewing, say, your favorite music videos or the latest
episode of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart or even
Heroes, which can be a sanity saver to anyone who
suffers Manila’s rush-hour traffic on a daily basis
(although, it should be said, watching a movie on this
baby might be pushing it). The dazzlingly sharp TFT
display also serves as an excellent viewfinder for the
handset’s built-in 2-megapixel camera with digital zoom
that can capture still or moving images, with a second
front-loaded camera for video calling. And did I forget
to mention that whether playing music or video—or
playing any of the many games available for download in
3G speeds from the Sony Ericsson Fun & Downloads
portal—you can easily change the screen orientation from
portrait to landscape and back?
All in
all, this is another solid release from Sony Ericsson.
With excellent and excellently deployed multimedia
goodies on top of the robust phone and messaging
features that the brand has been known for, the W910i’s
Best Handset win in Barcelona is certainly no surprise.
****
For more
details on the Sony Ericsson W910i, visit
http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/
mobilephones/overview/w910i?cc=ph&lc=en |
