The Sony Ericsson W205 comes in as the entry level Walkman phone. Want an MP3 playing music phone which swaps bells and whistles for a best in class portable music experience? Then the W205 is definitely worth a look. Read on for our thoughts on this fun and funky little Walkman phone from Sony Ericsson.
The initial thought when having a look at this handset was that it seems very light and hollow. This can be seen as a good and bad point. It is good in the sense that you don’t want your mobile phone to be really heavy and in the way when you are on the go, so you can put it in your pocket and it wouldn’t be very noticeable. On the other hand, with mobile phones nowadays, people are expecting more high tech features, and therefore I feel users would expect a bit of weight to the phone as it would give the impression that it good quality. Once you have held this phone it wouldn’t be a shock if people thought this handset was at the low end of the market, and that it didn’t hold that many high quality features.
This is not a touchscreen mobile, it is a slider phone. When you slide the phone, it doesn’t appear to be a very smooth process, however this could be because there are so many touchscreen mobiles which are very responsive on the market that it makes this handset seem harder to use. The buttons are positioned like a normal phone keypad, but as the overall handset is small, the buttons are all very small and seem close together as well. Some people may find that they will end up pressing two buttons when they only meant to press one. As a whole, the navigation of the phone doesn’t seem as smooth as it could be which would affect the user experience, however for those who are used to slide phones, this handset would be ideal.
The W205 brought to you by Sony Ericsson is part of the Walkman range, and therefore features a built in Walkman player which supports file formats such as MP3 and AAC, TrackID music recognition, FM radio and expandable memory so you can store all of your favourite music. The Walkman player lay out will be familiar to anyone who has used a personal music player. Tracks can be browsed by a range of different methods such as Artist, Album and Genre meaning navigating to a specific song is easy. Once you’ve selected a song to play, any album art you have loaded on the phone is displayed on screen in addition to a track timer which displays how far through a track you are. Skipping through tracks, playing and pausing and accessing the volume controls will come as second nature as all have their own dedicated key on the phone itself. One slight drawback is that the phone lacks a 3.5mm jack meaning you need to use headphones with the proprietary Sony Ericsson connection. There are adapters you can buy which let you use any headphones but to be honest, the ones supplied in the box are of a good enough quality to make this an unnecessary purchase. Sound quality is of a high standard which rich levels of bass which will make you forget this is the entry level phone in the Walkman range. All of these features make this the perfect handset for those who love their music. As this is a Walkman phone, you can use your favourite songs as your ring tone, which have almost CD like quality, so there is no need for mono tones.
The 1.3 megapixel camera is a good enough quality for taking shots every now and then and leaving them stored on your phone, but for those who would like a mobile phone with a decent camera to use to take all of their photography and use the images afterwards, then you’ll probably want to look elsewhere (such as the W205’s much bigger brother; the W995). You do have the option to connect the handset to a PC to transfer photos and edit them on your PC, but this is not ideal for those wanting to create the finalised photo on the handset. There is also a video capture function, where you can record short footages. Again, the video recordings are not of a very high quality, but it gets the job done.
The screen display is very small, coming in at 1.8 inches which does sound incredibly small. However, the screen is capable of displaying up to 65K colours which makes browsing through your images and other documents on the display seem a lot sharper and clearer, due to the range of colours, and the fact that the screen is compact actually makes it look crisper. Text messages and caller ID are presented in a large font so you should never find yourself squinting.
Mobile internet with WAP allows access the internet and while it is a slower affair than 3G or HSDPA, the GPRS connection is suitable for checking text based sites such as footie scores and train times. The W205 also supports Bluetooth 2.0, which allows faster data transmissions between handsets, such as sharing pictures with friends. You can also take advantage of other features which are available with Bluetooth 2.0 such as wireless printing with a compatible printer and, most importantly, connecting to a wireless headset to stream music from the phone. Want to listen to music on the move without getting tangled up in all the wires? Bluetooth version 2.0 is the tech that makes it possible.
The Sony Ericsson W205 comes as a nice addition to the Walkman range. Whether your not that interested in the latest high end features, or just want a second phone to stick your sim in on your travels and keep that iPhone 3GS nice and safe, you can’t go far wrong with the W205. Sure it lacks 3G, a high end camera and GPS but the simple fact is, some people neither want nor need this in a phone. For those who want a nice looking and easy to use phone that specialises in its music capabilities, the Sony Ericsson W205 is a natural choice.
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