Got me a W900i

[A5H]

So I thought I'd write a little review from the perspective of someone who's not quite sure what makes a phone good...

Anyway:

Thismorning, I recieved a nice little package via special delivery. This after being told I wouldn't get it til the 18th because they were out of stock. How this one got here, I have no idea

So I was pretty excited and whacked it on charged and patiently waited. After about 2.5 hours I took it off charge and had a play.

First thing I noticed was that there are no games included. You get 5 demos, that you can only play for 30 seconds :/ Pretty poor for an expensive phone. (Also, Im not sure why the first thing I look at is games???)

Played around with the interface and changed my theme. Moving between screens is very fast which impressed me. Looks very slick and simple too. Only thing I dislike is the placement of some settings in various menus.

Camera next... Autofocus is brilliant and the flash is fairly decent. The overall quality of pics is excellent. Videos are also impressive, I was confused at first because I could only take short clips, but it was because it comes auto set to size for MMS... Undoing that makes the video infinate I think... Well over a few mins as I tested it... Lack of lense cover on the front kind of sucks, but the plastic seems very hard... So hopefully it'll be alright...

The phone itself feels very sturdy and has a feel of quality to it. The swivel mechanism is good although I'd like it to swing back with less input. The buttons are very nice and press well and feel solid.

Not been able to try bluetooth or anything yet...

After playing about without purpose. I hooked it up to the computer, with the provided USB lead... I whacked on some tunes and videos and disconnexted so I could have a play...

The sound is very good and really quite loud. I could hear it comfortably at work (in a fairly noisy pub)... You can use mp3s as ring tones and stuff... Wierdly you can't select it for the message tone through the tones menu... You do that by going straight to the mp3. Strange indeed...

The media player thing on the device is very nice and easy to use. You can leave music playing while you go do other things within the phone. Which is handy.

Screen quality and clarity is great. Couldn't be happier with that.

Only things I can really moan about is it being a bit big. But I don't mind as it fits in my pocket fine and is cool as . Also the fact that once you open the phone you can't use the camera.

A nice little touch is the buttons inverting once you open the phone. So that up is still up etc... If that makes sense...

Still a bit annoyed by the games. My friend just bought a V3i/x and got the same games bundled in full... Not demos... Unless I get to pick some free ones from the demos??? That would be alright...

Anyway, hope this maybe answered some peoples questions about it and stuff...

Ash

PS: If anyone has any w900 games, send em over

 

[RimBlock]

Hmm,

There are a number of comments and omissions that I would like to mention above and beyond what A5H has said above.

Firstly on the games.

I bought this phone last week in Singapore as I am here working for the month. I have 3 games on the phone and none are demos as far as I can see. I also have 4 movie trailers bundled on the phone. All look really good considering the hardware and screen size.

I like the rotate and the phones size is a bonus for me as I can happily text with one hand, (no one hander comments please ). I upgraded from the Samsung D500 and also prefer the W900i's T9 predictive text although a shortcut to switch from letters to numbers would be nice rather than holding down one of the keys to get the language options. The manual is very much a very brief 'this is your phone and this is how you type a text message and send' type of affair. There is no mention of changing from letters to numbers while writing a text message in the supplied manual. There may be more information ont he supplied CD Rom but I will only be able to look at that when I get back to the UK.

The phone accepts memory stick duo pro's up to 2GB according to the manual.

The changing of the ringer volume in the phone settings in independant ot the volume level buttons on the phone so even with the ringer volume set at max in the menus I found it very quiet until I played with the phone volume controls (rookie mistake maybe).

The camera is very nice for a phone and the video is also pretty good. I only recorded for 1 minute so have not encountered any max duration issues.

The phones OS can be upgraded over the internet and hopefully there will be a few fixes there. I had one lockup and one no signal issue so far but am probably not on the latest version of the phones software.

The biggest bone of contention is the battery life. Recharging every two days seems to be a must but as I have just discharged the battery fully last night I will see how long it lasts this time.

The phone also comes with an external radio which is connected to the port on the bottom and then receives power from the phone. It is ok but is an analogue radio and so the reception is not that good.

When connected to the computer with the usb cable (custom connecter at the phone end) for data transfer (eg copying music files) you can not use any of the phones functions.

When the phone is turned on you can select to use the phones full functionality or just use the walkman function. This is great for using it on an airplane. Whether the steward(ess) will believe you though is another matter.

I haven't managed to try the 3G or data functions as they are not available with a prepaid sim card here in Singapore. I will try them when I get home in a couple of weeks time.

Regards
RB

 

[amx]

Most SE phones allow you to type a number by holding the required number down for a couple of seconds, if that helps

 

[jesta]

ive got this phone in march and i feel the same way as you do about the phone. one question though can you set the video mode to normal instead of the MMs mode?i tried everyway and i cant get it to set as normal

 

[A5H]

ive got this phone in march and i feel the same way as you do about the phone. one question though can you set the video mode to normal instead of the MMs mode?i tried everyway and i cant get it to set as normal

Nope. I have to set it to normal every time I click into it
Bit annoying!
Camera pics are outstanding. Transfered some to the PC just now and was well chuffed!

Ash

 

[RimBlock]

Couple of other things I have noticed mainly to do with battery life.....

Two days seems to be my max and that is without using it as a MP3 player or using the radio.

Plugging in the PC lead not only does not charge the phone (the battery icon on the phone indicates it is and the manual states that it should) but sucks the remaining power from the phone.

The battery remaining indicator on one screen will show one level and then going to another screen will see the remaining battery life indicator going up !.

Again this could be a result of not running on the latest phone software so I hope this is resolved when I get home and update the phone.

What sort of battery life are other people seeing on their phones ?

Cheers
RB

 

[A5H]

Couple of other things I have noticed mainly to do with battery life.....

Two days seems to be my max and that is without using it as a MP3 player or using the radio.

Plugging in the PC lead not only does not charge the phone (the battery icon on the phone indicates it is and the manual states that it should) but sucks the remaining power from the phone.

The battery remaining indicator on one screen will show one level and then going to another screen will see the remaining battery life indicator going up !.

Again this could be a result of not running on the latest phone software so I hope this is resolved when I get home and update the phone.

What sort of battery life are other people seeing on their phones ?

Cheers
RB

First charge has given me 3 days... Been watching sky on it... Taking pics... Playing music... Showing off in general...
So I was impressed!

I think mine charges by USB aswell... Strange

 

[JustinB]

I am guessing you have a vodafone branded one?

That would be the reason for the demo games.

Mine is a black one, unbranded came with a few full games.

 

[nero120]

Can I get a few updates on this phone? How has it faired as a music phone and is the battery life good? Can it indeed be charged from the usb cable? I was thinking of purchasing this from a certain "inflating" competitor but I don't know whether its worth waiting for the w850i? Does the w900i come with walkman software verison 2? And if not, would it be available as a firmware upgrade when released do you think?

 

[A5H]

Can I get a few updates on this phone? How has it faired as a music phone and is the battery life good? Can it indeed be charged from the usb cable? I was thinking of purchasing this from a certain "inflating" competitor but I don't know whether its worth waiting for the w850i? Does the w900i come with walkman software verison 2? And if not, would it be available as a firmware upgrade when released do you think?

The battery life seems awesome.
I only have to charge it every 4 days or so now. And that's with a fair bit of messing around with it.
Dunno about USB charging as I just use the charger.
What's walkman software 2?
The music interface on it is nice and easy to use.
Also really impressed by the volume of the thing. Probably louder than most laptops.

Ash

 

[JustinB]

Does the w900i come with walkman software verison 2? And if not, would it be available as a firmware upgrade when released do you think?

No, and hopefully it will be

Also walkman 2 supports album art etc

 

[nero120]

The battery life seems awesome.
I only have to charge it every 4 days or so now. And that's with a fair bit of messing around with it.
Dunno about USB charging as I just use the charger.
What's walkman software 2?
The music interface on it is nice and easy to use.
Also really impressed by the volume of the thing. Probably louder than most laptops.

Ash

Cool, thanks for getting back Ash. After comparing this phone to the w850i it seems the main negative points are the fact that the w900i does not support A2DP (bluetooth technology for broadcasting music to remote earphones) and it does not support walkman 2.0 (new version of the music software, meant to be better: new interface, album art selector, music downloads, better profiles, etc). But the 900i has a much better camera as well as more memory and a better feature list other than what Ive said.

Think I might get one anyway as it will be ages before the w850i becomes freely available.

 

[A5H]

The w900 might support walkman 2? Surely?