Phone Review: Sony Ericsson W700i

When I first had an idea of buying a new mobile phone, I just asked my friend. He told he is using a W700i for more than one and half years and it is fine. I just bought it without any second thought as I was already fed up with Nokia. The phone with bill cost around 8,800 INR when I bought 8 months back. Unlike Nokia phones, they gave data cable, headset, memory card adapter etc. But the real problems I faced made me to think Nokia is better.

1. The headset comes with a data-cable port pin. This is a total rubbish idea. The data cable port should be used as minimal as possible for long life. But if you plug and unplug your head set, then the port or the headset will go soon. You can not hear songs or radio while charging via USB port.
2. The second problem is the charger also comes with same data-cable port pin. How can you charge while you listen to music or radio? Total waste.
3. The back battery case cover is not tight. If you take your mobile out of pocket in a hurry, you’ll have your case in pocket, batter at ground and your switched off mobile in hand. I had few bitter experiences like this while attempting to attend calls.
4. The loud speaker (loud is too much for that speaker) is so feeble than other mobiles my friends own.
5. The next thing is joystick. It will have a rubber like tip. It fell down after 2 months use. I’m not a game or message freak. Just regular use only made it to fall. Now my joystick won’t work in downwards and right-side.
6. The keys are too small, surely a set back for SMS freaks.
7. While hearing music, you can not hear the ringtone in your headphones if the mobile is in loud mode. This is again a crazy idea. If you have paused the song, the earphones still in your ears, you’ll not hear your mobile ringing. As I told earlier, the speaker also is too weak. I missed several calls like this.
8. If your phone is in vibrate mode, if you receive a message even during a call, your phone will vibrate. How annoying it will be if the phone vibrates while keeping it tightly over ears? My old Nokia phone will give a feeble yet distinguishable beep sound for this same case.
9. The software of the phone really sucks. It will give you unnecessary notifications. Like “Busy tone sent” with an “OK” option. You may press it for ok. But it will disappear before that making your press to call the number again.
10. If you have received a service message, and not given an OK for that, then all the other Text messages you receive will not produce any vibration or tone. I have missed many important messages like this.
11. You can not install any software except the good old jars. This is really funny. After buying a higher model I have to still play snake and Tetris!
12. If you receive a message or service message, it will recognize each and ever number as phone number. With a faulty joystick the problem is doubled. If you press down, it will call the number in the message.
13. You can not customize the panel.
14. The phone is comparatively bulky.
15. The only supported DUO-memory card is costlier than other cards. Your memory upgrade will be a budget shock for you.
16. The data-port is open and often gets dusty. This will be a problem for headset, charging and connectivity.
17. The phone lacks a keypad lock with password.
18. You can not hide personal files in the phone behind a password.
19. The built-in phone browser is very slow and incompatible with many web-sites. I am currently using Opera Mini. That is good. Sony should think about embedding such browsers.
20. The “C” button is a clear nonsense. It will delete whatever highlighted. I have found contacts and files deleted when I kept keypad unlocked in pocket.
21. Only latest attended or received or dialed call time will be saved. If you got 5 missed calls from same number, you can only know the last call’s time.
22. The PC-suite and the disk2Phone software which comes with the phone will ask you service pack, .NET and .NET service pack in windows platform. For a Linux user like me they provide nothing but frustration.

If you still think W700i is worth buying, I don’t bother. But I now fell that I missed Nokia or some other mobile phones for this W700i. Sony Ericsson can’t even satisfy a customer who had spent nearly 9,000 INR should learn a lot or just quit from market.