Screen and Navigation

The first thing that crossed my mind when looking at the screen would have to be just how bright it was compared to the K750i/W800i. The screen itself has a larger diagonal in comparison to the K750i/W800i series, (1.9 inches vs. 1.8 inches) and improvements in the hardware have resulted in a much better screen overall in comparison to the K750i/W800i – it's subjectively clearer in the sun -, although the screen resolution remains at 176 x 220 pixels.

Just above the “n” in the Sony Ericsson lettering on top of the screen, we can find a small hole where the light sensor is located, the function of which I am not sure of myself. Searching about it on the Internet reveals that it only influences the keypad back lighting, although I have noticed the screen dimming in darker areas in comparison to areas with more light.

With a few seconds of no activity, the screen saver plays and then the screen turns off while entering standby mode to conserve battery power; as is the norm for Sony Ericsson phones. Pressing the Walkman button in standby would bring up a digital clock on a white background.

The menu system from the K750i/W800i returns, but with the addition of Macromedia Flash Lite, the menu themes are much more dynamic then the ones found on the K750i/W800i. And example would have to be the “Orbit” theme, with cool coloured balls of light circling your menu item of choice (and causing the phone to vibrate ever-so-slightly every time you choose something else), and the “Equalizer” theme were an (non-functional, we think) equalizer moves in the background of the menu, forming a coloured shape of the menu item of your choice. The themes are not fully transferable to another phone though, as some of the graphics associated with the theme are embedded in the W810i itself (I tested this by unsuccessfully transferring the Orbit theme to a W550i... no luck).

Missing from the W800i, the Activity Menu from the K750i returns on the W810i, placing most  shortcuts and bookmarks in one easily accessible place; which gives users the ability to multi-task and organise the running of multiple programs efficiently.

The Camera

Press and hold the camera button, and tip the phone on its side, and you have in your hands one of the best cameras on a mobile phone, ever. From my own personal experience, and also from the rave reviews floating on the net, its a widely agreed fact that the K750i/W800i camera was (and still is) one of the best 2 mega pixel cameras to have ever been put into a hand phone, which – to be fair – is second only to the N90's camera module in terms of picture quality and performance (this is also subject to much debate).  The camera module on the W810i is a slightly improved version of this legendary camera module, and – other then some slight improvements – its operation and controls are just as intuitive.

The 2.0 mega pixel CMOS sensor allows for 1632x1224 pixel, 24-bit pictures, which are saved in the JPEG format with a choice of two compression presets: normal or fine. Pictures taken with the W810i on the highest resolution setting can be very clear, sharp and extremely suitable for 3R and 4R (or even larger) prints (under favourable conditions). Other resolutions that the camera is capable of saving to include 640x480 pixels and 160x120 pixels.

In practice, normal daytime and properly illuminated shots are crystal clear, although night shots are suspect to some noise, and the 4x digital zoom only serves to worsen the image quality when used. Truth be known, it is not superior to most digital cameras of similar specifications (as it uses a CMOS sensor while most digital cameras use CCDs, no contest there), but as camera phone go, it's one of the better examples.

There is also an unbelievable set of camera features (for a camera phone), including the ability to set White Balance (auto, incandescent, fluorescent, daylight and cloudy), Effects (negative, solarize, sepia and black/white),  Night Mode and Self-Timer. Additionally, various modes allow consumers to shoot up to four photos in rapid succession (Burst Mode), combines several shots into one wide picture (Panorama Mode), or even shoot up close without the loss of detail and sharpness (Macro Mode). You can turn these features on or off easily using the camera menu or keypad shortcuts.

The star of the show, however, is the Auto-Focus built into the W810i's camera (and also its predecessors, the K750I/W800i), ensuring sharp images on a wide variety of shoot ranges. It would probably not be too much to say that Auto-Focus is instrumental in bringing the quality of pictures taken with the W810i (slightly) into digital-camera territory. The near-perfect resistance on the W810i camera button makes auto-focusing a breeze as well. 

The lack of the 320x240 resolution as a choice to save to is a minor annoyance, though, even though it is not really a major problem (it would have really saved some memory space for quick snaps where quality is not needed). Other (also minor) annoyances with the W810i camera include the inability to choose your own sound clip to be used as the shutter sound, the low recording quality of the video camera and the absence of any kind of hardware lens protection (read: lens cover).

Some users have also reported problems with setting the image quality to fine (which would crash the camera program) and the on-off flashing of the photo-light; but both problems were absent in my W810i, probably due to the newer firmware present (R4CK003, 3^rd update from the first production firmware: R4CA026).

NEXT: Media Capabilities