The Phone, Connectivity, Internet Capabilities and Battery Life

Well, the fact still remains that the W810i is a mobile phone first, and a camera/music player second. In this respect, the Quad-Band (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) EDGE phone doesn't disappoint. In terms of signal quality, the W810i performed well under all circumstances, and even got a (weak, but usable) signal in the area of my house where most other hand phones would just give up. Call quality is top notch, but the quality of the speaker phone is a bit on the mediocre side.

Memory wise, other then the supplied 512MB Memory Stick Pro Duo, there's also 20MB free internal memory (smaller then the K750i/W800i) and as I have stated earlier, the phone supports Memory Stick Pro Duos with capacities up to 4GB.

Voice dialling/answering features are also present on the W810i, although it is still speaker dependent, most voice tags saved with the phone would be quickly recognised by the W810i's voice dialling/answering system. Speed dial is also present, as is the quick jump into contacts with a long press of the number keypad, right into the corresponding first letter on the keypad. When voice commands is turned on, only Midi or Wav (16kHz) ringtones can be used, however.

The contacts management system on the W810i is impressive, featuring a 1000 number capacity (up from 500 on the K750i/W800i, but really, do you use all that space?), the option to save multiple numbers and  a whole lot of other details for each contact; and the impressive multiple character contact search (not available for contacts save with Chinese characters though). Pictures and ringtones can also be assigned to each individual contact, if you like; and the contact system can be backed up to the Memory Card or set to backup to SIM.

Messaging functions are similar with the K750i/W800i, and it is in the normal Sony Ericsson style. It supports SMS, EMS, MMS and Voice Messaging. There is a SMS storage limit though (200), but SMSes are transferable to the PC using free third party software (Float's MobileAgent – with the ability to transfer Contact information to your PC too).

The profiles on the W810i is also very flexible, allowing for a multitude of options for each of the 7 profiles available. There is also the Flight Mode, which, as explained in the previous section, allows the W810i to be used in areas where the usage of transmitting electronic devices are prohibited.

           
The File Manager included in the W810i is identical to the one included in the K750i/W800i, but includes all the improvements introduced by the W550i and W900i (including 3x3 grid thumbnail view while browsing the pictures folder) but it is still unable to browse the phone fully like a third party Java file manager (e.g. MobyExplorer).

Organiser features are also present in the W810i, but most are very basic (Calender, Tasks, Calculator, etc). The installation of Java applications can help enhance productivity in this respect, but business users are better off using a Symbian S60 phone, simply because of the vast library of Organiser/Business related software available for that platform. 

Speaking about Java, in this aspect the W810i performs a bit slower then its K750i/W800i bretheren (and also a lot faster then earlier firmware W810is, as I found on Mobile-Review.com. Maybe due to firmware updates?), but when compared to the W550i that I also have, the W810i is slightly faster. Here's the benchmark scores for any of you interested:

Bluetooth and IR file transfers are also a breeze. Transferring a 5MB song from the W550i to the W810i the took around 2-3 minutes, while transferring a 500kb picture from my laptop to the W810i took around 1-2 minutes. The following bluetooth profiles are supported: Dial-up Networking Profile, Generic Access Profile, Generic Object Exchange Profile, Object Push Profile, Serial Port Profile, Handsfree Profile, Headset Profile, Synchronization Profile, Basic Imaging Profile, File Transfer Profile, HID Profile, SyncML OBEX binding and JSR-82 Java API. A2DP or stereo bluetooth audio is NOT supported, though.

Phone to PC connection is handled by the DCU-60 USB 2.0 cable, and as noted above in the Media Capabilities section, no driver is needed to access the Memory Card and Phone Memory of the W810i under Windows XP SP2, although the transfer speeds are a bit slow for an USB 2.0 connection.

In terms of EDGE and GPRS (class 10, with a transfer rate of up to 48kbps), I was only capable of testing the latter, as my Hotlink account lacks EDGE support. GPRS performance is acceptable, although issues with connecting with the Hotlink GPRS servers due crop up (probably more due to the unreliable Hotlink GPRS servers rather then the W810i, my brother's Nokia 6600 also has problems connecting nowadays), surfing the net is okay I guess to check your email or stuff like that, and the NetFront 3.3 (not available on the K750i/W800i) browser built into the W810 does an great job in re-rendering websites to fit the W810i, although sites larger then 500k would not be loaded. I would recommend using the Opera Mini though, if you still want to surf the internet on the W810i on a regular basis (Tiny fonts + landscape mode = True – in a limited sense – Mobile Internet!). The built in RSS reader is also very useful for instant news updates on the run.

In terms of battery life, the W810i is said to be able to last for 14 days on standby, and have a total talk time of 8 hours (which I never got to testing for the lack of credit to do so); but for normal heavy usage (a full day with the Walkman player turned on – all the time –, a 1 hour call, a few pictures and a few messages), the W810i lasted about 13 hours for me, which is fairly long even for a music player (the iPod lasts around 14 hours). No doubt it can last even longer on Flight Mode with its phone capabilities turned off, but that is something I'm yet to test.

NEXT: Conclusions