Conclusions

Does the W810i shame its predecessors? Not really, as it practically improves on the K750i/W800i on many aspects, and is a worthy replacement for the W800i. In one way, its everything anyone would want on a hand phone, with a multitude of features inside such a compact and petite body;  but it does have its own quirkiness that might cause some people to shy away from it.

For one thing, it's not a Nokia. As people are more used to using Nokia phones, the Sony Ericsson way of doing things might be very alien to first time users.  But people generally get used to it pretty quickly (even if I'm still accidentally pressing the 0 key on the keypad for space in messaging  myself).

Now lets see the pros and cons of the W810i:

PROs:

●         Walkman music player with MegaBass

●         Radio with RDS support

●         2.0 megapixel camera with Auto Focus

●         Long battery life (13 hours under heavy use)

●         Bluetooth capabilities  and support for nearly all Bluetooth profiles

●         Quad-Band with EDGE

●         Clear, sharp and vivid screen

●         Improvements form the K750i/W800i

●         4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo support

●         Less problems with newest firmware R4CK003

●         1000 entry limit in Contacts

●         Phone instantly recognisable through USB without driver install in Windows XP SP2

●         Compatible with accessories such as the MXE-60 Flash module, MPS-60 External Speakers and others

CONs:

●    Hissing and popping/clicking problems with Walkman media player (until next Firmware update, probably)

●         No A2DP (stereo bluetooth) support

●         Some build quality issues

●         Strange play/pause hardware behaviour in standby mode

●         USB cable transfer speed a bit slow.

●         Flimsy HPM-70 headphone wires

●         No 3G

●         No Push-To-Talk

●         No camera lens cover (and thus, slower camera start up then the K750i/W800i)

●         Only 20MB free internal memory

●         200 SMS storage limit

●         Limited internal File Manager capabilities

●         Limited organiser features

●         Some Walkman related phone restarts (reason unknown, maybe MP3 decoding issues?)

In conclusion, even if it is not THE perfect phone, the W810i is perfect for what it was meant to do, which is being a jack-of-all-trades with some compromises. I would heartily recommend the W810i to anyone, as long as they're willing to accept the shortcomings and quirkiness of the W810i.

For more information on the W810i, visit the W810i thread at the Lowyat.NET forums!

NEXT: Sample Pictures