Should I call it a N91 competitor? This new babe from Sony Ericsson
adds to the Walkman line boosting an incredible 4GB capacity and 3G
connectivity.
To the world of mobile phones, it doesn’t introduce any innovation,
but it does bring things together. Its touchscreen and lack of camera
remind me of the M600i that I reviewed last time, although this is much
better thanks to all music features.
It has a beautiful design, the keypad camouflage into the from
housing introducing a touchpad look, on top of which there are
dedicated music keys, although they are badly illuminated. On the left
side there is a jog dialand a return key which is becoming very common
in Sony Ericsson’s smartphones. The right side has a volume up-down
button and another dedicated play-stop key for multimedia. The bottom
has a Fast Port used to charge the phone and connect to headsets and
data cables. The top part has the infrared port and the on-off button
and the orange stylus can be extracted from the top left side. The back
side has three orange wholes which are the speakers.
The keypad mentioned previously surely has an outstanding design,
but it is hell to write a message with it unless you have a lot of
time, you must make sure you press the keys correctly. There is also
handwriting recognition incorporated into the phone, but tests showed
that it is not very reliable as it is slow.
The W950 has a large 2.6” screen with a good 240x320 resolution but
only 262k colours. The total weight is 112g and its size isn’t bad for
a smartphone, especially when comparing to the N91, the W950 takes over
the style department.
The OS is Symbian OS 9.1 UIQ. I don’t like what Sony Ericsson does
with it, all the UI is very cramped up in the screen, it doesn’t give
the sense of being organised and Series 60 totally beats that factor.
The Walkman part of the phone is surely the most important, the
phone is totally dedicated to it, and the application is very nicely
built, you can even change tracks with the jog dial, and a headset with
music buttons comes with, which connects to earphones via a 3.5mm jack.
I can’t complain that the 3.5mm jack doesn’t come in the phone itself
because it wouldn’t be possible to control music with the phone in your
pocket.
On the connectivity behalf, the device has 3G, Bluetooth 2.0, and a
Infrared port, but no Wi-Fi. Landscape web browsing and 3G speeds makes
this a good business phone as well, apart from the software side.
Advantages: 3G, 4GB internal memory, Symbian OS9.1 UIQ, Walkman application, large touchscreen.
Disadvantages: No camera, No Wi-Fi, unpleasant keypad, no joypad or joystick.
Rating: 8.5/10
