Unboxing: Sony Ericsson W880i
Sony’s latest Walkman phone takes a different route from their past lineup with the W880i focusing mainly on size, without losing features. I really didn’t expect this phone to be so thin, it’s quite astonishing. The specs are unbelievable which include: 3G (2100 band only), a 2 mega-pixel camera with front-facing video calling camera, good speakers, expandable memory, and a boatload of good software. The camera isn’t the best but gets the job done, and the speakers are loud and put out decent sound. One problem is there isn’t too much low end even with the "Mega Bass" equalizer option turned on but, what can you expect from a device of this size. Now for the most important part, the buttons and keypad. After all, what good is a phone when you can’t dial a telephone number? That’s not really the case here. The buttons and keyboard are no doubt small, in fact the smallest i’ve seen, but they are actually pretty usable. You wouldn’t want to write long emails and messages here but it gets you by. Nice OS features include a built-in RSS reader, good web browser, a pretty good selection of themes, and of course Sony’s Walkman software. Call quality was good, and earpiece volume was good too. All in all, not bad a bad experience. Oh, I never want to see a 3G phone that’s more than double this size ever again. There is no excuse anymore to have such thick phones that countless manufacturers still spit out. HTC, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Siemens, LG, BenQ, TORQ, Pharos, you all listening? Click on for more unboxing and comparison shots!
Tell ya what, its a quality little phone. Dont think I’ve ever had a phone that hasnt had a few little problems, switching itself off occassionally I can deal with.
What really, really bugged me though was the simcard. When I’m paying that much for a phone, I want it designed as well as it can possibly be designed. Whoever thought that having to use tweezers for 5 minutes to get the simcard out was a good thing shouldnt be head of design at Sony Ericsson.
i love this phone!!!! onli problem is speakers arnt nearly as loud as otha walkman phones but brilliant little phone
I have this phone on orange and it’s been nothing but a hassle since I got it. I contacted orange and got a software upgrade, which seems to have helped slightly (it was turning itself off, being really slow to react, freezing, not recording missed or received calls, etc). But there is still a delay with the buttons and it doesn’t hold reception very well. Most annoyingly, the software doesn’t work with a mac and I can’t get it to work on my pc either – it won’t recognise the phone. I assume my pc is missing something. But I think the software should be more user friendly and compatible with a mac!!!! If it worked, it would be a great phone.
Ive got this phone on Orange as well. The software bugs make it unusable as its takes 5 – 10 seconds to react to buttons and sometimes it doesnt react at all.
I dont even have any data on the memory stick so the only crap clogging it up would seem to be from Orange.
Other than that its got great features, great size, suprisingly good battery and looks pretty cool – just a shame it doesnt work
Hey people,
I bought this phone from optus and love it except for a couple of minor issues:
– I get a tad bit of a lag after ending a call whilst trying to lock the phone and end up either in optus zoo, or trying 2 save the * key into my contacts.
– I find the volume key is in a bit of a tricky spot and find it a bit of a pain adjusting the volume.
I’ve noticed that on a lot of older versions of SE’s they don’t have the optus zoo feature.
I’ve been asking around and every one agrees that the zoo shortcut is annoying.
Does anyone know how to erase or change it?
Thanks.
hi guys, how do i remove the sim card? because i cannot seem to remove it
also there is a red phone icon with an arrow on the top of the phone screen, does anyone know what that is?
hi
please just got my w8801 not up to 2 weeks and the speaker stopped functioning.
please can someone help me.I love the phone so much,icant afford to change it……
I’m on Orange and have been experiencing the delay problem. I just changed what is referred to as the ‘theme’ on the phone and now the delay is much shorter, making the phone almost usuable. Still takes a long time to initiate keylock though.
Took the phone into the shop and explained problem with phone turning itself off, the assistant took the battery out, took the SIM out, blew into the phone, replaced SIM and battery and since then it has been functioning a lot better… craziness
i just love that phone. it’s so cool! i have one…you’ll be amazed by its capability to aid you in creating your own sound files..even with background music using a guitar or keyboard…and you could play songs while using any application except if the application needs to play a different sound…and so handy…so many shortcuts buttons…so amazing…
hello there guys…if the w880i is such a step foward why does it not play radio or am i missing something?
I’ve had the phone for a few months now and it’s without doubt the best phone I’ve had, makes the Motorola Razr which I had before look like a real clunker; I also get on much better with the Sony Ericsson software and texting. It’s amazingly thin and lightweight and the battery life is excellent. No bugs, no complaints, great phone.
Overall, this is one neat phone. No problems with texting, no problems with reception, no bluetooth problems, no switching itself off problems, no battery problems, no time delay problems and I’ve been using this for over 8 months.
My only gripe so far is the Walkman navigation software feature – I like to play my songs at random and from different artists by my own control, and the process of going back to ‘Artists’ or ‘Playlist’ is much too time consuming and takes many unnecessary steps. If SE can develop a shortcut to jump back to playlist at a single click, then I will consider the 880 to be a near perfect cellphone.
The first line of Text Messages i recieve seems to come up on the screen. How can i stop this from hapenin?? Thanks.
@xdx,
That’s easy! After you click on ‘INBOX’ to check who’s messaged you, click on ‘MORE’ on the screen (that’s the top RHS button), then scroll down the options, and find ‘LIST OPTIONS’, open this menu and select ‘NO DETAILS’.
Easy cheesy! Now your inbox only contains the name/or number of whoever SMS you.
Please Answer…..is there anyway of getting radio software on the w880i?
There’s no radio hardware as such, so any radio functionality would be downstreamed from the net, at which point you may or may not be interested due to the cost.
I hate this phone. How can a phone be classed as a phone if it can’teven recored missed calls. How the hell are you meant to be able to see who has been calling? So many little faults. Like it doesn’t play the ringtones i have selected for different people. Ive not experienced the switching off on its own phenomena yet, but i guess that will happen soon. Ive no insurance on this phone, does anyone think tmobile will sot it out without me paying loads?
PLEASE HELP WITH THIS:
juz bought this phone and i hav one major problem:
how to take out my SIM card??!!
Thanks…
I also had the problem with phone not recording missed calls when I first got it. You need to clear the call log – go into the calls menu, select ‘more’ and then delete all. I only needed to do this once a couple of days after I got the phone, since then it has worked fine.
Does anyone know how/where I can get a simple single ‘beep’ tone to use as ringtone and message alert? I only want it to beep once, subtlely, like my old nokia. Some of us don’t like fancy ringtones…!
i have this phone along with 4 of my mates and once u drop it its all over.all my mates broke after 1 small bump.
Well, don’t drop it then!
Slightest bump and the phone turns off. Phone is in my pocket or on my desk and often turns itself off without even being touched.
Turns itself off about 4 times a day on average. Border line unuseable.
If anyone finds a solution let me know.
Based on this experience I won’t be buying Sony phones again.
I’m wondering if anyone can help, i recently brought a second hand w880i and it has workied fine. after changing to cover to a pretty pink one i suddenly lost signal and it hasnt come back yet! any idea what i could’ve done? the signal never went straight after i changed the cover but a few hours after, please help. i need my phone back!
Has any1 else noticed that with there w880i whenever it gains a little knock like dropping it onto a bed or when i just drop it into your pocket it turns off?
This is the most unuseable phone I have ever had. It’s terrible. It is just so slow and unresponsive!
At the end of a call does anyone else constantly find themselves in the “Events” menu by accident?
A few days ago I turned the phone on and received 1 voice mail and 2 text messages. It took me nearly TEN minutes to read and listen to them!
Has anyone managed to resolve this issue of slow/freezing menus yet? I have already made sure the phone is on the latest version (Settings > General > Update Service > Search for update). Mine is with Orange.