Sony Ericsson W518a Walkman -AT&T – A Phone Centered On Music And Camera
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Great music quality, good photo quality for camera.
Thumbs Down:
The handset is a bit slow, keypad is difficult to use.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone design: Clamshell
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: aGPS, Radio Data Service (RDS), music player, camera.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The external display of the W518a is a monochrome display which has a resolution of 128 x 36 pixels. Internal display is 2.2 inch big TFT LCD, has a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels
Music player can play formats of AAC, WMA, MP3 , eAAC+ AAC+. The battery of the phone gives a talk time of 240 minutes and standby time is about 398 hours. The phone has 3.2 mega pixels without flash but is capable for video recording.
The phone comes preinstalled with Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger (MSN Messenger), AOL Instant Messenger Service (AIM)
Razzle Dazzle:
W518a has similar looks as W980 which is from the same manufacturer. It has clamshell design, black skin and circular buttons for controlling music. Being clamshell design it is 2 screens, the other one on the lid which gives basic information like battery life from it. This phone doesn’t have a glossy skin but will still show smudges and finger prints on it quite easily. The phone is 2 inches wide, 3.7 inches tall, 0.46 inch deep and weighs 3.6 ounces.
Inside Dope:
Sony Ericsson makes great multi media phones. Although they are not as good as some of the smart phones that you see in the market, it delivers great on sound quality and camera. The model number of the phone is W518a where in the W stands for walk man series. Sony Ericsson phones are as good as Nokia’s N-series when it comes to music quality.
The outer screen of the phone is a monochrome display and shows you battery life, time, numeric caller ID and signal strength. You don’t get a photo caller ID and there is no date either. The text size on the lid is too small and we would have liked an option which would increase the font.
The display inside the W518a is 2.25 inches big and gives a resolution of 320X240 pixels, 262,144 colors. The display was quite bright, you can read text easily and the photos are also a treat to watch. You can only change the brightness and the look of the menu, list or icons.
The numeric keypad beneath the display is very attractive looking but buttons are not that easy. Sony Ericsson has traded off ergonomics over stylishness. The OK button is the short cut for browser in the standby mode. The navigation button, the two soft button and talk and end buttons are a bit hard to use because they are not adequately raised above the surface of the board but at least they give good tactile feedback.
The keypad buttons also follows the suit, they are really hard to press and we had problems using them. This is one of the worst keypads that we have ever come across and we would have liked if the backlighting on the keypad to be brighter as it is difficult to type in the dark.
On the sides of the W518a there is a single jack which takes charger and headset which is something we are not quite comfortable with. You can only use on peripheral at a time and we would have liked a 3.5 mm phone jack which lets us plug in our own set of head phones. There is also volume rocker and locking switch for the phone. Memory card slot is not on the sides either; you have to go digging behind the battery cover.
The W518a has a 1000 memory limit for storing contacts. A single entry can take e-mail, seven phone numbers, web address, company name and job title, two postal addresses, notes and birthday. You can pair a contact with a photo (no photo ID on the display of the lid) and you can assign unique ring tone to a contact. Grouping you contact together and assigning ring tones to groups is also supported.
Other features of the phone include multimedia and text messaging, vibrate mode, alarm clock, calendar, speakerphone, notepad, task list, timer, calculator, stopwatch, tip calculator, world clock and unit converter.
The phone being a music centered device is expected to deliver high on music quality and we were quite happy with the music player. The features for music player include equalizer, stereo widening, playlists, podcasts, audio books and airplane mode. You can also set your music in loop and shuffle modes. The player also supports album art and the sound quality is awesome. You will have to separately purchase a cable to put music in your device as the cord doesn’t come bundled in.
The phone has a 3.2 MP camera just like W980. Options include two settings for quality, 4 picture sizes, three effects for color, four modes for white balance, night mode, adjustable brightness, self timer, four shutter sounds and digital zoom. The latter can be used only in VGA resolution. For multi shot modes there are fifteen fun frames and there is also an option for panoramic shots.
The camera also supports video recording, with features more or less same as camera mode. You cannot shoot more than 47 seconds in the MMS mode. You can tag photos to your location with the VideoDJ and PhotoDJ features. Photo quality was good and there was no image noise but lack of flash means that capturing pictures in dark environments will get a big black spot as photo. The internal storage is just 82 MB and you can add more memory by putting cards in the microSD slot which is located behind the battery cover.
Just like most walkman phones there is support for gesture and shake control. The latter lets you get in to the shuffle mode just by shaking the phone vigorously. Gesture control is used to silence music and ring tones; you will have to wave your hand three inches away from the camera. All this is good but you will look silly if you try it in public.
We tried the phone for call quality and it is really good. Our friends could hear us clearly and we could hear easily what they were saying too. But we wished the volume level was a bit high because calling in noisy environments was a bit of a struggle.
Speakerphone calls were OK but we found that the voice is tinny and speaker has got weak output. You will have to keep the phone close to your mouth or else you won’t be heard.
Other features on the phone include voice recorder, file manager, voice commands, voice dialing, GPS, PC syncing, POP3 connectivity and stereo Bluetooth. You can also use the latter as a remote control for controlling compatible devices.
Nitty Gritty:
W518a is good for music and camera. If these two features are important for you then get this phone. But the phone has some issues like inferior call quality and the presence of proprietary jack for adapter and headphones.
