The Walkman series is looking good with its new reinforcements coming about all the time from the Company. Sony Ericsson W910 is a proud member of it and representative. The sliding form-factor and a slightly curved bottom seem to be very popular in the designers and engineers room altogether, or maybe it’s the public who gave it a good feedback. One thing is sure - this solution is a good turn both for the outlook and for the practical aspect as it helps to push up a little the front cover – the sliding mechanism will do all the rest work very smoothly. Besides the similar design approach which it shares with Sony Ericsson S500i, the handset’s surface looks very shiny with a metallic illusion. It is available in two colors for the moment – Hearty Red and Noble Black. The weight (86g) and sizes (99mm x 50mm x 12.5mm) are in a very accurate balance with its features and performance.
Display
A large and well-detailed display is a very important part of a media gadget. The display offers a nice quality. It is able to offer up to 262.000 colors at an appreciable resolution 240x320 pixels. Below it basic controls are situated. This includes two set of keys, which are split to offer the answering options and the functions of two soft keys. Along with them – the cancel and the shortcut keys are placed. The center is reserved for the D-pad, which is actually imitating metal again. We would also want to mark the very accurate style which Sony Ericsson is capable to prove in many parts of this mobile phone. Most of the options available with it are designed to fit as well as possible any user or need. This is the right time to notice the little light-sensor, which is situated below the display. This utility has only one function, but it manages to perform two important tasks. By qualifying how much ambient light is present, the sensor controls the brightness of the display. This results both in a higher quality of the picture and it also saves the battery’s life- time.
Play with the Keypad
Above the display a new feature was integrated. As on Nokia N81, the phone has to boast two additional buttons that are used during games or in the camera menu. Among them the loudspeaker is situated and a small video camera used for video calling. The alphanumerical key-pad is as usual different and surprising. This time designer opted for something in the style of the Walkman logo, whose presence is frequently identified all over the entire body. The backlight is even on the entire surface as is the texting too.
Basic functions - Calling and messages
The messaging option suffered some changes since its last version. Now you can create an inside structure for the folders you find here, and group messages to such categories like Fun or Business. This is especially handy as you can assign contacts to each category, and the message will automatically be saved in the right folder. The e-mail client supports a variety of settings, among which is the attachment for all types of documents, even they are not supported, can’t be opened, with the phone software. The contact list is, as always, well equilibrated. However a new addition was spotted here also. It refers to a local search engine which identifies the number you are entering with one of the contacts that have similar digits in their telephone number. The same refers to entering letters of a name – the search engine will automatically pop–up corresponding entries from the phone book. The calling quality and the signal are as always smooth and nice.
Walkman 3.0
The latest – 3.0 version of the Walkman application is present here. But this is not all. SE W910 is full of surprises; the news about one of them has already spread all over the world – it’s the Shake control. This feature is available from the Play Mode menu thanks to a sensor which identifies the physical position of the phone and is used to replace the common-used button pressing. So in order to move to the next track all you need to do is to shake it in the direction of the Fast Forwarding button. To get back with one track – shake it in the direction of the Rewind button, or to the left. To enable the shuffle mode, all you have to do is shake the phone a little more heavily on a back and forth direction. But the playlist is more than this with W910. Another great move and already a trend of the manufacturer, is too make its handsets closer than ever to people’s emotions. Like on SE S500i, this gadget has a set of similar novelties. Therefore SensMe is a new experience to us all. This application is correlated to the PC Software provided by the Manufacturer and will not work simply by Copy/Paste procedure of the files via the traditional browser. Every time you are transferring files though the file manager, it will identify the beat frequency and will classify the songs accordingly. Thus when you access this application you are requested to find in the virtual universe of animated dots, each representing a song, the one that suits you. The circle that is displayed around the selected song shows you how many songs you have similar to the selected one. This helps in identifying track similar to your mood without any stress or playlist editing. Besides the USB possibility to manage files, you may also use the Bluetooth, which handles a stereo headset connection, or take advantages of the 3G support to download or stream media files. If this is not enough you can turn on the FM Radio with RDS feed and with a memory for 20 stations.
Camera
The 2MP camera is situated on the rear part of the mobile phone. It does not have a flash light, but it has a comfortable position. Thanks to it, you’re able to take pictures or record video clips without the need to slide the phone, but only to press the dedicated camera button on the left border. The camera menu was modified and it looks more to a digital camera’s menu. The Camera Album folder amplifies this idea. It is now viewable in a chronically structure, so you get everything set as on a regular camera. But this feature can be switched off. Another useful feature provided with the position-sensor, is that it automatically identifies in which position is the phone situated and switches the image, both photo and video, to landscape or portrait mode.
Overall the phone is equipped with a lot of fun stuff and marks a new generation as for the 3rd version of the Walkman and the support for flash-based themes. All of the ideas that are running around this sensor are good and intended to make user’s life easier, but we find this option still in development, and must be improved in the following versions.
