Musician gets by on looks

Sony Ericsson no doubt hopes its music-playing W880i cellphone could kill off the iPod with the same unseemly speed that Apple’s music player sent the Walkman to extinction.

By Chris Keall / Monday, July 30 2007

(Apple, of course, has its own hybrid phone/music player, the iPhone, but with no immediate – or indeed even distant – prospect of local release, it remains sadly academic for Kiwi buyers.)

My immediate verdict is that Apple’s iPod is safe, for now. Sound quality is the key. I found the W880i couldn’t match my humble first generation iPod Shuffle for audio quality. With its standard ear buds, it sounded noticeably more muted. When I plugged in Bose’s new in-ear headphones ($179), I got a much more full-bodied sound that got very close to my Shuffle. Yet the top possible volume was still below that which I can achieve with my iPod.

Otherwise, the W880i is well-specced as a music player. For starters, it supports a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, which is comparatively rare among phones, but very much appreciated. Most phones, and indeed iPods, come with cheapie ear buds that are best upgraded immediately.
A relatively generous 1GB memory card comes in the box, putting it on a par with entry-level iPods. The card is Sony’s Memory Stick format, which is not proprietary, but far less supported by PC and accessory makers than the ubiquitous SD. Nevertheless, it’s easy to copy songs from any PC via the W880i’s mini-USB port and USB cable.

You can also download songs from Vodafone’s Live Music Store, or move songs from your CD collection to your phone via the W880i’s bundled PC2Phone software. (Tracks bought on iTunes will only play on an iPod, in case you were wondering… though there is a relatively easy workaround.)
An external music button and a capable onscreen music player round off a very user-friendly package.

Better by design
If the W880i is a self-styled music phone, and I only give it a so-so rating for audio quality, then how can a 9 out of 10 rating be sitting in its summary box?
Simply because its core raison d’être is to be a mobile phone, and the W880i is one of the best around. Other phones from this relatively new joint company have had trouble meshing the European sensibilities of Ericsson with those of the Japanese Sony. The W880i’s immediate predecessor, for example, felt a touch cartoony. The sleek, flat W880i, however, is a design masterpiece with its own identity. The front face is brushed steel and has an extremely strong feel, as well as adding a classy, grown-up touch. And although the buttons look tiny (they are), the wide spacing also means I seldom missed a key.

The W880i is also the smallest and lightest 3G cellphone on the market, packing the specs for two-way real-time video calls, Vodafone Mobile TV and other live services into a body that’s just 9.4mm thick and only a little-finger-width taller and wider than an iPod Nano. You also get Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel digital camera (and VGA front-facing cam for video calls) and a crisp, vibrant 262,000 colour screen. Voice call quality is excellent, and Sony Ericsson’s own software features some natty touches like an RSS reader and push email support.

Ideally, I would have liked the W880i to have supported Vodafone’s faster 3G Broadband (HSDPA) network upgrade for better mobile telly, but in terms of basic online activity, on a phone this size you’re not going to do a lot of surfing.

As a frequent contributor to this section I’m somewhat spoiled for choice, currently toting Nokia’s N95, Motorola’s Krazr K3 and both Telecom and Vodafone iterations of Palm’s Treo 700 series, but it’s the W880i I’m using as my day phone.