Sony Ericsson W810i Phone (AT&T, Phone Only, No Service)

I bought this phone with a family plane from Cingular a month ago. Trust me, I really want to like it. Great camera, mp3 player, FM radio ... But I frequently got dropped calls even if it displays a full bar. I tried to set the "Preferred Service" to "GSM Only", but it doesn't work. My wife's Moto KRAZ never has such problem in the same area I lives. So I figured it must be the phone itself. It looks like the only choice is to replace another type.

I just got the w810i last week and so far its been the best cell phone I've ever had. It is smaller than I originally expected which was a very pleasant suprise. I got a 2 gig MS duo card and now have almost 4 hundred songs on it with room to spare(it can take up to 4 gig MS duo). The music quality is very good on this phone. The speaker could be a little louder but when playing through headphones it is good. I don't like how there isn't a headphone jack though, you have to plug a cord into the bottom of the phone and then the end of that cord has the headphone jack on it. It gets annoying and the cord becomes quite long. The camera is alright, i haven't sent any pics to a computer yet, but when just saving and viewing them on my phone they seem just ok for 2 MP, quality will probably look better on a comp though. This phone is loaded with features including bluetooth and infrared also you can set the alarm to only go off monday through friday or whichever days you choose. The battery life is also very impressive. I usually listen to music on it about 5 hours each day at work and use it pretty frequently for calls and it will last 3 days. Im sure it could last at least a week on standby.
A couple cons-
There is a cingular media connect button that will take you right to the internet. If you don't put the lock on the phone when it is in your pocket, you could easily rack up some unwanted data charges. Also I don't like how you are unable to see the length of your calls in your call log.

Overall it is a sweet phone loaded with features and has only a few negatives. Especially for being a free phone, I highly recommend it.

Vast upgrade from an early model Motorola V3 I had been using. Our area has a great signal and voice quality/strength is always strong, no dropped calls. I am hard of hearing and the position of the speaker is perfect, max volume is not needed as with the V3. In the past I have not been an iPod type user but now find myself daily using both the Walkman and FM radio (again, good signals in our area). Overall I am very happy with this phone+.
I have upgraded to web use and find this functional and fun even with the smaller screen.
For the price a GREAT deal!

I know this looks like a good deal, but don't fool yourself, this phone isn't worth the trouble. The camera stopped working after the first month, as Amazon took 2 weeks to get the phone to me and the "new" AT&T doesn't let you get the insurance after the first month, I now have a phone with a broken camera.



AT&T's connection is terrible (with this phone at least). I have replaced the SIM chip to see if that would help, but it hasn't. My only next step is to get AT&T to send me a replacement phone ($$$) or end my contract with them and try someone else ($$$).



Oh, and your rebate comes in the form of a disposable Credit Card, not a check, so unless you are very good at your spending, you won't get every dollar's worth.

Okay, there are only 3 disadvantage to this phone. When listening to someone, it is obvious you are on a cell-phone. It isn't clear, but it is acceptable for anyone. And there is no good non-ringtone ring. I can always hear a ring, but sometimes I can't make out a ringtone over music. So I want a legit ringing sound. Finally, sometimes, but not often, it has a problem holding on to a signal. You mostly have to be careful how you hold the phone. That is it.

This phone comes complete with more than any of my other phones, and it is smaller! What do you get for a small package? FM Radio, media player supporting up to 4 GB of music, stopwatch, timer, calendar, efficient contact organizer, Bluetooth, a bright light for the camera or to find you way around in the dark, a excellent camera, calculator, note taker, and long battery life.

Ericsson has always designed excellent phones. I still use, from time to time, my old T68. In between those phones I have had Motorola and Nokia. Both weren't even in the same league as this phone. Ericsson phones are easy to use and reliable. Anyone shopping for a GSM phone should look no further. Once you go Ericsson, getting anything else will depress you. I have hated my last two phones. I love my phone again.

One reason I got this phone is that I believed it would interact with my PC to load contacts, music, and my calendar. It comes with synchronization software and, while instructions are sparse, there is no reason to believe it would not work ... except it doesn't. After spending LOTS of time trying and going to the "knowledge base", I finally gave in and called customer support. I was told the phone CANNOT synchronize through the Media Center version of Windows XP because there is no compatible driver. So I now face the choices of 1)Entering everything by hand and doing without the mp3 function (Are you crazy?) 2)Waiting for the development of a compatible driver (Like that will happen soon) or 3)Giving them their crippled phone back. Probably #3, huh?

I've had this phone for a couple of weeks and really like it. I was worried about scratching the screen and camera lens until I bought this great little case by Krussel. My wife's Cingular Sony w600i phone can play full MP3 songs as ringtones assignable to contacts. I wish mine could. You can edit MP3 files down to 10 seconds via an editing program and use them, what a hassle though. The Sony Ericsson site allows you to download a some nice themes, games and ringtones at no charge. The phone I purchased came with a 256 MB memory card. I bought a 2 GB card to replace it and have loaded several albums of music on it. It sounds great, takes great pictures and is small. Definitely the most fun cell phone I've had so far.

A 2 mega pixel camera, a great MP3 player and ultra-compact phone. Just a few years ago we were carring shoulder bag phones that never worked, bulky cameras and cassette tape walkmans. Can't complain too much I guess!

This phone is close to being perfect in its own way. The user interface is very nice and easy to understand. The 2MP camera is good enough. Actually, if you don't need to use the camera a lot then I think a VGA or 1.3MP camera phone is enough already. In that sense, the Sony Ericsson W300i Phone (AT&T) may be a better choice. Since I love flip phones (which many think are already out-of-date) and the W300i has basically everything the W810i has (except for the camera quality), I would have chosen it instead if I could go back. But I'm not at all dissatisfied with this one.

The keypad is a bit smaller than other phones and the positions of the cingular and walkman keys are a bit strange so it may take you some time to get used to in the beginning. After that, everything is just fine.

My rebates are approved, actually. I see many people here have a problem with it. Maybe it's because my first bill is not exactly cheap so they want to help out a bit. Anyway, I'm very happy with AT&T and the phones I've had.

Hi,
It is a great all round phone especially with a cash back of $100. I have found no problem till now with the usage of phone. It has

1.) Great Looks.
2.) Size and weight.
3.) Keypad is easy to write.
4.) Features like mp3, voice recorder, light, bluetooth and radio.
5.) Cingular AT&T has the best coverage overall.

The speaker could have been a bit louder. Anyway it's way ahead than RAZR.

Regards,

Praveen

I've only had this phone for three days and already I am finding some annoyances:

1) You cannot charge the phone and use the headset at the same time. There is only one jack for both of these. Also, Sony has a proprietary charger/headset jack.

2) When receiving text messages or voicemails, you can't set it up where it will repeat; it will only ring once. This is not good if you don't pay much attention to your phone. Very annoying since the sleep mode is always on and you have to look at your phone to even know you have one of the two.

3) The 'sleep mode' is almost instant! It's very annoying for it to go into that mode so fast because if your phone is on automatic lock, you have to hit * and unlock to unlock it again.

4) You can't get rid of ringtones from Cingular. Also, they will show up in your playlist.

5) If you put a custom theme on your phone (ones you find on the internet, etc), when sending text messages, sometimes it's hard to read because the background wallpaper is visible and you can't see what you are typing.

5) There is only one recurrent alarm (my other phone had 3)

6) Can't send text message to more than one user at a time.

I know these are a little nit picky, but with my Samsung, things just flowed better, going to the store today to pick up the Blackberry Pearl instead. These are just some things that I can't live without.

This phone is everything I expected and more. It has a great MP3 player, a very good camera (2mp) a rarity is cell phones. It's smaller than I expected which is a huge +. I like the overall design. The only thing that is any annoyance is that you can't listen to the MP3 player through the headphones while it is charging (same port) and that you have to use the included headset thing in conjunction with regular headphones. You connect headphones to this plug in thing that contains the mic. It's both kind of cool but slightly annoying because you have to make sure you have the headset with you if you want to use the earphones. (Earphones are included)
The bluetooth capabilities are pretty cool. I like trading ringtones with other bluetooth enabled phones. The whole phone is just a good deal just make sure that you don't accidently access the internet with one of the features if you don't have a media plan. I suggest getting a text plan with the phone because it is addicting (unlimited is 20 a month) you can also get a plan for 10 that includes 200 texts and unlimited texts to people who have cingular (very cool if you have friends with cingular)

I used this phone for about three months now and I am very happy that I bought this phone over other phones.

First, it works great as a phone with clear reception and long lasting batteries.

Its camera feature is also handy for taking quick photos anywhere on the go. The 2MP camera is boasts high quality pictures and has an intuitive user interface (very similar to a digital camera both in terms of buttons and they way you hold it). There is a slight shutter lag and the shutter button itself is not quite as good as the ones in digital camera, but still much better than other phones'.

I don't use it much as an mp3 player since I use nano, but the sound quality is excellent (the included earphones were surprisingly good for a bundle) and transferring music from my Mac is also a breeze. Nevertheless, I regret that Cingular has blocked using MP3 files over certain size to be used as ringtones.

Other miscellaneous features such as Bluetooth syncing, weekly alarms, one-touch contact lookup, and auto-locking makes this phone truly shine over other phones from Samsung or LG, which have plethora of unnecessary junks in their software.

Cingular marred this phone a little more by placing their cingular mall as the first item the main menu. Who would be buying ringtones more often than looking up contacts or sending a text message (although it is possible to assign shortcut keys for any function)?

People have given some compliments for this phone's design. Although I myself am not too excited about the overall shape of the phone or its small number pad, it fits well in my pocket and is quite durable.

All in all, this is a great phone with solid build quality and well-thought out features that should give other phone makers a good lesson.

This is my very first cell phone, and after using it for two months I am very satisfied. It is small so it is may not be great for use during long phone calls, but on the other hand you can use it with a head set, so it's not a big deal. The features are terrific and very intuitive. The phone comes with a radio, an MP3 reader, a USB cable, a 128MB smart clip and a DECENT camera (2MP) which also takes short movies with audio ALL INCLUDED in the price. Transferring files from the phone to a computer is very easy (even if for some reasons I can't see on the phones jpg files transferred FROM a computer). The screen is bright (but difficult to see in bright outdoor light) and the graphics very pleasing. The camera takes decent pictures and allows for several useful settings which are very easy to use (e.g. light adjustment for indoor pictures, self-timer, macro mode etc). The zoom is a digital one, so it's pretty much useless. I used the phone in several areas on the East Coast, and so far reception with Cingular has been overall good, with the exception of a few remote places and inside buildings. You should be able to use this phone outside of the US, in places such as Europe or India where GSM technology is the standard. In such case you will probably want to "unlock" the phone (Cingular will not do it for you), so that you can use it with a different chip from the one you use in the US. Using your Cingular chip abroad would likely end up costing you a fortune. There are several online services which will unlock the phone for you for a few bucks. Then you can replace the chip (easy to do) once you are abroad and buy anew one with a local provider. I have not done it myself but I heart's fairly standard stuff. Overall, I am very satisfied with this product, which really is an excellent all-in one device. The keypad can be a bit trick, because it is easy to push buttons inadvertedly, and you may end up by mistake accessing features you did not subscribe to, which may cost you a fortune. Unfortunately I do not think there is a way to customize the menu in a way that such features disappear from the display. However, the easy solution is to "lock" the keyboard in a way that you have to press a combination of keys before using the phone (but note that you can still receive a phone call when the cell is locked, so that you won't risk missing a call because of this feature). Only problem I had: I could not buy through Amazon because their web site kept finding mysterious "errors" during the credit history check which neither Cingular nor Amazon's customer service could solve(and they did try...). So, I had to purchase the phone directly with Cingular, which cost more but was probably a good idea for someone like me with no previous cell phone experience. Highly recommended!

I have owned a lot of phones and this phone is by far the best I have owned I have also read a lot of reviews and researched extensively before going to this phone, At first I thought I had made a mistake by purchasing this phone. I couldn't hear on it .It is so small you have to have the speaker directly over your ear canal I was used to my next call phone speaker 2"inch's of it blowing out my ear drums but now I have it mastered it's perfect it doesn't blow your ear out I think I had temporary deafness from my old phone. The w810 phone is packed with features. you cannot possibly own this phone for 1 to 3 days and go through all it's features It has options for alarm clock organizer internet games mp3 b/w photo sepia solarize,etc.panorama,multiple frame shooting its packed the pics are really nice even has night mode and a light. The mp3 player is loud enough but it is not as loud as say an ipod or a scandisk sansa I own both but it is loud enough it will start to bother you with the volume all the way up . now say if you are used to crankin one of these other players all the time it will take a day or 2 for your ears to readjust to the lower volume levels I know because I used to do it all the time with my mp3 player though not anymore I realized its starting to effect my hearing.I have read the bad reviews those are the first I read so I know what the real issues are most of them I have read were lack of knowledge of the product Ignorance without having any technical knowledge of the product especially in the reviews of this phone I have had it for over a week the more I use it the more I like all its features its loaded this is a awesome phone.Let me post some of the bad reviews and tell you the Fix

1.Problem can't hear through ear speaker. resolution ' hold ear speaker over ear canal.

2.problem can't call out of address book. resolution pick number from address book press center silver joystick presto it calls from address book.

3.problem can't hear speaker while ringing resolution
go to menu select speaker volume increase it gets very loud you can hear it amazing

4.problem hit the wrong buttons when moving it around resolution it has key locks from normal to having to put a password for use on any functions it cracks me up you have a small phone use your fingernails you want something big get a suitcase phone or a 1980 cell phone come on get real
small phones are in

5.problem I accidently got on the internet and got billed 400 dollars that is a problem moron you should of bought a internet package with your phone before using it or just locked it out or maybe called cingular and said turn off my internet accessibility so i don't use it for a month by accident while surfing it. if you didn't order internet with your phone and have cingular turn it off its not changing your contract with amazon if you never ordered it

6.problem I got billed 250 dollars from amazon for changing my contract resolution don't change your contract with cingular after ordering from amazon keep it like it is for 180 days just like it states before you order

I rated this as a 5 star but put it as a 3 because there is so many good reviews and what you really want to know about a phone is usually in the bad reviews so I thought I could help by posting the deal on this phone it is an awesome phone it comes with data cables chargers no car charger I also ordered a krussel case very nice

I think that if you use your phone as something to listen to music with (which seems kinda silly considering the superior quality in every way of ipods) then you might love this phone. As someone who uses a cell phone mostly AS A PHONE, I returned it after one day and opted for a blackberry pearl.

I have owned the w810i for 4 months now and am fairly satisfied with the phone. I have used Nokia and Motorola phones in the past, and this phone stands toe to toe with both of these brands. First off, I believe a cell phone should be a phone first, then be a camera, mp3, pda later.

The voice quality that comes through is good. The speakers are even better, which are very audiable and bright. Next, the battery life is great. On average, I talk on the phone for approx. 2 hours every day and the battery doesn't need to be charged until the third or fourth day. The screen is big enough to display text clearly and the colors are vibrant. You could probably even watch TV or videos on this screen.

The camera is good at taking upclose pictures. But, as the previous reviews stated, optical zoom would have been better. I would not replace your current digital camera with this phone. It's more of a quick shot camera. The mp3 player is great. The sound quality is better than most phones I've used.

The button sizes are a bit small and the phone is somewhat thick. But, I am still able to fit this phone in my pocket without major issues. I have tried the data cable, infrared, and bluetooth, and it works for me. I'm not a heavy user of office sync'ing or bluetooth headsets, so I'm not certain if these features are reliable. The menu interface is just passable (mostly because of Cingular branding). I would consider un-branding this phone to see the true features of the w810i. There are just too many Cingular bells and whisles in the way, that brings down the usability of this phone.

I also like the Java mobile system. You can load various Java apps that run maps, games, and office. The FM radio is also a great plus that's not found on many other phones. The settings are good enough at customizing some aspects of the phone, such as themes, wallpaper, ring tones, etc. I couldn't find one to adjust the screen blanking time or the key locking time, which can be a bit annoying when you are a second too slow at punching the keys.

All in all, the phone is great at being a phone. I would get it if you're looking for long battery life, non-clam shell phone, with good voice quality.

I've had this phone for 2 months and I just love it. Voice quality is great, the buttons are easy to use, calendaring and messaging is easy to set up and use, and the music features are icing on the cake. The Sony Ericsson extras include cables and software for transferring files from the PC to the phone, and the Sony Ericsson web site has lots of extras and support. The FM radio is a nice extra, and the Disc2Phone software automatically converts songs downloaded from iTunes into the phone, so it works so slick! The camera and light are good quality too. This is a very thought out phone!

The only hitch is the message alerts -- when a text message arrives, missed call or voice mail has come, the alert only sounds ONCE. If you're the type of person who is always on your phone or checks it often, then it's no biggie - otherwise it can be a pain to not notice a message that has been waiting for hours.

Otherwise, this is a great phone, with lots of great features in a small, compact space. If you read the reviews here and around the web you'll find a lot of happy owners.

when i tried out this phone it was way to small i couldnt fit my fingers on the buttons and it made it really difficult. I think u should think twice before bying this phone and consider the samsung d807, this phone has all of the same features except for the radio.

All my previous phones were made either by Nokia or Ericsson. I was generally happy with both brands. This is the first Ericsson phone I have since Ericsson and Sony merged their cell phone products.

The W810i has many nice features, and if you look at the specs, this is an rather impressive phone. However, after using it for couple of months, I was deeply disappointed with some of those features in practice. I'll try to summarize some of the good and bad sides, in no particular order.

The phone is relatively small. Not as thin as some other phones out there. My old old Ericsson phones (without Sony in the name) were actually thinner. But they had external antenna too, and no built-in digital camera.

The built-in digital camera is actually usable with its 2 mega pixels. It can even focus. As opposed to standard (for mobile phones) low resolution, fixed-focus cameras built in many of the older phones, this is a huge jump in quality. W810i even has light/flash thingie, which makes it even more usable. However, light/flash has to be turned on manually for each shot. It will not fire by itself automatically in low-light conditions. My guess is that this was deliberate design decision to extend battery life. There's 4x digital zoom, which is my only real objection in this area. If the phone had the real optical zoom, even with smaller range (2x or 3x) it would be way more usable than "fake" digital zoom.

"W" in the name comes from the "Walkman", I guess. In this case, "Walkman" refers to MP3 player. I haven't used it much, but it seems to be usable. Not really a replacement for your iPod, but it will do the job. The phone itself has no 3.5mm headphones connector. However adapter for 3.5mm connector as well as set of headphones are included with the phone. The headphones adapter also acts as a hands-free (it has microphone) and has a button for answering the calls and a clip. Included with the phone is a USB cable. For transferring your MP3 collection to it, I guess. Worth mentioning is that the phone has a speaker, so you don't need to have headphones to listen to your MP3s. The quality of sound through bult-in speaker is not much though. But that's to be expected. All in all, very nice.

Phone comes with 256 MB memory stick. Which is more than generous, compared with my 6 mega pixel Canon digital camera that came with ridiculously small 16 MB SD card. 256 MB memory stick is more than enough for 2 mega pixel camera. It's kind of on a small side of things for storing your MP3 collection onto it. Couple of albums, and you'll start running out of space. If you want to use this phone as MP3 player, you'll probably want to upgrade to higher capacity memory stick sooner than later.

So far so good. Now some big disappointments. Bluetooth. One of the things I use on daily basis. Something all my phones simply must have, and it simply must work flawlessly. Well, it doesn't with this phone. I've a GPS that is Bluetooth enabled and acts as hands free, and can also access address book and SMS messages on the Bluetooth enabled phones. Most of the time Bluetooth with this phone works OK, except when it doesn't. The connection between the GPS and phone drops at random times. The phone ignores the fact that my GPS disconnected from it way too often, and still displays a small "using hands free" icon, even when my GPS was turned off (not there) for a long time. I have to power cycle phone in order for it to realize my GPS disconnected from it long time ago. I'm also using Bluetooth to connect to the phone from my laptop, in order to have Internet access when on the go and far away from Wi-Fi hot spots. Mostly works fine. However, if I have another Bluetooth device connect (for example hands free), the connection between laptop and cell phone will simply freeze. This phone is supposed to support connection to multiple Bluetooth devices simultaneously. In practice, it just doesn't work reliably.

The unreliable Bluetooth is obviously my biggest grief.

Another thing I don't like is the address book. It doesn't allow storing of multiple numbers of the same type under single name. If you know somebody with for example two cell phone numbers, you are out of luck. You can't mark them both as cell phone numbers. There's option of marking a number as home, work, mobile, fax or other. And you can have exactly one of each. There's no pager type, BTW. My old address book (which is also synced to couple of other devices) contained several entries that I had to modify in order to get them accepted by W810i. You can not store email and street addresses into the address book of this phone. These are very serious limitations that should make you seriously consider the usability of this device, if you need address book synchronization.

The two orange buttons are nice. However, way too often I end up pressing the "Cingular" button, and the phone happily connects me to the Internet right away. Luckily I have generous data plan (well, not really, I still have to pay to have it), so this doesn't really cost me anything extra. But if you don't have (or don't plan to have) good data plan, it should worry you. Be careful which buttons you press. The two orange buttons are very easy to press by mistake. The one on the right that connects you to the Internet much easier than the one on the left that starts MP3 player.

The last negative thing is relatively lower sound quality of phone calls than what I'm used to. I have a feeling my old Nokia (and older Ericssons, without Sony) were much better. Or it just could be that my hearing is slowly going south. Who knows.

Conclusion. This is very nice phone. However, if you plan to use some of the phone's advanced features such as Bluetooth, you may end up disappointed. Also, if you require advanced address book, you'll be disappointed with this phone too. W810i simply doesn't cut it in those two departments. On the other hand, if you don't care about those two particular features, you'll be very happy with this phone.

After reading the reviews on this phone, I decided to replace my Razr with the Sony Ericsson. For the most part, this phone completely blows away the RAZR!

The camera phone is unbelievable. Showing off the quality of pictures + all the effects (gives you some great editing tools-- my favorite is the Panorama mode) has convinced the majority of my friends to look into this phone. I also love the fact that the zoom offers you a flexible zoom distance compared to your standard 3 zoom options.

As for the mp3 player, the sound quality is AMAZING! The headphones (although somewhat awkward to get used to)are very great quality and even on full volume it is very hard for anyone else to hear it. It is somewhat of a hassle to have to skip through all of Cingular's standard ringtones, but I don't find it bad enough to complain.

I would say my ONLY complaint for this phone is the calling quality. I don't know if it might just be a defect with my phone, but whenever I'm on a call, you can hear that weird sound interference in the background (like when your phone goes off next to a TV or radio). Also, the voice quality is not as clear as the RAZR.
Maybe one other complaint would be that the navigation buttons are so small, and the location of the "Call / End Call" buttons are so tiny I havent quite got the hang of ending calls right away ;)

As a person who doesn't own a good digital camera OR an I-Pod, this phone definately has me caught up with the times. Although the voice clarity is not as great as my RAZR was, I give it a 4.5 star rating.

I had looked at this phone in the cingular store and liked it, but now that I have, it I LOVE it. I am so glad that I looked around and found it on Amazon for such a good price. Battery life is really good. Sound quality is good. It is really easy to navigate once you get used to the buttons ( I had a Motorola before this and the menu sets are a bit different). I was surprised to get a memory card double what I thought I was going to be getting, so I was able to fit quite a few MP3 on the card and it is nice to have the MP3 player on the phone as well as a 2mp camera...It takes surprisingly good pictures. I know there is a lot more that I could do with this phone, but above all it has to function as a phone, I have rarely dropped a call, nor have I had trouble hearing people with handset, headset or speaker.

This has to be the best phone (and funnest) I've ever had...and it only cost me a penny! The pictures this phone takes is amazing! All my friends can't believe pictures I post on the web are from my phone. This even has settings like a real digital camera: zoom, flash, picture size and quality, panoramic, effect (black/white, sephia, etc), macro for close-ups, night settings, video...there's more, but I can't remember the rest.

The expandable memory is also very useful. I have more than 200 songs loaded on my phone and use it when I need to work out, or hook it up to the auxiliary jack of my car and play music through my phone. It's also pretty cool when a phonecall comes in. The caller is broadcasted through the radio speakers and basically becomes a hands-free kit. The phone helped us out a lot when we had a road trip. Our car got broken into the night before we headed home and we were radio-less. I was able to play music through the phone speakers for about 2 hours before the phone battery went out. I'm pretty sure I could of had more play time if I had my phone on full charge.

Features I use the most:
- Making calls (of course)
- Listen to music
- Sync'ing Outlook Calendar from computer to phone for meeting reminders
- Camera
- Alarm clock...I like how the volume gradually increases and slowly wakes you up instead of shocking the hell out of you on high blast.

I've had this phone for 6 weeks now and I am still ver impressed...HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! My only wish is that I can play music via bluetooth, but come on. Can't have everything for a penny.

THis phone is the best phone I have ever had. It is very compact, easy to use, and is fun to personalize. I have only had it for a few weeks and I am very glad that I purchased it.

I bought this phone after reading the cnet reviews and really liked it. It looks small and really compact. I like the camera pics at 2 mega pixel and bright flash. The mp3 player is crisp. The headset that comes along delvers amazing fM radio. I think my phone is not very loud and you have a problem when you are around a noisy crowd. I just bought this phone again for my cousin. He likes it too. Almost forgot the display is very good.

So I Had a SE S710a, and it broke. It was a great phone. After it broke i got a Moto Razr, b/c of the deals they had on it and i thought "Hey everyone has them, they have to be a decent phone." Boy was i ever wrong, the Razr was terrible. I impatiently awaited the time in which i could upgrade. It finally came, and i knew i wanted a SE. When i recieve the phone, all was well. With a little tweaking i worked out it's earpeice volume problems. The phone is wonderful. It doesn't randomly shut of like the Razr, which is always a plus. The phones os runs fairly smooth, I get the hourglass wait everyonce in awhile, but i've filled my phone memory up with themes and what not so it can be expected. The walkman part works great, just need to get a 2 gig stick. Only gripe i have is that i wish the FM radio would work without your headset plugged in. I've read where some guys figured out a way, i just havent tried to rig it up yet. Overall, great phone. Easy to use, easy to customize.

This phone so totally rocks. I just upgraded from my Siemens S56 because I needed a quad-band phone for my trip to Europe. I wanted my phone to do two things: 1. Be a phone. 2. Take decent pictures. Originally I wanted a flip phone but I didn't choose the new Razr V3xx because it's only Tri-band. I didn't choose the original Razr V3 because of the weak VGA camera. I didn't get the LG CU500 because of the apparent difficulty in transferring photos. I didn't get the LG CU400 because of its VGA camera combined with its poor bluetooth reliability. The only hesitation I had with the Sony Ericsson was the candybar shape. My old phone is that style and I always disliked it because it got beat up so easily. But that is a small price to pay for a real quality phone.

So far the phone is really fantastic. I don't need the music features but it's cool that you can use MP3s as ringtones, and download images or use photos as wallpapers. I have a Mac, and you can just plug it in and both the phone and the memory stick pop up on the desktop as external drives. Then, just drag your files to the phone! The sound is really clear, and it works with my Motorola bluetooth headset perfectly. No more transferring sound to the headset, it just uses the headset if it's on, just like a wired headset. SWEET! Voice recognition is flawless. I can't wait to find all the other neat little features.

Summary
Pros:
1. Bluetooth works perfectly
2. Sound quality great
3. Great 2.0 Megapixel camera with flash
4. Quad-band
5. Works great with Mac computer
6. Comes with accessories: headphones, USB cable, power adapter
7. FM radio (how cool!)

Cons:
1. Candybar shape
2. Rare phone has few custom accessories available
3. Cingular strips all the cool ringones and games that come with the unlocked version (seriously, there are only about 4 ringtones, but at least I can make my own)
4. Teeny-tiny buttons. Not for those with big hands (I use my fingernail).
5. Need adapter to use headphones (though it comes with this).

Seriously, the cons are just very minor things, they don't detract from the phone at all (that's why the 5 stars). All I need now is a good case for it so I don't scratch it up too soon. If you need a great phone and a great camera, why not go with this one?

25 May UPDATE:

The phone worked flawlessly between the U.S. and Italy. As soon as we got off the plane it picked up the nearest cellular signal. I had a signal everywhere we went, including up in the mountains of Tuscany. I had no problem calling both Italian numbers, U.S. numbers, a 1-800 number in the States and a number in Great Britain. There was virtually no voice delay as well. Data was also available in all these places. It'll be another month before I know the cost though.

NOTE: formatting your dialed phone numbers is the key. Always use the + sign at the beginning of your dialed numbers in place of the international routing code (011) and the numbers will be the same from anywhere. this eliminates the confusion of how to dial from Italy to Italy from a U.S. cell number. For example: to dial a U.S. number just dial +1 (000) 000-0000. (1 is the US country code) Most phones have the + available somewhere on the keypad. To dial an Italian number, dial +39 000-000-0000 (39 is the Italy country code) and the number will be automatically routed correctly. Thanks to www.slowtrav.com for this time saver!

I was asked recently about bookmarking features for audio files (such as e-books and podcasts) on the phone. since the phone is designed as a music player, it doesn't appear to have this feature. I did, however, find that if you use the Walkman button, from whatever you were doing on the phone before, it will start the song wherever you left off. So if you are listening to a podcast and you need to make a phone call, send a text message, whatever, when you return it will pick up where you left off. However, if you skip the podcast and listen to another song or audio file, I don't believe you would be able to find your place again without fast forwarding.

This is a wonderful phone and I am enjoying all of the options that make using it fun.

This phone is amazing... I was just listening to some MP3's on it today while out at the pool. My wife and I both waited a month to get them and we've never regretted it.

Audio clarity is great, the speaker on the back is extremely clear and has a great range of tone.

The 2mp camera takes a wonderful 1632 x 1224 image. Very clear and precise.

I wish it played Windows formatted video (avi, divx, etc...) but the conversion to 3gp is pretty painless with software like DVDFab to split your movie into parts and then using SUPER © to change it over to 3gp.

Get a bigger memory card. This phone will handle up to 4gb of memory. Best Buy and Circuit City will sell 4gb chips to you for insane amounts of money... I got mine on Ebay for half of what BB was selling theirs for.

Get this phone, you'll love it.

A good phone with very good graphics. The camera quality of this phone is excellent and you don't have to carry an additional digital camera with you. MP3 player and FM ofcourse is very good too...

This phone is great. It does pretty much everything you expect a modern cell phone to do. What makes this phone stand out is the mp3 player and camera.

The mp3 player is very good, although not as good as my iPod nano or Creative Zen. My favorite thing about it is if you're listening to music, the player will pause the music when the phone rings, and resume it when you finish your call.

The biggest drawback it has is it will not play WMA files. Therefore, all the music I purchase from an online store (Yahoo, Napster, etc.) will not play. Nor will the music from subscription services like Yahoo Unlimited or Napster To Go work either. And since the songs from these services are protected with DRM, you cannot convert them to mp3 to get them to work. (Note, iTunes music is in AAC format, and AAC is supposed to work with this phone, although I have no iTunes music to try out.)

The camera is surprisingly good for a phone, one of the best I've seen out of a phone. It's no substitute for a stand-alone digital camera, but it's great when you don't happen to be carrying one. The 2-megapixel photos are crisp and colorful. It has a light you can use when it's dim out, but it doesn't appear to have a flash.

Transferring files to and from the camera are a snap, since it appears to the computer as another drive when you plug it in. Therefore, you can drag and drop files to it, or use your favorite apps to manage the files on it. I've synced music using Winamp, and uploaded photos to Flickr using the Flickr Uploadr program without a hitch. It comes with software you can use with it, but I've never had a need to install it.

Overall, I'm very pleased. I give it 4 stars. If it played my purchased WMA files, I would definately give it 5.

Yes, it's got some nice features and all but Beware! The complexity of this phone will cost you money. You press the wrong botton while you're learning the phone, might put you online then, when you're bill comes, you'll be surprised how much it will cost you.

I love this phone. The picture quality is amazing and so is the Walkman on it.

I was originally against the idea of combining my music player with my phone. I am a gadget freak, and love my ipod. But this phone has changed my mind. Its essentially like having an ipod nano (if you buy the extra 4gig pro duo card). The menu system works very similar to the ipod as well, which I have grown accustomed to. Even though it doesnt have the scroll wheel, by selecting letters you can quickly find artists, playlists, music titles etc. The camera also takes pretty darn good pictures as well, for those on the fly moments. I wouldnt replace my my main camera with this, but its a great camera in a pinch. And of course, last but not least, the phone capabilities. I have been very pleased with great reception and great features overall with this thing. Even if it didnt have the camera or mp3 player, I would have bought it for the nice size and easibility of the browsing through the menues. Also, I bought (paid $0, with a 2 year contract) this phone through amazon. The process was amazingly smooth and painless. I plan to erase the cingular customized software on the phone, because they seemed to have blocked some features on the phone. Also, I have an occastional delay when browsing through the menues. Based on some research, I believe this is due to cingulars software......

My family and I purchased 3 of these phones on a family plan and overall we are very satisfied with our purchase. This phone offers a ton of features. The walkman works great, sound quality with the head phones is good. I upgraded my handset with a 1 gigabyte memory stick and it worked perfect. The camera works wonderfully and produces crisp vivid images. Others have complained about small buttons, but this is going to vary from person to person. The phone itself is small, so the buttons naturally are small. Unless you have very large hands or fingers, the button size will be fine. The speaker on the back side of the phone is loud and clear. However, the only drawback that I can mention about this phone is that the little speaker or ear piece that you actually listen to callers with has a low maximum volume. It works perfect so long as you are not in a public place with lots of noise in the environment. Sound quality of calls is great, just a little on the quiet side even with the volume on the highest setting. Some have reported that updating the firmware may resolve this issue. If you can overlook the earpiece limitations, or work around it with a bluetooth earpiece to use with the phone then you will absolutely love this phone.

I love sony Ericsson phones for their battery life. My first phone of theirs looked a lot like this and I like candy bar phones so I thought I'd love it. I ordered it and right away I could tell it wasn't working well. I had the automatic lock on the keys and they are SO difficult to unlock. Some buttons are so tiny and close together that you push several at one time, but it would take me 5 tries on avarage to get the keys unlocked so that I could actually do something with it. Sometimes i would try to make a call and the phone would entirely shut off for no reason. It would only do it with one of my contacts. I returned it and had another one sent to me, hoping that I just got a lemon. The next one did the same think on both accounts, still would shut off when I tried to call that certain contact. Maybe it's my SIM card? I love the battery life though. The Sony Ericsson bluetooth headset worked wonderfully and I love the Memory Pro Duo 256GB card that goes with it. I wish this phone worked for me. I like also that it stretches any picture you take to fit the entire screen for your wallpaper, so it looks just as good if not better than any pic you'd down load. I'd still recommend agains this phone...and the LGcu500.

I love this phone! that's the best way to sum it up. it's got a 2.0 mega pixel camera, which if you don't have a clue, is huge for a phone. Comes with great headphones, a usb cable, but the best part of this phone is that it supports memory sticks. i have a 1.0 gb stick in it right now but will support any size. i just put my memory stick in my PS3 and download any of my cds on to it in 5 minutes. if you have the patience to learn all the features, there are many, than you will love it!

I bought this phone with a Cingular Family Plan about 10 days ago. I got it shipped in 3 days. It was simple to activate the phone, to port my existing number to the Cingular Service. Coming to the features of the phone, the built-in camera feature is really cool, it takes a nice 2MP pictures. It works even in low light condition (come with built-in flash light). The picture is clean and neat. The LCD is bigger and really nice. The menu options are little tricky to handle in the beginning (especially I have been a dedicated Nokia user before) but you get used to it in a few days. I like the Alarm feature as it allows you to set the favorite tone you want, also you have an option of recurring alarm (which is kind of cool). I am yet to use all other features and will write a detailed review/update latest.

I consider myself to be picky. Not just in phones but in mostly everything, from programming to formating of research papers, to just about anything. My first ever great phone was MPX220 (tht's right! The one that failed big time) and after that this is my first really good phone. Please keep in mind that some of the cons are just me expecting too much!

Just about 4 mili cm wider than a normal business card, it is packed with features. I would highly recommend buying this phone. Best phone I have ever seen. Have used it for 1 month so far. Here are the Pros and Cons:

Pros:
1. Amazing Camera for a phone (pics taken in dark will have visible pixels)
2. Amazing reception (get 50% to 100% reception in basement / Elevators)
3. Walkman quality good (not CD quality), call quality (Average to above Avg). Loud enough (unlike some have said).
4. Could be used as ppt viewer, etc.
5. good response time (good processor speed)
6. Camera features
7. Some ringtones are loud enough for me to hear it downstairs in my house.
8. Vibration is pretty darn strong. I had it on the wooden frame of my bed and it fell down due to vibrations!
9. Alarm is loud enough (unlike few have mentioned). I am a sound sleeper and am able to wake up just fine.
10.
Cons:
1. It mostly has static in background (maybe just Amazon's stock, since I havent noticed this problem on W810is tried at Cingular stores).
2. Not excellent battery like described (however, my batter could be affected due to no Cingular towers in my town)
3. Grouping of contacts is stupid!
4. Only 1 mobile, home, fax, etc no can be entered! (what is my friend has two landline numbers like I do?)
5. I am google fanatic. I can't synch my phone with google calender!
6. The shutter button should be a bit protruding. Takes some effort to full depress it and I am afraid I will spoil it!
7. Zoom in pics will loose quality significantly.
8. Only 1 good ringtone. I am not one of those immature kids who likes annoying ringtones or is crazy about ringtones. But, really ringtones on this phone r disappointing!
9. The SIM card slot. Sony, it takes me 2 min to get a SIM card out. Please take a look at latch and lock mechanism in Nokia 6682!
10. Only 1 Alarm ?
11. MPX 220 allowed me to save a phone number on a sim and not create a seperate entry for each number under 1 contact (when saved on SIM). Please also put a sim symbol next to a contact to signify it is also saved on SIM.
12. A quicker way to switch between Silet, and ringtone.
13. No Vibration mode by itself.
14. Please take a look at Moto design regarding Silet, vibration, loud, modes (agreed Moto sucks!).
15. All these features and no Compass ? Oh! how about a radar detector (alright, I m crazy!)
16. No Lens cover (gets fingerprints on it).
17. Hissing in background (not experienced this in phones tried at Cingular store. Sony finds this problem unique. Seems like Amazon's stock is messed up).

Agreed, I have mentioned more Cons than Pros, but again, I am just too picky. Even though, I would highly recommend this phone over any others. Screw the Razr. It's overrated. This phone will keep you happy for eons.

I went canoeing to wikiwa park in Florida. I wanted to use the 2MP camera while canoeing. The boat flipped, and I fell in the river/Spring water!! The cell phone was in my pocket, and was ON. It was underwater for about 45seconds! when i came out of the water, I quickly disconnected the battery. Left the cell phone to dry on my computer monitor vents for 3 days. Checked it after 3 days, AND IT WORKS JUST FINE!

AWESOME PHONE! 5 STARS to SONY Ericsson for making such a sturdy, rugged, advanced, sleek and affordable phone!
I've had no problems with this phone ever! everything works GREAT!

1. You can't hear the sound out of this phone even at the max setting. You have to be in a quiet room to talk.
2.Sound quality is not good either.
3.The menu is completly idiotic. For example you decide to call your bussines assosiate. You go into the address book,then you have to go to options,the pick a group,find the person..and there is NO WAY you can just press call button and call that person. The only two choices are DONE or Delete. What kind of the phone would not allow you call out of the address book????????...You have to memorize the name of the person and
Camera is OK for a cellphone...but it takes about 5 sec for it to take a picture.So your buddies have to stand there for 5 second with a silly smile on their face;)
Ringtone is not loud enough...and vibrate mode is also too weak. I can't hear or feel my phone ringing in my pocket.
Even in Silent mode...if you press the side button accidently in your pocket,it will start to play Cingular MP3 files saved on the phone! This is embarrasing when that happens,and you can't disable this music. Common...there is gotta be a choice to put your phone in a complete silent mode!!!
The worst phone I ever had.

1. I was at a couple Cingular stores yesterday, and they told me this product is being discontinued shortly because it's going to be replaced with a model with a 3.2 megapixel camera. "Sometime in June" was the date they gave for the new model. "Check Sony's site." I checked Sony's site and none of their Coming Soon phones had a 3.2 megapixel camera...

2. If you want to play around with the phone before deciding on it (which I recommend), print out this page with Amazon's price on it and bring it to a Cingular store. We merely mentioned that we could get the phone for free on Amazon and the store matched the price, saying, of course, "It's been a really slow month, you guys are lucky." UPDATE: the ones we got at the store came with a 256 MB card, while it seems that this version only comes with 128...

2.5 If you are going to a Cingular store to get hands-on time with the phone, call in advance and make sure they have the phones plugged in and turned on so that you can flip through the menus, etc. The first store we went to had the phones with no batteries, no power, just a sticker on the screen displaying a fake menu screen. How anybody could make a decision on a phone based on a sticker is beyond me. We drove down the road to a store that had the phones powered up, and ended up buying them there.

3.0 NOTE that the phone does not play protected .aac files: anything you purchased from iTunes will not play on this phone, unless you go through the (imo tedious) process of burning a CD and then ripping that CD back to your computer.

I went from a Nokia 6230 to this Sony, and am very impressed with the call quality, Walkman music player, camera, and video playback.

This phone would be perfect for me if it could be charged while using the headset (which my Nokia could do). I'm just not crazy about the wide connector used by both the charger and the headset.

Battery life is also less than the Nokia when using it to listen to audio or to view video. The screen is bigger and brighter, which certainly would draw more power, but I hoped that a much newer phone would be a little more miserly with power consumption.

Overall, I'm very glad I bought it. It's just not perfect yet.

I have lusted after this handset for about 6 months now and finally got one of the Cingular reps to give me the renewal contract price for a new phone. I have been using a W600i for the last 16 months and love everything about the phone it's the lack of a memory card slot and a decent digi cam that made me long for the sexy black W810i. I have only had the 810 for 3 days now but have already noticed three major negatives about it.

(Quiet speakerphone)
I may be spoiled by the dual speaker ports on the w600 but it seems like the 810 is muffled and there is definately a direction that the audio comes out of the phone as opposed to the W600 which seems to radiate its sound omni-directionally.

(Reception)
Granted it's only been 3 days but already areas where I had decent reception I have noticed a drop in call quality from the w600 to the w810.

(Sleep Clock)
I must be the only one who uses this feature since Sony decided to drop it. The clock coming up on the face of the w600 when it went into "sleep-mode" has become the way I tell the time, loosing this on the w810 will force me to began wearing a watch again.

I have never had a "candy-bar" style phone the w600 was a cool swivel and my 3 Samsungs under Sprint were all "flip phones". I hope that I can get over these differences and that the main issue of reception is just a passing Solar Flare but for $60 bucks it was well worth the chance and I still have my W600 in-case I get home sick.

I should say.

I have cingular.

I live in upper westchester and often travel to NYC

I travel internationally, thats why I chose this phone and cingular.

after all that, I have to say, this phone is amazing. I love it, I have had NO problems with it, it came with all I needed (radio head set antena thing and data cable and 512 mg memory stick( and it works wonderfully and is very customizable.

I highly recomend it.

this phone is amazing. if you've ever had gripes with other phones, this phone will fix them. blahblahblah. the only thing that sucks about this phone is that ITS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH WIRELESS BLUE TOOTH HEADPHONES. i mean, get with it! and the interent sucks. if you really want a pc like browser, look for a pdawhatever. and the camera is amazing.

After purchasing the Sony Ericsson W810i I was extremely pleased, and was only more please with it the more I used it. The main reason that I purchased this phone is that I am on the go a lot and wanted a phone that was able to play music. The sound quality is superb. On occasion I have had the MP3 player have trouble hitting a couple of high notes, but this has been a rare and easy fix by adjusting the bass and treble.

I have not used the Bluetooth wireless features so I am unable to comment on that, however the infrared feature works perfect.

The quality of the phone itself is extremely high. I have dropped it a couple of time on the carpet and it has not been damaged or even powers off. The sound quality when talking on the phone is probably 4 out of 5. I have had a little static but not very often.

The navigation of the features are very easy once you get used to them, as there are many many features so it takes awhile to get used to.

The camera is flawless! The quality is extremely awesome and easy to transfer to the computer or simply save on your phone. I am amazed!

Overall I have to give this product 5 out of 5 for its durability and quality. I am very happy with my phone and highly recommend it to others!

-Christian Fobian
Author of Why Christ?



I really wanted to like this phone. It's small, ergonomically easy to use, and aesthetically pleasing. Nevermind that it has two features I don't need and probably won't use much (the camera and the Walkman). . .it seemed like the best option for me given that I'm not a fan of flip phones and I needed a phone that would work overseas.

Here is what I found:

1. poor sound quality
2. poorer sound quality when using the hands-free headset
3. hands-free headset is ridiculously complicated and uncomfortable

Granted, I have not tried the using a bluetooth device yet, but I shouldn't HAVE to in order to get good sound when I want to be hands-free. It has come to the point where I don't even want to answer the phone anymore when it's ringing due to the fear of have to say "What?" several times per conversation.

4. user interface is a bit more complicated than it needs to be...too many clicks needed to do things, like saving contact numbers, or setting the alarm.

I'm actually boxing this phone up to return to the store. It's a pity because, like I said, all the signs were there to love this phone -- size cuteness, nice number buttons, etc. Maybe I'm just still missing my Nokia 3120 - THE most amazing phone I've ever owned for sound quality, durability, reliability. Too bad I lost it in a cab in San Francisco! And too bad Cingular doesn't support that phone anymore. . .





Just got this phone a few days ago, upgrading from a Motorola SLVR L7, and while it's an overall decent phone, it leaves a lot too be desired.

Good:

1. Nice form factor.
Thicker but shorter than the L7, it fits in your hand comfortably (more than the ultra skinny L7) while not being too bulky or cumbersome either.

2. Cool user interface (UI).
The flash menus and graphics make navigating this phone's menus actually kind of entertaining. Compared to the lame Motorola UI, the W810i seems much more modern.

3. Screen quality/Camera.
Screen is nice to look at, and the camera takes decent pics. Didn't experiment too much with this though as the music aspect of this phone was the main reason I bought it.

4. Ease/speed of file transfer.
This is probably the nicest feature of this phone, that is, how easy it is to transfer files (mostly mp3s for me) and how quick it is as well, although it's only quick when using a card reader. An average mp3 takes ~3 seconds to transfer via a card reader but some 20-30 seconds (!) via the USB cable. The software, disc2phone, makes it extremely easy to pick all the mp3s you want and then transfer them. You will be amazed if you ever owned a Sony mp3 player that required the use of the notorious SonicStage program to transfer mp3s.

Bad:

1. Below average sound quality.
I can't believe all the reviewers who actually claim that the W810i has good sound quality. At best, it is average, at worst, it's below average. There is distinct hiss and digital distortion when playing mp3s that was immediately noticeable the first time I played a song on it. The Motorola L7, on the other hand, had really excellent sound quality, not really distinguishable at all from the audio of an iPod or my Sony HDD MP3 player. If music playback is one of the most important features of you phone (like it is to me), especially with increasingly large capacity pro duo memory sticks, then this is not the phone for you.

2. Walkman navigation.
The walkman navigation is similar to that of iTunes on the L7, with ability to seek tracks by track, artist, etc., as well as use playlists. However, the W810i does NOT allow you to use the alphanumeric keys to help you navigate the list of tracks or artists, i.e. you have to use the direction pad to scroll up and down through EVERY track/artist to find a specific one. It's a big deal if you have a 4gb card with 1000 songs and hundreds of artists. What a complete oversight on Sony's part to not utilize the most obvious advantage that a cell phone-mp3 player has over a stand-alone mp3 player (with no keypad). This, along with the below-average sound quality made me return this phone.

3. Etc.
Some more minor quibbles I have with the W810i is the ability to have only 1 alarm (as opposed to 5 separate alarms on the L7, useful when you are a resident and have a widely varying schedule).
Also, you can only set shortcuts for the direction pad, and not the soft keys (unlike the L7), which is especially annoying when you have redundant shortcut keys (e.g. the center button on the direction pad and one of the right soft keys both take you to the main menu).

Bottom line:
This phone was a big disappointment. How can Sony sell this phone under their venerable "walkman" brandname with subpar sound quality that is noticeably worse than many other cellphones on the market? Sony should really put the emphasis on music playback for any phone they slap the label "walkman" on. In any case, I will definitely not buy another Sony-Ericsson walkmen phone until they make significant improvements in the sound quality and mp3 navigation system.

This is really an amazing phone. I am normally VERY critical and dissapointed in the quality of phones after having them for a month or so, but I have had this one for a few months and I am still loving it! The camera is truely the best I have ever seen on a phone. People are blown away when I give them prints or e-mail them pictures and tell them the picture was taken on my cell phone. The MP3 player (Walkman) is slightly odd at first, but I am used to it now and don't even use my iPod anymore now that I have this phone. As for the features that make this a phone, like call quality and such its great! The earpiece volume is slightly low, but it is very clear and up to par. If you don't have the best hearing you may want to look elsewear for a phone... The speaker phone is good and the reception is awesome! I have not yet been caught in a dead zone. All I can say is this phone lives up to the expectations I have. Oh and I also should mention that the battery life is insane!!! The best part is when it does get low, which is two times a week for me it only takse like an hour to FULLY charge! I LOVE THIS PHONE!!! : )

This is a great phone. We bought 5 of them on a family plan. My 8 and 10 yr olds have them figured out already. I still have some learning to do.

The music player is GREAT. The FM stations come in clearly, and you can listen with the earphones, ot play through the speaker. 20 preset stations, too!

Copying music from the computer is a snap. My son used Greenday for a ringtone. I followed other's advice to cut the tune down to 30 seconds to use as a (free!) ringtone. Worked great.

The camera is easy to use, and the pix are decent!

The phone itself is easy to use and works without a hitch so far. Good sound on Outdoor profile (makes everything louder).

I bought the Krusell leather cases and they fit well.

[...]

I had a Samsung phone and Verizon service. Although the Verizon service was good but the last phone they gave me as a replacement for my lost phone was terrible. So I switched to Cingular and got this phone. The other important reason I swtiched was the software they use on Cingular phones. It is simply great and easy to use. About the phone, I agree with most of the things people posted here (positive things), I simply want to say that the I found this phone to be of great quality in terms of its manufacturing. I am very pleased with it and highly recommend it.

Each of the 5 stars are worth because
1. The signal reception and sound quality is good
2. FM radio is clear and reception is excellent.
3. MP3 player is equally good.(You can always use higer capacity Memory Stick Duo)
4. The batter life is amazing, charging is quick! (It's way too good compared to my last Razr V3)
5. The camera picture quality is nice, the position to take picture is almost like the regular camera, text messaging interface and all other menus are user friendly.


I got this phone a couple of days back and has great camera capabilities as well as music player. The picture from camera is 2 megapixel but the clarity is amazing. It is even clearer than my canon camera.

Following are the things I didn't like,

1. the speaker is not loud enough when listening to calls but is loud enough to listen to FM or music.
2. The FM can only be played if the handsfree is plugged in because the antenna for FM is in the cord. I found this a bummer since now I need to carry the cord to listen to NPR.
3. The signal gets lost when it is in my pocket (which wasn't the case with RAZR).
4. no stereo music over bluetooth headphones.

Overall it is a small phone with great features.

I am loving this phone, along with the Cingular service. I switched over from using Nokias on T-Mobile, and the difference is pretty astonishing. My order arrived very quickly, and excellent condition. The phone itself is very easy to use, with an intuitive UI and astounding features. Unlike other carriers such as Verizon, Cingular doesn't disable phone features, so everything is intact, including the ability to upload your java games and apps directly from your computer, along with ringtones, pictures, themes, etc. This phone will also synch with a Mac or a PC, which is great for those of us that use both. A great phone for a great price.

Don't know how other reviewers get off saying the sound is only so-so and the camera is just ok. First, when you're using EDGE, you get reception in dead zones and good reception in fringe areas. It's not hype, Folks, this phone has great reception. Second, it's a Walkman and sounds better than my iPod -- definitely worthy of a good set of earbuds. As for the camera, it takes great pics, and I own a Canon 20D. For its size the display is beautiful. As far as unbranding it is concerned, it's easy -- just do a Google -- and clears those pesky bundled (and expensive) add-ons. And, since it's quad-band, just pop in a SIM card and voilà, you're local wherever you are in the world!

Hai, I got this phone after using an LG phone for 2 years... after i got this i am very relaxed to talk to my firends. The phone have many features, MP3 player,Bluetooth, FM radio, Free Hands free, Infrared, Microstick slot, god battery life(sony Battery)... etc.. its like a whole package in one phone.. specialy music lovers like me its a good time pass while we commute...I recomand this phone.
One thing we need to think is: Cingular give an 128MB memory stick, its enough for Normal users..but for music lovers like me its not enough.. to get another extra memory stick its costly when compared to that of an SD card or Mini SD... other than this its a perfect package

If I had to give this phone and rating and I do. 3 stars with branding. 5 without branding. It does make that much of a difference. I personally like this phone. After using the w600 for about a year I got use to using full MP3 ringtones and also having a walkman with my phone. This phone has done wonders since I got it.

Like many I was sad by the fact that Cingular limits the usefulness of the phone by leaps and bounds. Flash menus are removed. Sound quality is poor. Camera is okay. Ringtones are limited to 600kb max which is about 30 seconds of the song.

Unbranded I have improved the sound by 100%, Camera is the same (going to update the drivers), Full MP3 ringtones and also FLASH menus. Which rocks.

How much did it cost me to unbrand my phone? NOTHING. I did it for free. Search the internet the information is there.

The only draw back is you lose internet functions so if your an internet junkie you might not be happy with unbranding your phone and the process is not for the non-tech savy. It requires you finding files which will change your phones firmware and file system.

But once your phone is unbranded it allows for awesome customization. Being able to update drivers and change them really make this phone better!

Best phone I've ever owned. Period!

I wish it could be a flip phone then I would give it 5 stars. Now either you have to keep it locked or if it is ulocked it may accidently make unnecesary call.

I have had this phone for over 2 months now. I got it from cingular when it was going for $100 with the plan. I still love the beautiful design and look of the phone as well as some shortcut features which were missing from the Samsung D807 which I had originally bought. The call quality is not good on this phone, actually its quite bad. Whether you are using the earpiece or the speakers on the phone (it's actually a little worse with the speakers), you will always be hearing static and the sound will keep breaking from the person on the other end. I was told by the people on the other end that they were able to hear me just fine. Also you cannot increase the volume enough with the ear piece, you will have trouble hearing in a moderately noisy room.
The camera and the video recorder is above average as well as the crisp and clear screen. It might take a little getting used to the soft buttons since they are small and adjacent to other buttons which could also get pressed by your thumbs.
If you want a phone for its call quality instead of features and eye candy go for samsung A707, that phone has a much better call quality and the volume can be increased a lot more.
I have given this phone 3 stars instead of 5 because of the subpar call quality, since this is still a cellphone primarily used talking.

There are some problem with the sofware when you try to connect a bluetooh device. I tried to connect one bluetooth handsfree device, but it tried to connect to some other device, and it waited for the password to be entered in the other device. I dtried to cancell the operation, I could not. I tried to switch off the device. I could not. Then I had to try the back door method, remove the battery and give a hard reset.
Only thing I liked in the pohne is the camera which is really good. LCD is also very good. Ergo, buttons, navigation etc are good.

This phone has got a lot of great features!!

But there are couple of small issues too...Auto key pad lock does not work when you look for something in the menu and forget to get back to the main page (where you see the wallpaper)..The battery charger unit is brittle.


I figured it was time to upgrade my phone. I had been using the s710a, which I was very pleased with. It had a 1.3 megapixel camera, a large screen, a very cool swivel design... it was everything I was looking for. But I went into the Cingular store and this little w810i caught my eye. I saw it was a 2.0 megapixel camera, it functioned as an mp3 player, and overall just seemed like a smaller and more capable design. So I bought it and tested it out. With my old s710a, taking a picture was instant. As soon as you would snap the button, it would take a beautiful picture. However, with the w810i, I find myself commonly missing what I quickly wanted to snap a picture of because it fiddles around for 2 seconds trying to focus and do all of this other junk. Needless to say, it is slower. However, even though the screen is smaller than the s710a, once the pictures are loaded onto the computer, they look great. Another thing that I do not like is when you take videos, it limits the length no matter what setting you have it on, where the s710a would allow an unlimited length (as long as it could hold it on the upgradable memory). Overall, I give it 4 out of 5. It is mostly camera issues.

After languishing in the Sprint dungeon for over 7 yrs, I finally set myself free with this phone and Cingular. Ok, I wont be so harsh on Sprint, but their service was pretty bad where I live (25 miles E of Sacramento). Inside my office building, it would enter analog roaming mode, sapping the battery off in a day. The voice quality was jittery even in fully covered areas. It was not this bad when I was in Denver.

Anyway, the contrast I see between Cingular and Sprint in my area is tremendous. Crystal clear call quality and no droppages so far in the one week that I've had it. Speaker phone is exceptional. The Walkman feature is pretty cool. This phone is a nifty piece of engineering - the interface to the Walkman is fantastic with one button-press activating it. The sound quality - this is the part I love - is FABULOUS with the included headphones. There is also a software graphic equalizer built in. FM radio is fantastic and picks up about a dozen stations where I live - all with superb stereo/rds sound quality.

Incoming calls will pause any music you are listening to and enable you to continue hearing the call via your earbuds while you talk to the other party handsfree - fantastic - then resume your music where you left off!

I also got a PLANTRONICS bluetooth headset (Voyager 510) with this phone and its equally fabulous. It twists to fit either ear - a feature some may really like. I've been using it while driving and I could not be happier - great sound quality.

The camera is pretty decent - under good lighting the pictures are great with more than 1600x1200 resolution (2mp). Motion camera is also great and is more than enough to capture any brief moment that you may want to record. Add more memory (this phone comes with a 128mb memory stick pro) and you are all set.

The best part - this phone, when plugged to your computer via USB, without installing its companion software, will appear as a USB mass storage device. You can browse its directories and plop media files directly without "syncing" if you wish. A great feature for me.

All in all - this device blew me off my feet. Get it now!



a good phone to begin with.. comes with a 128MB MSD card.. bright colors and great sound. I love it already :)

This phone rocks..!!!. Sound quality is the best I have ever owned. Good speaker phone and best sound quality in conference calls. I just surprise on the previous reviewers comments on the sound quality. We have two phones and both works great.

Cons:
Head phone quality is bad.
LED screen can be easily get scratched.


I purchased this phone with a 2-year contract with Cingular. Unfortunately I had to return this phone because of the very poor call quality with Cingular - and this was in the Los Angeles/Burbank city area, where supposedly Cingular has good coverage.

The camera on the phone is ok. However transferring files between the phone and the computer is dodgy at best - it frequently would hang. Also, transfers are way too slow and requires you to access the files thru the software that comes with the phone.

I wasn't too impressed by the usability/menu/navigation as well. However poor call quality trumps all the other issues.

All in all it turned out to be a poor buy for me.

I am not going to mention anything about the pros but am going to mention few cons

1) Batter sucks .....looks like this phone eats up all the Li ion.
2) Display is always on while talking..this eats the battery too
3) POOR call quality
4) Less functions to control the display and to save the power
5) Small keys
6) ADDRESS book: cannot hold 2 home numbers or 2 mobile numbers. Just one on each

These are the problems, me and my friends are facing (Reviewed this phone after using 4 pieces)

My last few phones that I have had were a let down. Plagued with bad software/firmware and very poor service.

My last phone, the Verizon Motorola RazrV3c, was a joke. In fact my parents old original Motorola Star-Tac served better as a phone than the razr.

I am very pleased with Cingular's Sony Ericsson w810i. My friends with there LG Chocolates,Moto KRZR's &SLVR's LOVE this phone to the point of jealousy.


There is only one real con about this phone, and that is:
-Cingular's Software.
You can not delete pre installed ring tones or themes, also lack of good pre installed ring tones and themes. You are only able to put a 15sec. clip of music as a ring tone, so you must create a clip of your music to set as a ring tone. Only AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo email service, no pop3 in cingulars software.
(If you get the Unlocked/Unbranded phone, none of this will be a issue)

Pros:
Quick responding interface.
Great implemented mp3 player, with quality speaker & headphones.
Good Volume levels for both speakers.
Good Speaker phone.
Built in FM Tuner.
Excellent sounding calls, and clarity.
Ease of navigation (for me at least).
2.0 Mega pixel camera, with auto-focus and other awesome features.
The flash actually works, very, VERY bright!

Also the phone comes with a Pro-Duo card, USB Cable, & software. Thats actually really nice when other phones make you purchase those things seperatly.




... at least in the gadget world. I can't add too much to James Cooper's review, he covered most of the bases. But I just had to throw in my two cents: This thing is amazing. Best phone on the market by far. It was everything I was hoping for in my next phone and more. Looks great, picture quality is good, I have all of my favorite songs on this thing (got the 4GB memory card), syncs great with Outlook, etc. I wish I could thank the people who designed this thing.

I've had this phone a few weeks, and I like the feature set, but am constantly annoyed when using it. Here's a rundown.

Pros:
- Great signal, great sound quality.
- Very easy to set up and learn most things. It took me only a few hours to hook up iSync with a Mac, turn it into a Bluetooth modem, etc, and fundamentally master the entire feature set. My wife got a Windows Mobile-based phone at the same time, and it took her the better part of two days.
- Using it as a Bluetooth modem for Internet access from my MacBook is great.
- Supports mp3 ringtones

Cons:
- Navigation is terrible. As far as I've been able to figure out, to do things, you have to drill down in their hierarchical system, do what you want to do, and drill back out with the back key. Lots of keystrokes for what should be simple things.
- You have to use a key combination to turn off the keypad. I would prefer a physical means, like the switch on iPods. In fact, I'm going back to using flip-phones and circumvent the entire problem.
- If you forget to turn off the keypad, random keypresses from the phone moving around can cause it to do strange things. I've had it start playing music, navigate to web sites, and one time get into a screen that required a power-cycle to get out of.
- Cingular's "MEdia Net" web sites are not set up well. It's easy to get to web pages you can't return from with the Back key, so you have to kill the browser.
- The documentation is poorly organized. For instance, the key combination to turn off the keypad is pretty well buried, rather than right up front. And there's no useful discussion of how to set up mp3 ringtones - I figured it out just fooling around.
- The only third-party software you can run on it is Java-based, so you can't use non-Java programs like Bejeweled.
- As a power-saving feature, the screen goes black very quickly. So you can't easily use this phone as a watch. And if I hit a button to get the screen to light up, I'm never sure what will appear. Sometimes it's a white screen with the time in big black letters. Sometimes it's the home screen, with the time in little tiny letters I can barely read. And if I forgot to lock the keypad, it could be anything.

So... I'm going to try to find a phone that has the W810i's pros, and not the cons.

Update:

In the Cons, I forgot to mention the alarms. They're functional, but I found two problems with the user interaction:
1. Setting the time. You get to the screen for this, and focus is on the "hour widget". So you want to get up at 8:00 AM, and you type "8". Okay? No. It requires you to press zero first: "08". Since I don't get up at the same time every day, this is a daily annoyance.
2. When the alarm goes off and you pick up the phone, you see a screen that says, effectively, "Press this button to respond to the alarm." So you press it. Then you get a dialog saying effectively, "You responded to this alarm," and an OK button. Should you press the OK button? NO!!!! If you press it, you go back to the "Respond to the alarm" screen, and if you don't deal with it correctly, the alarm goes into snooze mode and the goes off again in a few minutes. When you get the OK button, just wait a few seconds and the dialog goes away on its own. Not obvious, eh? And I found this pretty complicated to deal with waking up out of a sound sleep.

There's a software user-interface design principle: "Do the least surprising thing." Unfortunately, the W810i design does not subscribe to this. If the violations had been isolated, I would've probably kept the phone and lived with them - nothing's perfect. But my wife watched me dread picking up the phone, and finally said, "What are you doing?" So off we went to the Cingular store, and I traded the W810i in on a new phone.

Before getting the W810i, I had only had basic phones, and didn't understand that when you get a more advanced phone, its feature set and user interface needs to fit your personality and usage pattern. I would say the feature set is fine, and if the user interface works for you, you'll find it a great phone, but it really didn't work for me.

This phone is fabulous! Yes, it only comes with a 128mb memory card, but you can upgrade to 4gb from what I've read (curious if it works with the new 8gb pro duo cards coming out now).

I love the mp3 player, it works just like an ipod. The headphones sound absolutely great and they work really well when someone calls while you're listening to music (not to mention the radio feature as well, which is very nice). To upload music, I don't even use the usb that comes with the phone, that takes FOREVER, instead I just eject the memory card from the phone (very easy access to it) and pop it into my computer - direct transfer speeds that way is a fraction of the time.

Because its from Cingular you are missing some of the phone's best features, I flashed mine the first day I got it and now it works with everything. Don't ask me how, just google flash w810i and you'll find all the info you need.

I hope you enjoy the phone, for me it was an easy pick. I'm not even going to get into the other features (like the camera) because they have been more than adequately covered in these reviews.

It's a nice phone. Period.

Tisk, tisk . . . details. If feels good in my hand. It's light, the screen is bright. The third party PC interface disk I bought for a tenth of what Cingular charges works great. The thing is filled with land mines . . . land mines? Did I say that? Like all phones of this sort, there are millions of sneaky ways that the phone companies trick you into doing things they can charge you for -- like going on the internet. Press the wrong button, whoops, you're on the internet. Worse yet, the menus are set up so that those buttons always seem to be between anything useful and you. You know that all these phones for shills for chumps, but you've got to have them. Don't you hate that? So, in as much as shills for chumps go, it's a nice one.

Great connection. clear voice. great simple design. here anfd there you not going to satisfied 100%. but i been use almost every machines/gadets .. so i know what is like... just waiting to buy apple iphone but i had to buy this phone i can use till this summer... and it is very cute phone actuallyand it works for me... clear and light and i have white color phone instead of black much more fun to carry around so light too.. not not cheap light plastic phone... very cute,, just simple.. clean design whatelese u expect? i hate too much designed phone very tacky.. like chocolate ? come on.. just too much.. . well this is very simple and fun with mp3 player and comes with great simple cute ringtones.. very important to me.. ring tones that is...i hate pop songs or weird ringtones sometime comes with your phones... i just download apple iphone ringtones (avail somewhere internet) and sounds great.. how about music ? work perfect with my itunes(download itunewalkman) i wished i could use my ipod ear phone but you have to use connector- so forget it.. love indiviusal pictures contact list.. and great screen so clean,, resolution... takes very good pictures.. love the panorama funtion.. wide view. looks awesome. can be slow in email function... but i do not have to check email every seconds,, i check in my office desk or home ... i just need hot cute phone clear voice connection with decent photo takes and good OS system .. hate motorola Operating sysytem. so limited and tacky looking view.. sony ericsson is so much better. and very cute every page you make inside... index,,, contact,, colors...costom ringtones for individual contact as well as individual pictures and it shows when you get a phone call from them.. very easy to use and you will be very happy with this phone. have fun!

I used to have SonyEricsson T610 and that was one of the best phones that I've seen. So when I decided to change my dated Razr V3 one of the best offers at the time was SonyEricsson W810i.
Overall it's not a bad phone but Sony tend to always add a couple of bad features in their products for some reason. I don't know if it's a marketing strategy or something else but that's always the case with them. As if they are afraid the product might get too good.
In this case here's the list:
- Calendar recurring events - there is no recurrence for the calendar events. This is one of the basic functions of a calendar in general but it's missing here. There is no way to add weekly or monthly events (like meetings or regular services). There is a workaround for yearly events using the birthday option from the address book but what about if you need to add a yearly event that is not a birthday or worse is not related to a person...
- The MP3 quality at best is mediocre. When you have those almost silent parts of a song there is a quite loud white noise. This doesn't seem acceptable for a phone branded Walkman. I really don't believe company like Sony cannot produce a good quality MP3 player...
- Cracking between songs - this happens more often than not. When one song ends and another one is about to begin you hear a rather loud cracking. It's really bad.
- No Folder mode MP3 play - there is no way to play each folder as you would play an album. In order to achieve this you need to MANUALLY create a play list for each folder.
- No playlist import - you cannot import playlists. You can only create them manually on the phone. The combination of this and the previous one wastes you a LOT of time and is totally not justified.
- No standard headphones jack. You need to use a converter which makes it quite a hassle each time you want to use the MP3/FM features of the phone. I've seen iPods (though I don't like them at all) half the size of this phone and still having a regular size standard headphones jack so the size is not the problem here.

So if you can live with these the phone is ok but you cannot wait but wonder why were those things missed? Was it on purpose? If yes, should I trust such manufacturer?


For the past 2 years through my Cingular contract, I had been using the Sony Ericsson T-637 and liking it. I would've kept it, but I was originally an AT&T Wireless customer and had to get a new phone and SmartChip. When my contract expired, I shopped all over and found this phone on Amazon. I decided to purchase it and stay with Cingular (truthfully, this is the main reason I stayed with Cingular).

I'm glad I made the decision that I did. The phone is slim and small and fits nicely into my pants or coat pocket. It is light. It is sexy.

It came with a 128 MB Memory Stick Duo card. The day after Thanksgiving, I bought a 2 GB card at Best Buy for $39 (normally $80). The 2GB is totally worth it. I take a lot of pictures (2 MP camera!) and listen to a lot of mp3s on the integrated Walkman software.

This phone is great and I'm really enjoying it.

This is by far the best phone that I have ever had! I have been using mine for about 4 months now with no problems and no complaints! If there was anything to complain about it would have to be the size of the memory card that comes with the phone, a 128 just dosen't cut it if you plan to use it for music so I bought a new 2gig card from amazon.com for [...]! What a steal! now I have plenty of room for hundreds of photos and music! The camera alone makes this phone a must have for me, 2mp! The pictures are great!

I wanted to wait a month or so before reviewing this phone, just in case the quirks took a few weeks to appear. After a month, I couldn't be happier.

I wanted a phone that works well with my Mac. The w810i is iSync compatible, and Bluetooth data transfer between the phone and my laptop couldn't be easier. I wanted a phone that had a good speakerphone, and this one has been great. I wanted a phone with a decent camera, and this one has performed surprisingly well (I do wish that the LED bulb worked like a camera flash instead of being always-on, but that's not a fault, just my misunderstanding of how it worked).

This is a great cell phone. MP3 player, FM radio, 2MP camera/video, Bluetooth, etc. I immediately bought a 4GB Pro-Duo Sony memory card and a card reader. I loaded up over 400 songs in about 15 minutes, and I was listening to my favorite tunes! I like the feature of listening to music and if you get a call, it mutes (pauses the MP3) and allows you to answer. Then when you are finished talking, the music continues! The only thing that I did not like about this phone, is that it does not support the A2DP standard (Bluetooth stereo). So, I use wires plugged into the phone. Other than that, I love this phone and have had no problems with it.

Pro:
1) quad band, world phone
2) Sim card
3) bright and crysal clear LCD
4) storage media (memory stick pro)
5) walkman feature
6) FM radio feature
7) 2M camera taking good pics
8) long-lasting battery with short recharge
9) customizable short cut button
10) speaker on the phone

Con:
1) Multiple for-fee-services that cannot be inactivated, easy to trip off
2) radio won't work if head phone not plugged
3) charge and headphone share same jack
4) no car charger included

i've been using my cell phones as alarms for sometime now. and this phone has been serving that purpose as well. i love the phone but when it starts ringing at 7 am(the time i try to wake up), sometimes i get a white screen. well it has happened 6-7 times in past 3 weeks i think. all i get is a white screen. the buttons would still work but the screen has nothing besides white on it. if i didn't know which button to hit, i wouldn't know how to shut off the alarm. i've had to turn off the phone to get the screen back up again. it's not that big a deal but it annoys me like crazy. i would have given this phone a 5 star had it not been annoying me with the white screen.

Ok, i agree i am sony fan boy. But look at this phone. I got it with cingular and you can easily see that sony wants you to use this phone as a walkman as well as cingular. Sony made every attempt to let the phone out of claws of cingular. Though phone has lot of cingular "music" buttons, software available at sony's website makes it easy to transfer your own songs into the phone. You can update the memory stick pro duo to 4GB and this phone will be much better than an Ipod nano or much hyped high priced IPhone($500 after 2 yr contract - can you believe it?). Sync function works like a breeze and you can even sync your calender, notes etc from your outlook. Flush the phone and you will know the actual power of this phone as mentioned by fellow users in forums.

Got the phone 4 months ago. I love it, but wanted more memory for music - so I bought a 2 GB Sony High Speed Memory Stick Pro Duo. After loading music on it the phone would play the music for about 2-3 minutes and then it would give me a "Playback Failed" error message. I tried everything (reformat memory, reformat phone, using the MP3 software, NOT using the MP3 software, etc.) yet nothing would work. I did find a similar case online where the user then bought a SanDisk Pro Duo memory stick which then worked for him. Sure enough, I ordered a 4 GB SanDisk Pro Duo card and the phone works great. Just a heads up to everyone looking to upgrade their memory.



True is that this phone rocks. It rocks right out of the box, and it rocks even more once you customized it to your liking. The Cingular branding that came with the phone really sucked, cutting out lots of features that SE originally put into the phone. however, one can debrand (remove all the Cingular software) the phone thought FLASHING. I have mine with a 4gb Sandisk card and I have to say its pretty much the well rounded piece of electronics around.

Has MP3 player, radio, video playback, java, micromedia flash, a really nice 2mp camera that = to my 2 year old Sony powershot, Voice Recorder, video record, and so on.

It has been a very long time since I used a phone that wasn't in the clamshell design, but I quickly converted! I decided to forego the W300 because although it is a flip phone, it was just too tiny. I've used a few Cingular phones including the Motorola RAZR V3, Cingular 8125, Nokia E62, Nokia 6682, and Blackberry 8700C. This W810i has them all beat when it comes to call quality which is all that really matters to me. I think it's nice that it comes with a built-in FM radio even though there're no FM stations in my area to my liking, and although I haven't loaded my phone with MP3 songs, I was able to take my favorite & convert it into a ringtone, which made me very happy.

I also like having a 2mp camera which will hold me until I replace the digital I recently sold.

Regarding volume: I personally have to turn down my volume. It took me awhile to find out that when I use my bluetooth headset that in addition to turning up the volume on the headset I also needed to turn up the volume on the phone itself which in turn increased volume on the headset. Once I figured that out, it turned out to be TOO loud! In the event you're wondering about the phone itself, the volume goes up to number 8 and is more than loud enough. I have never used the phone with the supplied earphone, only either alone up to my ear, on speakerphone or with the bluetooth headset.

I know at some point there'll be better phones on the market, but too many manufacturer's have placed too little emphasis on call quality which is the main purpose of buying a wireless phone. I have no complaints with this phone-it runs circles around the others in call quality and signal strength.

Update February 3, 2007:

I found the one missing feature that would cause me to downgrade this item even if just by 1 star and that is there is no audible alert for missed calls. All phones I've had in the past would continue to make a sound until you cleared the call, but with the screen not being visible to me, the audible alert is very important. I recently found out about a call 8 hours after-the-fact which did not make me happy. Fortunately, it was not an urgent call, but a missed call just the same. I've written to Sony to ask if they make any models at all that carry that feature.

I've been through about 5 phones in he past 3-4 years and this hands down is the most easy, fun, and loaded phone i've bought. I've had my eye on it for a few months and when I saw the smoking deal amazon had to offer I jumped on it quick. Got the phone in 2 days and every day it amazes me. (I've had it for almost a month now.) The versatility in customizing it and making it YOUR phone is what drew me to the phone. Not to mention its one of the best looking phones. Every feature I look for in a phone was presented in the W810.

Amazing sound with the MP3 player
Amazing Pictures with the two megapixel
Cingular has one of the best cell shops for pictures, tones, games, but you can just upload your mp3's to it and use that as our tones.
Animated backgrounds and menu layouts are just the cherry on top.

Anyways buy the phone you wont be disappointed. Well if you don't mind that its not a flip phone. I didn't mind and I love it!

Received this phone yesterday, it's definitely a good one, although it may be not fancy as iPhone (iPhone is just so cool). W810i is even a little bit shorter than my previous T610, however, the design is as almost same as T610.

I just list some weakness:
1. Headset and charger use the same slot. Can't use the headset when charging, while T610 can.
2. Only partial airplane mode. Here it's called Music Mode, and have to restart the cell to access the mode, as well the other functions are shut down either except the music player.
3. The earbuds are not so comfortable. Maybe I am just not used to them.
4. The phone is kind of plastic.
5. The web-access button is annoying. Press it by mistake with great probability. May cost extra money if the internet service is not subscribed.

This is a handy little phone packed with tons of features. Its a normal size phone with speakerphone, Bluetooth, 2.0M camera, mp3 player, etc. With a 2-year agreement its a good deal.

I like the phone. It takes great pics and video with sound. It also plays mp3s. I was annoyed to find out you can not keep your old phone number with out being charged $250 and Amazon activates your phone when you buy it so you are paying cingular for service before you even get the phone in the mail.

Cons:
1. Speaker is not loud enough compare to any Motorola speaker phones.
2. Too small to hold while talking.
3. Small keypad.
4. Screen display always on while talking. It will eat the battery out if you make a long call. The trick is to hit any navigation keys the screen will go off, but what if you have to enter some key response while making call.
5. No alarm ringtone.
6. Earsets feel funny in the ears, i dont know if it will damage to our ears or not (too loud and too close to the ears).
7. Small speaker output at the top the phone compare to other phone.
8. No separate headset output, it shares with the charging slot.
Good:
Look at other people's reviews.

Starting with the good grip, perfect size and weight, screen resolution, speaker phone clarity, mp3 player and lastly the 2mp camera - which is just better than many regular digi camera. It works perfect even in low in-house light.

Great cell phone,i'm very happy with,has very nice features,the software that comes with the phone is great,the FM radio is perfect fit for the phone the sound is great,web browser very friendly...It's my first phone from sony.I always had the nextel crap line and services,After I changed to cingular, I'm so happy with the phone and services features.Perfect size, great image, upgradable memory card, and the camera makes a perfect combination.

This is the best phone currently available in USA! Phone, MP3 player, camera, etc., are really great in design, features, and performance. I haven't experienced any dropped calls with Cingular, but even if you've had it must not be due to the phone. The phone volume is not so loud enough, but this is not be a big problem for me. There are some cingular-locked features, but we should remind ourselves of its much cheaper price compared to the original unlocked one and of its cingular-based nice features as well.

We may use cingular-saved ringtones in the phone, but we can't use PC-transferred music as ringtones, so that if we want new tones we must buy from cingular. In addition, it is locked not to allow to remove cingular-saved tones, and moreover they appear during walkman shuffling. Here's a tip to turn around not to listen to cingular tones: make a new folder, i.e., "My Playlist" in walkman menu to insert all the music you want to listen to, and then play & shuffle.

Let me first say that I also own the SE P910I, which is the best PDA/Phone that I know of. Recently I dropped it into the pool. Given that they are so pricey, I decided to go with this guy and got it for a penny.
Anyway, the phone rocks as phone. The internal antenna is extremely powerful. You will notice a buzzing noise if you set the phone near a TV, computer or any other speaker. This is the antenna making the interference. It is pretty annoying but it's a reasonable trade-off for having great reception.
The phone's FM radio works pretty well. You can save presets or scan. You do have to have the headphones plugged into the phone for it to work due to the FM antenna being in the headset.
Interfacing with your computer is fairly easy, though I did notice that its hard to get the phone to reconnect to your computer after it had already been connected. In other words I am having to reboot (to reset the USB) in between connections. And this is with XP and the latest drivers. The interface allows you to load anything onto the phone, including MP3's, video etc. You can use it as a thumb drive if you like. Oh and my phone, purchased from Amazon came with a 256MB card, but you can get those cards at up to 4GB's now.
The menu is easy to use and the phone comes with some good applications. Music DJ, PhotoDJ, Remote Control are fun. There are many limited games on the phone, meaning they will ask you to purchase them after the first level. They can be deleted.
The contacts list is very easy to navigate. Its very easy to transfer contacts to and from this phone via blue-tooth, and there is an option to send all of them at once.
The camera is pretty good for a phone (better than the P910). It also takes video that is good enough to upload to youtube.
The flash/light is nice. I makes the videos much better. You can also assign the light to you main direction pad; which means that you can push direction right to turn the light on. Very helpful.
I also got the W300 for my wife. It is basically the same phone but with a worse camera and it did not come with a memory card.

Annoyances: It's ridiculous that there is a dedicated button for Cingular prominently displayed on the front of the phone. If this button gets pushed while the phone is unlocked, it will connect to the data line and you may get charged. I have read that unlocked and reflashing the phone will allow your to use the button for other things. Apparently this phone is fairly hard to unlock and reflash though. You could easily turn it into a paper weight.

The speed dial numbers do not show you who you are calling before you hit send. This was a feature of the P910. Basically I would open the phone and hit 1 and the phone would display the name of that person the speed dial is assigned to before I hit send. This phone does not do that.


I love this phone! It's cheap for what it can do! Most impressive is the quality of the phone and it's easy to use with amazing camera built in. 2 mega pixel...wow...don't even need to have a real camera anymore... I take pictures every where with flash and video clips as well!

Music is great and be able to switch between phone and music in an instance!

The phone is excellent as most other reviews says but I would like to highlight on some poor Amazon and Cingular's business tactics.
No doubt that Amazon has very poor shipping services. Don't get surprised if you phone gets 3 weeks to arrive, as it happened in my case. The worst part is that Cingular starts billing you from the day you place your order. This greedy company does not even wait for you to activate your phone. So you end up paying 3 weeks of cellular charges with out using the services. I called Cingular and they said that nothing they can do unless I buy phones from them directly.

I waited a long time to get a phone with all these features.

Good call quality, speaker quality, etc. No dropped calls in the past month that I've had the phone. I really like the FM Radio feature. Good camera and MP3 come in handy. It's got a very good, intuitive UI (I'm a former Nokia owner and like Nokia's UI, not Motorola's). Overall great phone and excellent deal from Amazon with new plan. Bought a case so the screen does not get scratched. Good service so far from Amazon and Cingular.

Do not buy the car charger recommended by Amazon (it's a cheap one that broke first time I plugged it in. Got me worried that it damaged the phone but luckily not). I'm going to look for a Sony Ericsson car charger.

This phone has been awesome. I've had it for about a month now and it's been great. The reception for Little Rock, AR is great- always have all bars available. The features are terrific and it is very easy to learn without reading a manual. I love the vivid color screen. The buttons are a bit small- would be difficult for a man with large hands, but it is great for me. So far no complaints at all!

Cingular repackages the phones in their own box, so what's printed in the Sony Ericsson manual may not match what's in the box. There's actually a list of the contents on one end of the box. I also purchased a w300i, and while the phones are similar in function, it did not include a memory card, USB cable, and software. So the w810i turned out to be a better deal if you like the candy bar form versus the clamshell. I wish they still included the 512MB Memory Stick Duo card instead of the 128MB card. You can't store many songs and photos on the 128MB card.

Also, the AC adapter included is the standard model. There is another model of AC adapter that allows you to charge the phone and plug in the headphones or other accessories. Or you would have to buy the docking station or a charging station. So either you end up with a stack of connectors or a jumble of cables. The new connector seems to be a bit more robust than the previous design on my old T637, but less practical in real use.

Otherwise it is a terrific little phone.


I guess no one can beat Sony Ericsson when it comes to sound and image quality in mobile phones. The sound of music player from the provided earfones is awesome(comparable to that of an Ipod, but not as loud though). The 2 MP camera is decent, i guess its the best among any 2MP camera phones!!! I have taken 4 x 6 prints of images taken from this camera and they are pretty good!!! Just Add a 4 GB card to it and then just go on.... now who needs an Ipod? the only issue i had is with the battery life which is strictly OK on heavy use.

To sum it up, it goes like this ... here is a gadget that has...

A great MP3 player
A decent 2 MP still camera
Can take Videos
A Radio with good reception
Its small, compact and Good looking.
Its Expandable

and by the way it can make calls too... :)

This is a great phone. However the way in which Amazon and Cingular offer these phones is a huge ripoff. Read the fine print very carefully, if you break any part of the service agreement, Amazon charges you full price for the phone. This includes trying to port your existing number to the new phone, adding family members to your plan, or swapping the sim from your spouses phone.

Existing Cingular customers on family plans currently off contract going month to month get bit the worst by this offer. I managed to actually get hold of a phone specialist at Amazon customer service, and she as much admitted to me that Amazon makes a ton of money off of this from people who don't read the fine print.

I urge both Amazon and Cingular to stop this deceptive practice. I've been a Cingular customer 5 years now, yet I can't get a deal like this on a phone.

2006.12.20:

In a word, this phone is AMAZING.

Over the past few years I had gone through quite a few "smartphones" on the Cingular network, and none of them had the call quality and signal consistency that my simple Motorola V551 has. When I was at the Cingular store a couple of weeks ago testing all of the latest smartphones from Nokia, RIM (blackberries), Palm, and Moto, none of them could match the call quality that my V551 gave me, so I almost gave up again on having a multi-function phone. Then I found the Sony Ericsson W810i. I would never have noticed it - it wasn't listed in the Cingular web site for my zip code - but I saw that they had Memory Stick ProDuo's as accessories and asked the store rep what they were for. She showed my the W810i. I slipped my SIM into their demo model and made some calls. I listened to some MP3's and watched some demo video on it. I took some pictures with the 2MP camera and looked at the pics on the store laptop. I bought this incredible phone.

When I got home with it I couldn't believe that I bought a new phone without researching it on the Internet first, and I was a little worried when I found many reviews (from months ago) describing poor call volume and sudden call drops, but I saw later posts that described how the SonyEricsson software for the phone would download the latest firmware and fix those problems, so I checked my W810i's firmware and discovered that it is the latest.

My last two weeks of using the phone daily have been great. The signal consistency and call quality are even better than my V551 both at my office and at home. No breakups or dropped calls. On the road the included stereo handsfree (wired) earbuds/mic worked so well that people I spoke to said they couldn't even tell I was using a handsfree setup.

The sound from the Walkman MP3 player included on the phone is beautiful. The headset system in brilliant and I can't believe it took phone manufacturers so long to do this: The part of the headset that plugs into the phone's SonyEricsson-proprietary connector has the mic on it, and then just a connector for any regular headphones that you would use on an iPod or other MP3 player. That means I can use any headphones I want! I love the included Sony earbuds, but the best part is that, at my office, I just plug my PC speakers into the connector and I can listen to my songs on those speakers! Plus it automatically pauses the music when I get a call.

The phone comes with a 128MB MemoryStick ProDuo card, but I bought a 2GB card for $80.00. I now have 500 MP3 songs on that card, with still room for taking pictures! And I can buy as many cards as I want for more storage. The camera has very nice 2 megapixel quality. It's the first camera phone I have used that is nice enough to actually use. You turn the (candybar-style) W810i to a horizontal orientation and use the phone the same way you use a compact digital camera. I haven't played with video yet, but that's not really too interesting to me anyway. The only complaint I have is that there is no cover for the camera lens, so I am very worried that it will get scratched or otherwise damaged. And how will I clean it when my palm smudges it?

The memory stick system is very cool. I got a $15 USB 2.0 reader so I don't even have to connect the phone to my computer with the included USB cable. My next digital camera will probably be Sony, so it will be great to share memory cards between my W810i phone/MP3 player and a digital camera.

I still have to play with the organizer functions and using my own MP3's as ringtones, but those are just extra features that I really don't need so much. I love this phone. I paid good money for it since I already have a contract, but it was worth every penny. If you can get a free one on Amazon with a new plan then you will be getting an outstanding deal.


I guess they *all* pretty much suck. What's the solution for those of us that just need a phone, and can well do without the camera, the stupid games, music (although i love most music, i don't need my phone to have it), and all the other frills that make the thing so darn complicated and buggy?!

But I guess this one is probably better than many new phones. It still has many problems besides what i've already mentioned above. Seems like it's always trying to "connect..." when i have no clue why. Also the ridiculous music mode mysteriously rears it's head