Sony Ericsson W980i
Discontinued 13th February 2008
Bear with me for a moment.
Some of our UK readers will be familiar
with the BBC TV show Ashes
to Ashes, a retro police drama set in the 1980s.
One of the entertaining things about the programme is
the portrayal of utterly naff eighties fashions that
I personally used to think were quite cool.. at the
time.
Now,
probably most people will remember the following scenario
from when they were teenagers, one day I was going to
go out to some function dressed in a checked zoot
suit, blue and white striped shirt, narrow white
tie and pointy two-tone shoes. I got into a blazing
argument with my mother who insisted that "you're
not going out dressed like that" because
presumably she thought I looked like some kind of idiot.
Of course, she was right but I ignored her. As a result
there are some particularly hideous photographs of me
looking like a complete twonk that we won't publish
here to avoid embarrassment.
The point to this anecdote is this -
someone really should have said you're not going
out dressed like that before the Sony Ericsson W980i
left the design lab. It's not as if there's anything
wrong with it technically, but the W980i is trying too
hard to be fashionable, and consequently it won't be
to everyone's tastes.
On the outside of the W980i's glossy
case are some black-on-black multimedia keys with just
a hint of orange. Open the handset up, there's yet more
black. Except someone appears to have stuck some buttons
out of a lift in where the keypad should be. All the
keys are round, which is completely at odds with the
otherwise quite wedgy design. There's a nifty transparent
part of the case that shows the "W" logo on
the inside.
It
might well be that you like the looks of the W980i,
and intend to listed to your entire Cradle
of Filth collection on as soon as you can, but we
find that the looks are a bit hard to take.
It's not really a fashion phone though
- the Sony Ericsson W980i is a Walkman branded music
phone with a lot to offer.
Inside the W980i is a huge 8GB of internal
memory, although this is not expandable. It's a HSDPA
3.5G device which means that it is capable of high-speed
music downloads. The W980i supports stereo Bluetooth,
and it comes with a pair of stereo wired headphones
in the box. Because it is a Walkman phone, it comes
with an enhanced music player plus a set of tools to
help you transfer tracks from CD via a PC.
In addition to the W980i's music player,
there's an FM radio with RDS. There is also an FM transmitter
- so you can interface the W980i with a car stereo or
hi-fi system without using wires (legal restrictions
apply in some countries).
On the outside is a 3.2 megapixel camera,
although the digital photography capabilities are not
as good as a Cyber-shot phone. Inside is a 2.2"
240 x 320 pixel display, with a smaller 176 x 176 pixel
panel on the outside along with the external media control
keys. The Sony Ericsson W980i also has a web browser,
email client, shake control and a number of other features.
Physically, the Sony Ericsson W980i
measures 92 x 46 x 17mm and weighs 100 grams. Talktime
on 3G is about 3.5 hours with up to 9 hours talktime
on GSM. Standby time is about 12 days and the W980i
can manage about 16 hours of music playback.
Sony Ericsson say that the W980i should
be available from the third quarter of 2008, in any
colour you like as long as it is Piano Black.
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Sony
Ericsson W980i at a glance
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Available:
|
Q3
2008
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Network:
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GSM
900 / 1800 / 1900 + UMTS
2100
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
|
Screen:
|
240
x 320 pixels, 262k colours
(main) 176 x 176 pixels,
262k colours (sub)
|
Camera:
|
3.2
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Medium
clamshell 92 x 46 x 17mm
/ 100 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
No
(8GB internal memory)
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Yes
|
GPS:
|
No
|
Battery
life:
|
3.5 hours talk / 12 days standby
(3G)
|
|
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