31 August 2007
By: Cosmin Vasile, Communications News Editor
Elegant and stylish, but overpriced
Established in October 2001 the joint venture between Sony Corporation and Ericsson
resulted in one of the world's leading mobile phones manufacturers – Sony Ericsson. As of
lately, all new Sony Ericsson handsets belong to the 2 well-known series, Walkman and
Cybershot, both having different target customers. Businesswise, Sony Ericsson's phones
don't compete each other. While quality and design is almost the same, features are
different and up until today I can't say that you'll be able to buy a high-end Sony Ericsson
that would include at least 3G, 5 Megapixel camera and excellent music features. Just to
prove Sony Ericsson's market strategy, the W660i model is just another version of the
"older" W610i, except that it has lower camera and lacks EDGE, which was replaced with
3G connectivity instead.
Announced in March 2007, Sony Ericsson's W660i has been made available on the market
in June for a rather stiff price of USD 500.
Design
First of all Sony Ericsson W660 comes in two available colors: black (record black) and red
(rose red). You might probably guess that the first color version targets men, while the
second is more appealing for the ladies. As you can probably notice we had the latter
version at our disposal, but it doesn't really matter as the features are the same. There's not
too much to discuss about the design, especially if you're familiar with Sony Ericsson's
latest handsets. The company hasn't changed its phones design in years and it seems they
are simply centred upon technical specifications. What is different from the other SE's
mobiles has only been included on the back of the model. The moment you look on the
back of the phone you'll experience a strong feeling of "deja vu". Half of the back cover has
been adorned with floral motives, while the black version has been encrusted with
geometrical motives that look like concentric circles. This will probably be the moment when
you remember Nokia's L'Amour or Samsung's Le Fleur collections which were the
forerunners of the decorative motives encrusted in mobile phones.
Ladies will most likely enjoy the look of Sony Ericsson's latest W660 model, but men should
probably stick to the black version, unless they wanna look pimpish with a red mobile phone
encrusted with flower motives in their hands. The candy-bar form of the phone doesn't stand
out from the crowd, but in a world of gray and black, the red and gold colors of the handset
might lure plenty of (feminine) looks. Built to be used as an MP3 player more than a phone,
W660 has external music controls on both gold colored sides. On the right side you'll notice
the dual volume key and the camera button, while on the left side of the phone there's a
Play key, the M2 slot card for memory expansion and the logo of the Walkman series, nicely
engraved. The power off button has been placed on top of the phone and the charge port
on the bottom. The 2 inch display covers half the front of the phone, while the rest
represents the keypad. But before describing the keypad, bear in mind that Sony Ericsson's
W660 is a 3G device, thus it features a front camera for video calls which is placed as usual
right above the display.
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While the camera is not as bad as you might think, you can observe that most pictures are
out of focus and blurry. Even if you have a wide range of settings at your disposal like White
balance (Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent), self timer, night mode, Effects
(Black and White, Negative, Sepia) you won't be able to improve the quality of the pictures.
Overall I can hardly say that this is an average camera, but bear in mind that this is not a
Cyber-shot series handset. If you want a better camera at a loss of good music features,
than go ahead and buy yourself a Cyber-shot phone. Sony Ericsson says you can't have
both ... for the moment (market strategy reasons).
Menu and Software
Sony Ericsson's fans would probably be happy to find that there is no obvious change in
W660's menu or software. You get the same fully customizable main menu, depending
widely on what kind of theme you use. You can even make your own themes by using the
software called Themes creator, offered by the Sony Ericsson Development department.
Besides the main menu you will be able to access a Quick menu (by simply pushing the
right gold colored button), which contains shortcuts to various features of the phone
(Bluetooth, Alarms, Radio, RSS reader, Calendar, Main menu), a quick access to Internet
navigation, a report of various events (missed calls, alerts), as well as a list of running
applications (if any).
Innovative in all its endeavors, Sony Ericsson made available for music lovers a very useful
application that will enable the recognition of almost any track played, be it on the radio or in
a car. You just need to record a fragment of the song that you'd like to be recognized and
the application, called Track ID will search an online huge database and will most probably
find your song in a matter of seconds. You can also play with some multimedia applications
such as PhotoDJ, MusicDJ and VideoDJ. Most likely these will eat your free time faster than
the 2 Java compatible games embedded: Snowboarding and Tower Bloxx.
Other helpful applications that you'll find very easy to use and access include: Organizer,
Calendar, Text notes, Stopwatch, Countdown timer, Alarm, Calculator and Code memory.
The File manager is also easy to use and has 3 different views where it will list every folder
on both phone's memory and external memory, or just one of the two.
Users will be able to personalize their phone in detail by using the included themes. You
can also attach any MP3 file format, no matter where it is located (phone memory or
external memory), to any ring tone, alert or alarm. For those that like to surf the Internet on
their mobiles, Sony Ericsson included a standard browser that can work in landscape mode
or even make the pages fit the screen's size. The browser also integrates a RSS reader
which works smoothly.
Communication
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Unlike its older brother W610, Sony Ericsson's latest W660 model doesn't feature EDGE
connectivity, which fortunately has been replaced with the more powerful 3G technology.
Now users can really choose what they would think will use more, W610's EDGE or W660's
UMTS network. The 3G connectivity works almost at a max with data transfer speeds up to
314 Kbps download and 96 Kbps upload.
The handset features Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and transfer speeds reached a little bit over
100 KB/s. You can synchronize the phone with the PC through the USB cable, but be
careful what kind of connection mode you choose if you want to transfer data from your
memory card. Messaging capabilities are unlimited and the phone features full support for
email client, which can easily handle POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP.
The tri-band (GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) network compatible handset has a good
GSM signal reception. Sound is pretty clear, but a little bit low when you're not using the
earphones for calls.
Processor and Memory
Sony Ericsson W660 features an ARM9 family processor which runs at speeds up to 118
MHz. The low power CPU insures low energy consumption, but it is also powerful enough to
run any Java compatible application you can think of. Gaming experience is smooth and
immersive with no lags or long loading times.
Those that are used with Sony Ericsson's market policy would've probably expected to
have low internal memory at their disposal. The 16 MB user memory will surely force you to
buy an expensive M2 memory card to expand the storage space. Fortunately the sales
package comes with a 512 MB M2 memory card, but if you're not satisfied you'll have to buy
another one.
Multimedia
This is the part where Sony Ericsson's Walkman series excels and W660 is no different.
While external speaker sound is not what it should be, the moment you put it in your
earphones you'll immerse in a world of finely vibes. The earphones offered in the sales
package are again some of the best on the market. In fact I don't think that you can find
better earphones in any mobile phone package than those that come with Sony Ericsson's
Walkman series. Because the earphones don't need too much volume to drive you crazy,
the external speaker doesn't sound too loud with volume set to the maximum.
The phone comes with an integrated Walkman 2.0 music player that features a great
equalizer, stereo widening function and different visualization effects. I have used the
MegaBass mode with the equalizer and the sound is absolutely crazy. It is much better than
Nokia's 3250 or 5700 Xpress Music, but hey, we're talking about a Walkman series phone.
There's also a stereo RDS radio which can memorize up to 20 stations. Signal reception is
very good, while the sound is even louder than the music player. Both music player and
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radio can be run in the background. The music player is compatible with MP3, WMA AAC,
AAC+ file formats (and many more). The earphones come with a remote control that offers
the possibility of attaching any other 2.5mm jack headphones. There is a microphone on the
remote control for use as hands-free and a Send/End key. One major drawback is the fact
that it lacks any music controls, so you'll be forced to "extract" your phone from the pocket if
you want to skip some songs, pause, stop or play.
Battery
Sony Ericsson's W660 features a 950 mAh Li-Polymer battery that is more than enough to
serve any heavy user of the phone. The official numbers states an autonomy of 360 hours
in standby mode and offers something near 6 hours of talking time. It takes a little bit over 2
hours to fully charge the battery. We have continuously used the music player and the
battery lasted around 15 hours, which is a little bit more than great. On a daily use of 10-20
minutes of talking and 1 hour of music playback the battery didn't last more than 3 days
(including 2 nights). Built to last long, Sony Ericsson's batteries are much better than those
made by Samsung, Motorola or even Nokia.
Impressions
Even if this phone cannot be considered a fashion phone it still features some of its
characteristics. Nothing new or out of the ordinary that you should expect from this model.
There are no innovations and there are little drawbacks. My suggestion is to simply go see
and try it in a specialized shop and buy it if you like it. There is no alternative to this handset
as Sony Ericsson doesn't compete with its own devices.
The Good
I'd say the best thing about this phone is the sales package and the music sound that it
offers. There's also the battery, which lasts more than enough to satisfy any music lover's
need. The 3G and Bluetooth connectivities are also nice to have, especially if you're using
the Internet heavily and need fast data transfers.
The Bad
You are probably fed up by the same old Sony Ericsson design which seem not to change,
I know I am. The phone looks "unsure" and for a device that should be more used as an
MP3 player than a phone, the device is not looking compact at all. The 2 megapixel camera
shoots low quality pictures, but we should get used to have low cameras in Walkman series
phones. Plus it lacks autofocus and flash capabilities. There's also the problem of the price,
which seems to be a little stiff for what it has to offer.
Sales Package
Sony Ericsson W660
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Battery Li-Polymer 950 mAh
Charger
Stereo wired earphones with remote control
USB Cable
User Guide
CD with software
Photo: Tudor Raiciu for Softpedia.com
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