Sony Ericsson W960 review

At long last...finally a kick ass review on Sony Ericsson's flagship Walkman phone, the W960. The review was done by none other than mobile-review. As always, the review is very long, in depth, informative and with tons of pis. It is definitely worth reading through. Here is the final impression/conclusion.


Impressions
The volume produced by the 40-chord speaker proves to be sufficient for most environments, and it won’t fall flat anywhere, so you will always hear your W960i ring. The vibro alert is average volume-wise, but thanks to the casing’s thickness you will easily feel it.

Obviously the developers have put too much effort into morphing a touch-screen based smartphone into a feature phone, but somewhere along the way they forgot to cut its price. So they have boosted it with a couple of accessories, but even on this front it is not all sunshine and rainbows. This way, the Sony Ericsson W960i will retail for roughly 765 USD, but due to some certification issues it won’t ship with a Bluetooth-headset in the box in Russia. And in Europe it will come in with a price tag of 500-550 Euro, which isn’t the best offer out there either. In fact, you can get some more capable S60-powered solutions by Nokia for the same money right now.

On balance, the W960i employs a decent and generally right idea with odd implementation. Who might fall for this device? Those who have already spent some time the Sony Ericsson W950i won’t like the new ergonomics. Basically, old and loyal users have been literally dumped with this phone, for it brings nothing new for them. The W960i resides somewhere outside the company’s mainstream, and aims at a new audience. It is quite another matter, though, that having used this model, you are likely to lose all interest in other Sony Ericsson’s offerings, so this device is more of anti-PR for the brand.

The way it is positioned (as the flagship of the company’s music-inclined offerings) doesn’t seem particularly justified, for its centerpiece, the music department is in line with other UIQ-based devices, like the Sony Ericsson P1i. The Nokia N81 delivers substantially better sonic experience, even with fewer settings on offer. Sony Ericsson’s real music-minded flagship is the Sony Ericsson W910i, but this model ships with some other abilities and settings. All up, there is not much going for the W960i. This model fails as the company’s music-heavy flagship, and there is no real explanation of what has affected the developers to this extent, so that they have come up with a product like this. A few more models designed in the same fashion should be enough to get the brand’s loyal consumers to switch over to Nokia’s solutions, which have more of Sony Ericsson’s spirit today than Sony Ericsson itself. Obviously, the fate knows what irony is, so let’s wait and see how the story will develop.