Sony Ericsson W810i Su**s

[daniel_joseph]

As a Sony Ericsson w810i user, I would like to inform you some absolutely unimaginative quirks which I believe; as a reputed manufacturer they could easily avoid. The WALKMAN branded (w810i) which I own does not have features which is expected of a music player like :
1. Music Playlist Creation: It is just impossible to create playlists for the WALKMAN from the PC which is simply stupid. Also the Disc2Phone software is nowhere near as good as the iTunes Player offered by Apple Inc. (along with iPod) so I use Winamp to transfer music tracks.
2. Absence of Dynamic Playlists: Another problem is the absence of dynamic playlists. Imagine a scenario, I have the Backstreet Boys music tracks neatly arranged in the Music folder with 20 tracks. Now I buy 5 new tracks from some online legal service (I use eMusic) and add it to that folder. As a WALKMAN player it should automatically identify the music and group it in the Backstreet Boys playlist but is not so. I have to (with great difficulty) navigate to the folder, find the new tracks and manually add it to the playlist.
3. Absence of Album Art, Mood and genre: The player should have supported these as a dedicated WALKMAN player.
4. More equalizer modes like classical, rock, punk, alternative could be well easily accommodated.

Other quirks it had:
1. The phone has a built in flash but it does not work like a flash. I look foolish when I on the photo-light to capture portraits and the subjects would stare at the light for a long time before the auto-focus would happen and the image is taken.
2. It is impossible to use Bluetooth stereo headphones with it.
3. Video playback is absolutely jerky. I tried to playback a backstreet boys music video at 176x144 at it was so jerky that, video playback cannot be considered as its feature.The same video I played on my mother's Nokia N70, and it was very smooth. Maybe it is because of a slow processor.
4. The quality of the mobile phone too is not as good as that of the Nokia especially the range.
3. The WALKMAN programs lack a "recently added" folder. It is so tedious to find a new piece of music I transferred.
5. The earphones supplied with the WALKMAN is absolutely stunning, but it is very bass-centric, great for (rock, punk, alternative or nu-Metal types) but absolutely Su(ks for classical music. The earphone wires have deliberately been made incredibly short so we cant use it with any other portable players.
6. Although The earphones are good, there seems to be no support for wireless stereo headphones. I grit my teeth with jealousy when my next door neighbor enjoys wireless music on his Motorola MOTOROKR.

The signal quality, reception and clarity su(ks. Let me explain. I conducted an experiment once. I took both phones to a very remote area, my Nokia N70 showed just one cell of range and I could even make (broken) calls too. I reckon the signal quality was just 5-8%. But when I put the same simcard onto my SE W810i, it showed nothing. NO RANGE at all. Just zero. I was stunned. Also I have noticed; many at a time there is greater chance of broken calls if we are using the SE W810i than the N70 especially while traveling in a highway or a fast car.

I am not comparing the WALKMAN™ to a media player. Even the Nokia N70 (non-music edition) too has a 'recently added' folder which makes sorting way easier especially if you are buying music from the net.
Equalizer changing is fine but we can't save it. It is very difficult when we need MegaBass™ for one track and a classical or a vocal setting for the next.
The camera lens is unprotected. I have already scratched it twice by now.
Except for the quality of the earphone which is sublime there is nothing so much to hype about the WALKMAN™ logo branding.

I really firmly believe that the WALKMAN™ branding is just another marketing hype to fool unsuspecting consumers. I have heard that the SE W800i and SE K750i are identical in terms of hardware but nowhere near in terms of price. I should have thought twice before I went on to purchase this.

[daniel_joseph]

As a Sony Ericsson w810i user, I would like to inform you some absolutely unimaginative quirks which I believe; as a reputed manufacturer they could easily avoid. The WALKMAN branded (w810i) which I own does not have features which is expected of a music player like :
1. Music Playlist Creation: It is just impossible to create playlists for the WALKMAN from the PC which is simply stupid. Also the Disc2Phone software is nowhere near as good as the iTunes Player offered by Apple Inc. (along with iPod) so I use Winamp to transfer music tracks.
2. Absence of Dynamic Playlists: Another problem is the absence of dynamic playlists. Imagine a scenario, I have the Backstreet Boys music tracks neatly arranged in the Music folder with 20 tracks. Now I buy 5 new tracks from some online legal service (I use eMusic) and add it to that folder. As a WALKMAN player it should automatically identify the music and group it in the Backstreet Boys playlist but is not so. I have to (with great difficulty) navigate to the folder, find the new tracks and manually add it to the playlist.
3. Absence of Album Art, Mood and genre: The player should have supported these as a dedicated WALKMAN player.
4. More equalizer modes like classical, rock, punk, alternative could be well easily accommodated.

Other quirks it had:
1. The phone has a built in flash but it does not work like a flash. I look foolish when I on the photo-light to capture portraits and the subjects would stare at the light for a long time before the auto-focus would happen and the image is taken.
2. It is impossible to use Bluetooth stereo headphones with it.
3. Video playback is absolutely jerky. I tried to playback a backstreet boys music video at 176x144 at it was so jerky that, video playback cannot be considered as its feature.The same video I played on my mother's Nokia N70, and it was very smooth. Maybe it is because of a slow processor.
4. The quality of the mobile phone too is not as good as that of the Nokia especially the range.
3. The WALKMAN programs lack a "recently added" folder. It is so tedious to find a new piece of music I transferred.
5. The earphones supplied with the WALKMAN is absolutely stunning, but it is very bass-centric, great for (rock, punk, alternative or nu-Metal types) but absolutely Su(ks for classical music. The earphone wires have deliberately been made incredibly short so we cant use it with any other portable players.
6. Although The earphones are good, there seems to be no support for wireless stereo headphones. I grit my teeth with jealousy when my next door neighbor enjoys wireless music on his Motorola MOTOROKR.

The signal quality, reception and clarity su(ks. Let me explain. I conducted an experiment once. I took both phones to a very remote area, my Nokia N70 showed just one cell of range and I could even make (broken) calls too. I reckon the signal quality was just 5-8%. But when I put the same simcard onto my SE W810i, it showed nothing. NO RANGE at all. Just zero. I was stunned. Also I have noticed; many at a time there is greater chance of broken calls if we are using the SE W810i than the N70 especially while traveling in a highway or a fast car.

I am not comparing the WALKMAN™ to a media player. Even the Nokia N70 (non-music edition) too has a 'recently added' folder which makes sorting way easier especially if you are buying music from the net.
Equalizer changing is fine but we can't save it. It is very difficult when we need MegaBass™ for one track and a classical or a vocal setting for the next.
The camera lens is unprotected. I have already scratched it twice by now.
Except for the quality of the earphone which is sublime there is nothing so much to hype about the WALKMAN™ logo branding.

I really firmly believe that the WALKMAN™ branding is just another marketing hype to fool unsuspecting consumers. I have heard that the SE W800i and SE K750i are identical in terms of hardware but nowhere near in terms of price. I should have thought twice before I went on to purchase this.

[Gigacore]

i dont have time to read your post.... as a W810i user i say it ROCKS!!! It was the 2nd Best Phone awarded by 3GUK.

Better you learn to use it in first case

[amitava82]

Just get a new Walkman that comes with Walkman player 2 such as w830, w850 etc. BTW most of the phones you compared with Walkman are newer phones..

[amitava82]

Looks like Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
Same post in 2 different section with different title. I'm sure you never used SE Walkman Phones.

[aryayush]

Originally Posted by Intel_Gigacore

i dont have time to read your post.... as a W810i user i say it ROCKS!!! It was the 2nd Best Phone awarded by 3GUK.

Better you learn to use it in first case

What sort of an attitude is this! You are so rude.

Most of the complaints expressed by the thread starter are genuine. When you don't have the time to read his post, there is absolutely no need to spare time enough to post a rude reply.

@daniel_joseph, though I do agree with you, I have to say that some of your complaints seem untrue to me. I am not saying that you are lying but I certainly haven't experienced any quirks with the video playback and network reception. The WALKMAN player in W810i was the first version. It has greatly been improved now and supports album art, sorting by genre, etc. Later phones also have the A2DP profile which lets you stream music to Bluetooth headphones.

You simply cannot compare it to an iPod. First of all, it is a dedicated music player. Secondly, it is manufactured by Apple, Inc. - the company that sets industry standards in interface design. Everyone knows Disc2Phone is nowhere near as good as iTunes. It is not supposed to be either. I never used Disc2Phone. I just connect the phone in file transfer mode and then copy my tracks directly into the phone's memory.

But I am absolutely in agreement with you about these things:
Playlist creation on a computer
Dynamic playlists
The flash not working like a flash
No recently added folder
The earphones being heavily bass-centric and short on purpose

But at the end of the day, you are comparing it to standalone music players. I don't know many phones in the price range of W810i that offer all the features that it is lacking. Nokia phones, specially, offer poorer music playback features when compared to Sony Ericsson. And I find the interface of SE phones a lot better than Nokia's Symbian phones. Of course, it all boils down to personal preference.

But if you wanted a lot of features, you should have opted for a more recent WALKMAN phone such as W850i or W950i. These would have been more to your liking. Better still, you should probably have waited (a long time) for the iPhone.

[aryayush]

Exactly.

And there was really no need to post it twice.

Thread reported.

[daniel_joseph]

Well actually, I didn't mean to make 2 posts, but I made the first one in 'Review Section' and I later realised that there was a section dedicated for mobile devices. Well, I am new to the forum, So I guess I'll make a few mistakes before I can actually get used to the interface.
But, yes this is my first SE phone (I am 15 years old), but the query that I do not have any experience using a phone is very absured. My mother owns an N70, my father has an imate smartphone and an N91. I even have my own laptop preloaded with Windows Vista. I am not being proud or anything but I am very experienced in all tech related stuff. To keep my knowledge upgraded I am a regular reader of Digit, IC Chip and PC World along with SKOAR. Well I must have realised that I won't get an all-in-one device. The SE W810i is a digital camera/WALKMAN/mobile phone/radio/organisor. However the Nokia's music edition phones offer similar music capabilities.
But I am surprised that you get smooth video playback.
I have a backstreet boys music VCD having 14 music videos. After a lot of running around, searching the net and wasting some money; I managed to get the track 1 "I want it that way" conerted to 3GP format; 176x144 resolution having aac fromat audio. When I viewed it on the phone it was very jerky, not a smooth playback at all. I found this disappointing. Clarity was fine, but the smoothness was lacking. When I saw it in my mother's N70 which has real player, it was very smooth.

[Gigacore]

Nice Comment man @ aryayush

[daniel_joseph]

Well actually, I didn't mean to make 2 posts, but I made the first one in 'Review Section' and I later realised that there was a section dedicated for mobile devices. Well, I am new to the forum, So I guess I'll make a few mistakes before I can actually get used to the interface.

[daniel_joseph]

Originally Posted by Intel_Gigacore

i dont have time to read your post.... as a W810i user i say it ROCKS!!! It was the 2nd Best Phone awarded by 3GUK.

Better you learn to use it in first case

Well Mr.giga-core, how about quantam-cores or DNA computing. Well you must get a PS3, I say it is way faster than your PC and brain.

Originally Posted by Intel_Gigacore

i dont have time to read your post.... as a W810i user i say it ROCKS!!! It was the 2nd Best Phone awarded by 3GUK.

Better you learn to use it in first case

Well Mr.giga-core, how about quantam-cores or DNA computing. Well you must get a PS3, I say it is way faster than your PC and brain.

And you must mean 3G UK, it gives awards to 3G phones only

[dtox]

i own an 810i n ur point bout "no signal" is crap.. rest r just drawbacks.. like no playlist etc.. its walkman 1.0.. the first version!! u cant expect everything in 1 go!! the things u mentioned, u get that in walkman 2.0.. but wen compared to n70 me in the same price range,810i the best out there n n70 simply sucks wen compared to 810i , u need album art etc?? try walkman 2.0 fones like w850,880,610 etc..

[aryayush]

Have you tried any other video? Is the demo video jerky too?

[aryayush]

Look, everyone is saying the same thing. If you wanted a more feature-laden phone, you should have gone in for some of the recent models. You buy a two year old phone and expect it to have the latest and greatest features - that just does not happen, mate.

[Dipen01]

whatever

I love my W810i

[gxsaurav]

I think you didn't do your home & inquired things

W810i does have wireless bluetooth stereo headphones.

[daniel_joseph]

Well Demo video is O.k. But the music video is jerky. If you are seeing a fast and complicated dance video (like dhoom machale), the video is very very very unsatisfactory.

And it DOES NOT SUPPORT wirless bluetooth (ADP2) headphones. I do my home and class work very well.

[ambandla]

Originally Posted by daniel_joseph

Well Demo video is O.k. But the music video is jerky. If you are seeing a fast and complicated dance video (like dhoom machale), the video is very very very unsatisfactory.

And it DOES NOT SUPPORT wirless bluetooth (ADP2) headphones. I do my home and class work very well.

How much flash memory did you put in your phone and what is the brand name and model of the flash module?

AFAIK, using a high latency, huge capacity flash slows down most of the mobile phones.

[gxsaurav]

I knew the reply to this thread will be very big cos it seems u just copy pasted, but then again I got 15 mins free right now.

1) Playlist creation, you can do that in the walkman phone itself. Granted such feature should have been given in the Dsik2Phone or other such software but remember, playlist makes list of audio files on a drive, but the removable drive latter changes or may change every time u plug it in the computer.

2) Album art is not given in W810i, yes this is a problem which is not solved in W830i or W580i

the phone has a built in flash but it does not work like a flash. I look foolish when I on the photo-light to capture portraits and the subjects would stare at the light for a long time before the auto-focus would happen and the image is taken.

Isn't this how a flash is supposed to work.?

It is impossible to use Bluetooth stereo headphones with it.

You didn't do your homework, cos u forgot to see SE HBH-DS970 Bluetooth stereo headphones

Video playback is jerky but that’s due to high bit rate. Try encoding a video at 176X144 at 24 fps & 196 kbps bit rate, with MP4 Video & AAC audio using QuickTime or River past or any converter.

The quality of the mobile phone too is not as good as that of the Nokia especially the range.

Quality in what respect? It is not a Smartphone but a music phone.

The WALKMAN programs lack a "recently added" folder. It is so tedious to find a new piece of music I transferred.

How hard it is to click using 4 clicks. Do you copy all songs directly to "Music" folder of memory card? Make folders like "Backstreet boys" Shakira etc & put music inside that, this will be easier to manage.

So far, there was only once I faced signal quality problem when I was in a remote area & even my friends Nokia 6600 didn't work.

The camera lens is unprotected. I have already scratched it twice by now.

What the.... you play catch-um-catch with your phone or what?

I really firmly believe that the WALKMAN™ branding is just another marketing hype to fool unsuspecting consumers. I have heard that the SE W800i and SE K750i are identical in terms of hardware but nowhere near in terms of price. I should have thought twice before I went on to purchase this.

Actually, with walkman branding you get Megabass, Walkman player, an orange phone (the logo) & a coolness factor that you are using a walkman phone . Infect you can live easily by using even a K750i as a Music player with HPM-70 earphones, like I do. It's just a matter of preference. Obviously SE will make it look better, it’s their product. That’s how marketing is done.

[tgpraveen]

i somewhat agree that walkman branding is pretty much crap.

i tried my friends w700i and the sound on loudspeaker is ultimate kachra. i mean "aawaz fat jata hai

come on just take away those lovely earphones from the walkman phone and all u have left with is a overpriced product.

walkman 2 is a improvement over walkman 1 in the sense that u can see more songs etc.

at the end of it i dont see walkman as more than a marketing hype

and also i would like to tell the original poster that he could have avoided all these problem by buying say a n70 music edition or n73 music ed.

AND oh yes 1 more thing intel_gigacore pls stop being rude everyone has a right to express their opinions if u cant read the post then u dont hav to reply in such a manner.

[Dipen01]

Well if asked to compared sound of W810i to N72 and N70..i can definitely say W810i scores by leaps and bounds.... and yeah the Sound on LOUDSPEAKER..

I can say this..because i have all three phones in my family..!!

Only one problem which i can see of W810i is that its max volume is too less..but i havent upgraded to latest firmware and ppl say that it fixes the volume problem..!!

[daniel_joseph]

Well, I'll answer all queries one by one:
Dipen01: The Nokia N70 [music edition] has similar (passive noise reduction) type earphone. So the music quality is similar to W810i. The N70 also has a loudspeaker twice as loud as SE W810i.
tppraveen: WALKMAN is a marketing hype. After the entry of CD, Sony developed its DISCMAN. This became very popular and was called WALKMAN as we could listen to music while walking and was portable.Sony made huge profits on this. However it was shunted with the entry of iPod. Sony is trying to revive its WALKMAN image but is not very sucessful.
Saurav: I agree drive letter's would change. So they could have enabled this 'playlist creation' on the Disc2Phone software itself and we could use it when we connect the phone in 'PHONE mode.' ;No this is not how a flash should work. It should only flash after auto-focus and just before the pic is taken. Here we have to on the photo light, then focus for 3 sec and pic is taken.
Hello SE HBH-DS970 model earphone does not support W810i. LOOK.
I encoded the video at 176X144 at 15 fps & 128 kbps bit rate.

I have a 512MB card that was bundled with it. I have made folders but what i said was that I have to add that specific track to the playlist. Searching this is tedious. I was planning to buy a 2gb, now i shall settle with 1 gb MS DUO PRO card.

What happened to Digit Patron programme. They said it will be back.

[Dipen01]

^^^^

Loud aint always good....u say twice as loud as W810i...ill say its more than twice...but i have played SAME SONG at a same time in front of 10 ppl...just to prove which quality is better..!! and believe me even my bro.. who has N70..later agreed that sound cracks a lot (fat-ta hai )... and is totally unpleasant..!!

[daniel_joseph]

Before you come to me with knives and forks 'THIS IS NOT MY REVIEW', I found it in amazon.com; But I pretty much agree to it.. It's quite humourous tooooooo.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know why nobody has taken the time to report how this phone responds... as a PHONE!
I just bought it and I must say, I am NOT impressed! It is so quiet I can barely hear anything happen. Even with the ear buds in, it's only so-so (AS A PHONE). The radio and music work fine and I can hear them perfectly, the phone side... not so much. I don't know why there isn't a master volume for everything coming out of it (ringer excluded of course) but if I'm listening to music at 80-100db (to drown out noise) and a phone call comes in at 50db, do you really think it will be heard at all? And there is NO menu item nor description of volume control anywhere in the manual. (forget about talking on it outdoors)
I can only hear it ring under very silent conditions. Which reminds me, some idiot put the speaker on the back of the phone (a REALLY dumb-ass move) which requires a user to either lay the phone on it's face or put it in it's hands free cradle backwards in order to have any chance of hearing anything. It was probably the same jackass that decided to remove the camera lens cover! The lens is exactly where my finger-tip falls when I am trying to use the phone one-handed (does Sony really pay these designers?)
The menu system really doesn't make sense but I guess you get used to it's randomness eventually (heck, you could learn brain surgery if you practiced enough).
It's a nice looking unit, the digital camera is decent (compared to 5 year old digital cameras), the Walkman is clumsy but works, the radio works pretty well, the games... eh, as a phone... Oh! That's right, this is supposed to be a phone! The thing it does the worst is act like a phone! For the money, you could get a decent phone AND and an iPod (and probably a 5 year old digital camera) and get better products in both! (because who listens to the radio anymore? It's just commercials anyway.)

Be warned! I wish someone had told me before I blew $500!

[aryayush]

It certainly isn't as bad as you are making it out to be. I had a W550i and I was quite satisfied with it.

And you are right, it does not have the A2DP profile. You'll learn which opinions to avoid as you become a regular on this forum.

[abhijit_reddevil]

Whatever! My W810i rocks. And much better than Nokia N70.

[daniel_joseph]

Hey guys. I downloaded one software called LCG jukebox for N70. It was a trial version. After the trial period they asked me the registration key. I simply typed in some digits at random and pressed o.k. Surprise! they accepted the registration key and now i have the full version. I don't remember what I typed even. This software supports album art,genre,many more EQ settings etc.
Isn't it funny

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by daniel_joseph

The Nokia N70 [music edition] has similar (passive noise reduction) type earphone.

the headset bundled wid n70me are normal ones not in ear type. my personal exp. says the hpm70 or any other earbuds bundled wid the walkman phones are better than any of the nokia headsets.

Originally Posted by daniel_joseph

It should only flash after auto-focus and just before the pic is taken. Here we have to on the photo light, then focus for 3 sec and pic is taken.

very true. they shud implement this feature in their future phones. i agree wid u completely. its a major drawback.

[aryayush]

Nokia headphones suck. They are the worst. They hurt and are very uncomfortable. And they keep popping out.

Worst of all, my phone (Nokia 6300) won't allow me to plug in standard 3.5mm headphones.
Is their any 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter available in the market? If yes, where can I get it in Kolkata?

I really love the fact that you can change tracks and radio channels on Nokia phones simply by pressing the small button on the handsfree though. Wish SE provided such a feature (at least my W550i didn't have it).

[daniel_joseph]

Well the N70 and 6300 is not aimed at music enthusiasts. It is aimed at executives. The other bunch can go with N70 music edition. Where Nokia scores is:
1. It supports incredible number of formats such as aac, mp3, WMA, Real Audio, eAAC+ ;etc.
BUT is there any loseless compressed format of music I can use with SE?? No not a single one. Although the Apple Loseless format comes with same extension (.m4a) SE does not support it..
2. From the n70 music edition handsfree we can play,pause, skip,answer calls etc. SE WALKMAN should have provided that.
3. It has larger screen, camera lens protection, can read powerpoint slides,pdf documents, word and Excel sheets etc. It is based on symbian platform, so incredible number of free apps. are available.