The W200i, released in early 2007 is one of the first and foremost
phones to be released under Sony Ericsson's Walkman range of
musicphones, and is seriously worth considering should you want a
mobile device geared towards high-end audio playback. As the mobile
market is so fast-moving and innovative, to the point where many phones
are long obsolete from the moment they go on sale, the vitals of a
phone released a year ago won't often match up to a phone released
twelve months later. We can see this in the Megapixel arms race of
camera phones; a couple of years ago, any phone that could handle 2
Megapixels was seen as being the standard, and towards the end of 2008
we're beginning to see 8 Megapixel cameraphones making waves in the
market.
A Tri-Band candybar which comes in a variety of colours and shades
(including Sweet Pink, Mono Blue, Rhythm Black, Pulse White, Aquatic
White, and, er Grey), the design of the W200i is pure Sony Ericsson.
Above the standard keypad there is a multi-directional joystick control
set in between a pair of context sensitive menu keys and the usual call
and cancel buttons.
Despite memory sizes and Megapixel counts ever increasing, music
phones, and in particular handsets from SE's Walkman series, boast
audio playback quality which doesn't age with time as rapidly; songs
uploaded last year are still going to sound as good as they did back
then a year later, and the W200i can boast audio playback that is of a
quality as impressive as anything else you're likely to find on the
market today. Needless to say, the audio quality of the W200i is
excellent through the stereo headset which comes supplied, and thanks
to Sony's trademarked Mega Bass™ music feature, you can enhance and
customise the low end frequencies of tunes to your hearts content. You
can easily order and sort playlists that you've moved over from your
computer, or edit and create new playlists from within the phone itself.
The PlayNow™ feature allows you to browse and download Poly, MP3 and
AAC ringtones on your phone (you have to pay for any ringtones that you
download). In addition to the music player, there's also a useful
built-in FM radio.
Whilst the sound quality of the W200i is still as impressive today
as it was when the Walkman range of phones were first launched, there
are a number of limitations which unfortunately relegate the W200i to
something of a bargain purchase. Chief among its flaws is the lack of
support for Bluetooth – not only does this mean no pairing with
Bluetooth stereo headsets, but it also means that all audio file
transfers between your computer and your phone have to be handled via
the USB connection. Whilst this is no big deal if you're sat at your
computer ripping files from CDs to be ported across to your phone, it
means that you can't swap ringtones, funny pictures, or anything at all
with your mates quite so easily as you can with Bluetooth. It does have
Infra-Red support for wireless data transfer, but hardly anybody uses
that these days.
Additionally, whilst the W200i sensibly supports both MP3, AAC and
AAC+ music files, two of the most popular audio file formats,
unfortunately there is no support for just-as-popular WMA files, so if
you have the majority of your songs saved in Windows Media Player, and
aren't up for changing anytime soon, then you might want to consider
looking elsewhere. The main joystick is also on the fiddly, which is
annoying at times when you want to change tracks or make changes to
playlists, and the less said about the VGA camera the better. The W200i
is primarily a music phone, and as such its imaging capabilities leave
much to be desired.
The 27MB of internal memory can be upgraded thanks to the 128MB M2
Memory Stick Micro card which comes included with the W220i, although
if you want more space, and if you're going to be loading a lot of
music on to the phone then you will, then its worth knowing that you
can install cards as big as 2GB.
| Make |
Sony Ericsson |
 |
GPRS |
 |
| Model |
W200i |
|
3G |
|
| Air Interface |
GSM |
|
HSDPA |
|
| Coverage (Band) |
Tri |
|
Wi-Fi |
|
| Handset Type |
Standard |
|
Bluetooth |
|
| Dimensions |
44 x 101 x 18 mm |
|
IrDA |
 |
| Weight |
85 g |
|
USB |
|
| Talk time |
Up to 7 hours |
|
GPS |
|
| Standby time |
Up to 300 hours |
|
Push e-mail |
|
| Camera |
|
|
Predictive Text |
|
| Camera Flash |
|
|
MMS |
|
| Video Camera |
|
|
E-mail |
|
| Audio Player |
|
|
Memory Card |
|
| FM Radio |
|
|
Java |
|
| Ringtones |
|
|
Browser |
|
| Headphone Jack |
|
|
Organiser |
|
| Games |
|
|
Touchscreen |
|
| Internal Memory |
|
|
Vibrate |
|
| Video Calling |
|
