That's How I thought about this phone at first. W960i Key features :
- Walkman® Touch Music Player
- Symbian OS 9.1 with UIQ 3.0
- 8 Gbytes Memory
- 2.6" 262k Touch Screen with Handwriting Recognition
- 3.2 Megapixel Camera with 3 x Digital Zoom
- Wi-Fi support
- 3G Technology
- Bluetooth® Technology
- FM radio
- Dedicated touch-sensitive player keys
- Not as impressive in life as in the promotional photos
- Slow interface response as storage gets nearly used up
- Back key location changed
- Music player cannot sort tracks by filename
- No EDGE support
The Sony Ericsson W960i is the successor of Sony Ericsson W950, which came with 4GB of integrated memory, but failed to gain popularity for the lack of camera and Wi-Fi capabilities. In fact, featurewise the W960 resembles more the Sony Ericsson P1 - they are almost identical in terms of hardware (although the P1 has an Infrared port, which lacks in W960i). The W960i features the same 208MHz processor and the same amount of RAM - 128MB. However, the W960 boasts a dedicated Walkman key, three touch-sensitive keys for controlling the music player and, finally, that all-important Walkman home screen application with fullscreen visualizations
The highly capable W960i Walkman® music phone comes in a super stylish vinyl black coloured casing which measures 109mm high by 55mm wide by 16mm deep. The music phone is a 3G capable handset which provides the user with high speed technology & the highest quality music features. The Sony Ericsson W range is a popular range which is adored by all music loving phone users & includes other 3G Walkman® music focused handsets including the Sony Ericsson W910i & the Sony Ericsson W950i. The Walkman® music phone comes with a massive 8 Gbytes of memory which allows the user to store up to eight thousand songs on their handset. The slender 3G music phone comes with a highly useable touch screen which allows the user to control their music & messaging features on the screen. The screen is large measuring 2.6 Inches & provides a screen resolution of 240 x 320 pixels which displays up to 262k colours for the user to enjoy a colourful viewing experience. The Walkman® touch player comes with a Symbian™ operating system which supports document readers & editors. The user can input text using the stylus provided on the touch screen which will be automatically transform handwritten characters into a letter from the keypad as the phone supports handwriting recognition.
The Sony Ericsson W960i offers its user the perfect music companion which comes with easy to use features. The phone comes with a built in Walkman® music player which comes with music playlists & supports album art which can be displayed on the phones large touch screen. The user can enjoy a truly portable & fun music experience on the W960i. The built in FM radio supports RDS which allows the user to enjoy listening to their favourite radio station whilst viewing information which is sent from the radio station & displayed on the large screen. The user can listen to their radio whilst reading information sent from the radio station. The music phone comes with some useful music features which include a music recognition feature known as TrackID™ which is powered by Gracenote mobile music. The TrackID™ feature is quick & easy to use which allows the user to record a few seconds worth of a song they like the sound of, which is then sent to TrackID™ which will provide the user with the name of the song , the artist or band name & the album name within a few seconds. The W960i comes with a music PlayNow™ feature which allows the user to buy or audition ringtones in three simple clicks of a key which is the fastest way for the user to download the latest ringtones onto their phone. The phone supports MP3, polyphonic & AAC ringtones which provides the user with a wide choice of sound on their handset. The user can enjoy a wireless music experience by using the Bluetooth® stereo A2DP connectivity which is available on this stylish music phone. The user can use the Mega Bass™ feature allows the user to enjoy high quality bass frequencies through the phones speakers or when using the headphones. The Sony Ericsson W960i comes complete with Disc2Phone software which allows the user to enjoy a drag & drop music transfer from their CD's to their handset.
Usability
Using the Sony Ericsson W960 in everyday scenarios like making calls, managing contacts and listening to music was a pleasant task. We do miss the side Back button, which enabled single-handed operation of the interface. There is of course a software Back key, but it's hardly usable in combination with the Jog wheel, especially for left-handed users.The keypad is comfortable to use and keys provide nice tactile feedback. That of course does not hold true for the touch-sensitive keys. All keys have a rather uneven white backlighting (it does seem bluish on the photos, though).
Symbian UIQ
The Sony Ericsson W960i interface is UIQ 3.0 - a customizable stylus-based user interface for mobile phones, based on the Symbian 9.1 OS. The interface is the same one used in previous Sony Ericsson smartphones such as the W950, the P990, and the P1. With W960i however, the Walkman functionality is on focus.
Probably the biggest update is the ability to change the well-known Today screen with a Walkman one. When the player is inactive, you have a big Walkman shortcut right in the middle of the screen. Once you get your music playlist rolling, the home screen will visualize every detail about the currently running track plus its album art. The most definite eye-catcher of all is the fullscreen visualizations.
The best thing about the new home screen is that the old one is still an option when you use your smartphone to run everyday jobs. In case you opt for it, the Today screen will display the current Calendar events, messages and emails, missed calls, general notes, etc. With the Today screen on, the four top shortcuts of the bar we mentioned earlier appear at the bottom.
A nice thing is that the smartphone has a dedicated Flight mode, which can be turned seamlessly on without restarting the phone. Starting the handset directly into Flight mode is another option, which you get prompted about every time you power it on. The main menu of the Sony Ericsson W960i allows two different views: icon grid and list view. The font throughout the user interface is rather small, except for the file manager, messaging and phonebook, where you can choose between there different font sizes. The smartphone interface is customizable through various graphic themes - unfortunately, ours had only the default Walkman one preinstalled.
The Sony Ericsson W960i is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and a dual-LED flash - again, much like the P1 and unlike the previous Walkman-enabled smartphone W950. The maximum resolution is 2048 x 1536 pixels. Pictures are taken by holding the handset in landscape mode. The camera interface is intuitive - all settings are arranged in a toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
In fact, the snappy camera interface reminds a lot of the interface of the latest Sony Ericsson phones, with its similar graphics and functions. There are three quality levels and the camera has a full automatic exposure control, while offering nice manual overexposure control accessible from the main viewfinder interface.
The autofocus settings of the camera feature a dedicated macro mode. You can even turn the autofocus off and use a fixed focal length for even faster snapshots. The camera offers automatic white balance but there are four custom white balance presets to choose from, depending on the environment. You can apply several color effects to the pictures and video, such as Black & white, Sepia, Solarization and Negative.We will refrain from much comment on the picture quality, as we're convinced that the final, retail version of the smartphone will have the camera quality improved. Our unit (being a pre-release one) produced images with very high contrast and sharpness. So we don't find our samples satisfactory, so we'll not publish full-size shots. Instead, we post some of the better images downsampled to 1024 x 768 pixels. We expect that when launched, Sony Ericsson W960i will produce images as good as the Sony Ericsson P1.
Much like previous smartphones, the Sony Ericsson W960i can capture video with a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 pixels at 15 fps. There are S60 mobile phones on the market capable of recording video in VGA resolution at 30 fps while providing full smartphone capabilities. Obviously, QVGA and the low frame rate are somewhat of a downer. Lower resolutions (such as QCIF - 176 x 144) though, allow recording at 30 fps but the picture details are far than adequate. All videos are recorded in 3GP format. The video recording times (no matter what the resolution), are limited by the available memory only.
Using the front VGA video-call camera was easy since it offers a rather intuitive interface. A nice thing is that you can use the rear main camera in video calls too, meaning you can easily show the other party your surroundings. The video-call camera also has a dedicated Night mode. Generally, when it comes to video calls, the W960 Video phone application manages well enough.
Finally, Sony Ericsson W960i a great choice for all you music fans that don't mind using both hands for operating their handset.
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