RevYOU: Sony Ericsson W760i Walkman Phone

Posted by Jayvee at April 8th, 2009

Made available in the latter part of 2009′s first quarter, the Sony Ericsson W760i Walkman stands by the elegance and functionality that we expected from the Japanese. Compared to other spec-heavy phones out there with maxed out cameras and touch screens, the W760i brings together the good old fashioned features that work, while subtly adding a bit of new technology without screaming too loud at about P16,000.00.

I’ve had this phone for roughly a month and a half, a little bit before it came out to the retail spaces. Here are my thoughts

What’s to like:
Camera: This isn’t a megapixel war. It’s a war on clear photos, and the humble 3.2MP camera beats most of the higher end competition. Remember, a good camera phone

Tracker: In the Philippines, I never really found a good use for a GPS tracking device for navigating the streets of Makati. The W760i comes with built in GPS and A-GPS (assisted GPS) which is put to practical use by a built in application called Tracker. If you’re the type who uses a Nike+ to run

Sound: It’s a Walkman isn’t it? The W760i comes with two booming stereo speakers that are very visible on the front face of the phone.

Track ID: This is a new feature available in most music phones. It goes by different names but it does one very interesting thing — your phone becomes a mini Gracenote DB. When a song is playing on the radio, you can turn on Track ID to let your phone listen to the track sample. It then connects to the Internet and matches the song with the artist name and song title.

What needed improvement:
Earphones set up: I always found it frustrating that whenever Sony Ericsson advertised a phone under the “Walkman” brand it would mean that the unit should come with a 3.5mm jack. This is a half truth — most entry to mid range SE Walkman phones do come with good 3.5mm earphones but the jack doesn’t plug straight into the phone. Rather, the headphones have to go through an adapter (the same slot for the charger) and not directly to the unit. If you lose the adapter, you’re screwed.

For the price you pay, you get a very good music phone that’s built to last. Perhaps my only gripe is the exclusion of WiFi, but that obviously wasn’t the target of Sony Ericsson. But you know what, I can go rambling on all day about this phone — I want to hear what you think, and get your name and review published on the tech section of the magazine!

If you own a Sony Ericsson W760i, this page is for you.

We’re building a new section in UNO and it’s kicking off with tech. Going online presents new possibilities in marrying the joys of sexy, printed paper with the here-and-now of the Internet. We call this section RevYOU and it builds heavily on the wisdom of many people who own a particular piece of technology — yet oftentimes don’t agree with the one guy who wrote the gadget review on the glossy. So yeah, as both UNO’s tech editor and online editor I thought of bringing the community of readers together to review a particular product and come June ’09, I’m going to compile and publish this inside the magazine — with your name beside the one liners of user experience you have with the Sony Ericsson W760i. Tell us what you like about it. Tell us what you don’t like about it — you can use the comments section at the bottom of this page.

And please, put your real name, a valid email address and if you have one, a blog — because we’re going to raffle off something as well before we go to print If you want to leave more than one comment, then go ahead — but remember, each answer must be unique!