Our Review of the Sony Ericsson W760i
The Sony Ericsson W760i is yet another entry in the walkman phone series, but the family has definitely not outstayed its welcome. It's fairly plain to see that the W760i takes its stylistic cues from the old and very successful W850i.
The Sony Ericsson W760i is yet another entry in the walkman phone series, but the family has definitely not outstayed its welcome. It's fairly plain to see that the W760i takes its stylistic cues from the old and very successful W850i. Like its predecessor the W760i is a slide phone and it has slightly utilitarian looks. The 2.2" TFT front display dominates the handset and it has to game keys above it, although it's a bit of a mystery as to whether they are anything to do with mobile gaming. Apparently they will be used to enable gaming in landscape at a later date. But for now they remain unused.
The navigation pad and the two call and receive keys are housed just beneath the screen as you will expect. But they also house the W760i's inbuilt stereo speakers. They buttons look very chic floating above the speakers and they lend the W760i a nice futuristic look. The D-pad is the centre of the button panel and it doubles as the music player control panel. The alphanumeric keypad has large, user friendly buttons that give just enough feedback when you press them. The top row of keys is nicely spaced from the slide mechanism which makes texting easier. It's quite common for slide phones to partially obscure the first row of keys so the fact that this is not a problem shows great attention to detail from Sony Ericsson. In keeping with this the walkman logo on the back of the W760i glows when the walkman is being played. This is a nice touch that gives the W760i high end gadget cred.
The user interface software onboard the W760i has various flashy new touches. Icon animations are large and bold but on the whole the interface is much like any other Sony Ericsson handset. The media centre software is still a joy to use. The menu allows one click access to all your available photos, videos, music and games as well as web and video streams. The W760i also has a built in accelerometer which rotates the media menu according to the handsets orientation. Although this is not a new feature to Sony Ericsson handsets, it's still impressive.
The Sony Ericsson W760i has a 3.2 megapixel camera and is capable of capturing reasonable quality images. Unfortunately for the W760i its camera interface lags behind its contemporaries in the walkman series such as the W910 and W960i. The camera also has no auto focus and the viewfinder only works in portrait orientation, which can be a pain if you want to take a wider shot. Also the lack of a dedicated camera key also makes things quite tricky. But the W760i does not sell itself as a high end camera handset so you can understand why it is somewhat lacking in this department.
The W760i has full HSDPA compatibility which enables rapid data transfer over the air. This is especially handy when used in conjunction with the Walkman audio player, which is the main draw of the handset. It features the return of the excellent shake control mechanism that was featured on the W910i. The player supports all the major file formats that you would expect and Sony's excellent disc 2 phone software makes a return which means moving files to the W760i is a breeze. Although the W760i only features 40MB of internal memory, it does have a M2 card slot so you can upgrade if you need to.
Pros
Great stylish looks, capable camera and HSDPA compatibility.
Cons
No auto-focus on the camera and the camera user interface is a bit slow.
Our Rating
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The W760i suffers in comparison to its rivals - both the W910 and W960 offer a greater audio experience with similar spec. Still, it offers good features at a competitive price.
