Sony Ericsson W550i Review

Overall Rating

Good screen resolution
Speakers for MP3
USB cable for uploading for tracks, that works like removable storage in Windows

A little large with the swivel screen and aerial

My Sony Ericsson W550i was a replacement upgrade for a Nokia 6230, which I had use last year. First to note is that this phone is a little bigger than the Nokia. This is due to the swivel screen and the speakers built-in to the body.

Boot up time is a little slower, but if you turn off the Walkman only choice, then it does get a little quicker. This Walkman only feature is good for listening to music where you can't have a phone switched on.

Operating the phone is the usual Sony Ericsson method, only with tabs in some options, like you might find in Windows, that allow some further settings to be altered. The layout and use of these are very simple and quite intuitive.

Call volume is loud, and you can turn the volume down quite low and still have a good clear connection. Swivelling the phone shut will kill a call you didn't make, but not one you did! Odd omission that. Text works well, but you need to turn on the T9 dictionary first. Set this to always come on and it's a dream. Sony uses a drop down menu of choices for the words in the dictionary, which is OK, but I'd prefer the use of the * key instead. My daughter says it's possible to change this. (I'll have a go and add to this if I can).

Walkman controls are nice and easy, and groups tracks by artist and then album based on the MP3 tag info. One problem is that it lists and plays them alphabetically rather than in play order. I suggest numbering the tracks in Windows first to get over this oversight.

The camera is 1.3 a Mega-Pixel and takes good images. The light is something I've not looked into yet, but you can buy a flash add on too if you seriously want to use it as a camera. (I suggest the w800 or K750 if you do, as they have a 2.0 Mega-Pixel camera.

Battery life is good, 8-10 days minimum, after the first 2 - 3 full charge/discharge runs. Make sure you charge it for 16 - 20 hours before you first use it too.

The enclosed software CD contains a few useful bits for those of us who aren't MP3 savvy, and it has a nice contact/calender back up facility. Don't bother with the bundled Adobe photo album software if you have Microsoft office 2003, as it's of little use. One glaring omission is the theme developer software. This has to be downloaded from Sony Ericsson's developer web site (free). Choose w600i as the phone. You will want to use this, as the themes on the phone are not much to write home about. Be creative!

Overall, this is a really good phone. Much better than any of the recent Nokia's, or mid to low range Samsung's. Highly recommended.