Jan 19, 2006 10:51 AM
6740 Views
(Updated Sep 18, 2006 10:45 AM)
Hey there, the W550i took me nearly a month to get hold off. The problem was further compounded by its inavailability at local dealers (read:high price at local Sony showrooms!). .So what do I feel now, once I actually own the phone and have used the same for over a month now?.A sense of near completeness!.I say this as I change phones every 4-6 months!So you can say,i am a hard man to please.Lets take a look at some features,vis-a-vis my earlier Razr V3/ K700i/Nokia 6600. Let me start off with the obvious the walkman feature. You can now listen to mp3 quality songs from the installed walkman player,which has an easy interface and you can scroll to your song, change equalizer settings or ask it to play randomly too! This feature comes with the cd ripping software from sony,that you can choose the quality of songs(such as 128kbps=cd quality,64 kbps=fm radio quality etc...), so by increasing/decreasing your quality of songs when transferred to the phone,you can increase your storage capacity. What I really enjoy about this featureis that I have stored my Italian learning files in MP3 format on the phone,so whenever I am free I just learn some italian.....Scusi??? l.o.l! Camera / Video Feature, witha 1.3 MegaPixel camera along with 4x Digital Zoom, you can be sure that you will be never left wanting, when a special moment arrives and you don't have your handycam or digicam on you. It also has easy access to things such as shooting modes / picture size/ night mode / frames from the joy-pad itself. SE's digital photography capability for phones makes it a legend. Nokia with Carl Zeiss lenses.....move over! Storage Capacityis a maximum 256 mb,which is good enough to shoot roughly 250 photographsin medium quality mode(640x480mode),have about 20-25 minutes of video recording(medium quality mode)and have 35-42 songs(fm quality mode). I think that is enough for a average user. It also has a greatspeakerphone,with which you can listen to songs so loud that you can have a private little party going! The ad wasn't kidding! Oh yes..you can also talk with it! l.o.l! It also features 3d gameswhich I have been totally hooked on to! The games allow multiplayer via bluetooth or gprs. There is also a FM Radiowhich you can activate using your headphones,as that is the antenna!So city people of Bombay/Bangalore/Delhi will defintely enjoy this phone,as they can enjoy themselves while commuting to work! Executives will find the following featuressuch as Remote Desktop control/Wireless presentation(laptop compatible)and Media player remote very friendly. I used it to control the cursor on my desktop(via bluetooth,bit ofcourse!) instead of the mouse! You can now make presentations by holding your phone and clicking on it to change the powerpoint slides! This phone is the killer-category It has just wiped off Nokia from the Mid Level category! None of Nokia's / Samsung / LG's phones come even close to what SE has to offer at this price-point.Another feature is the multi-converterwhich allows you to convert across various categories,such as volume/weight/temperature etc..at single click.There is also a World Clockwhich tells you the time across all time zones,handy while travelling abroad or getting in touch with international clients,you really don't want to loose the deal because you thought it was morning and called in the middle of the night instead ,do you????The general features include GPRS/ Bluetooth/ Infrared/USB cable to transfer all your files(trust me,you'll need this to transfer your notes/music/documents,as bluetooth takes forever with large files!). Also included are WallPapers/Themes/MP3 Ringtones. What I really like is the pop-up interface a carry over from the K700i series,which easliy lets you know what feature you have choosen. The new settings featuremakes it easy to locate phone/call settings and change them at a flick of the button. There is also a light featurewhich you can use in the dark or with night shooting.This feature also can send out the international S.O.S distress signal in light flashes,very handy if you are trekking and get stuck in the mountain,or if you are stuck at night in a building(recent flooding of bombay / bangalore,in which people were trapped in buildings,without food or water is a case in point) you can be sure that someone will see the light and come to investigate. There is also easy accessfrom the outside of the phone via the joy-pad to acess al features or gprs/camera/music at touch of a button. The battery lifeis around 2-3 days standy by and good for 2 days of work without charge! You also have the music mode in which the GSM functionality is switched off, so even inside a flight you can enjoy your own music!(this feature was first seen in the high-end p800 PDA phone). Now what i don't like about this phone is,that if you have a big phonebook contact list,since you to swivel the phone to directly access the persons name,it gets quite tiring.You can acess the names from the outside joy-pad itself,but get real if you are an exec or really popular person,you are phonebook is bound to have more than 250 numbers right? So scrolling your way down to the person you want to call is cumbersome. The second thing is that the outside panel (which incidentally can be changed,also the box comes with one free panel too!) got dirty within a months times,complete with blackening near the joy-pad(which will be the most used item in the phone),making it look quite dirty. Ofcourse SE does give you a one year warranty so you can have it changed free of cost Did I forget to mention that you can synchronise/backupyou phonebook-contact/calendar with your pc at a single touch? Also you can use the phone as a modemto access the internet at decent speeds. This is a basic overview of the phone, there are lots of more goodies which you can discover as you use the phone.....so ENJOY!!!!
