Review: Sony Ericsson W810

by Eric Lin
April 20, 2006

When the W800 Walkman phone was released last year, no American carrier picked it up, despite the fact that it was a vast improvement in every way over their last high end model here, the S710. It had better battery life, a better camera and a better music player. But it didn't include the 850 band or EDGE.

The W810 is everything Americans (and more importantly, American carriers) wished the W800 would be. It combines all the best features of the W800 and W600 into a small, stylish candybar. With this best-of-all-worlds approach, the W810 is far too versatile to name one group of users that it is best for. Shutterbug? Check. The W810 has the same 2 Megapixel auto-focus camera as the W800. Music lovers? Check. Walkman software for the phone and PC and a nice stereo headset make listening to music a pleasure. People who want an easy-to-use smartphone? Check. Decent email and web applications - plus the power to run many third party Java applications other phones choke on, like ShoZu or Opera Mini - give the W810 a smartphone feel without complicated smartphone software.

The W810 is a great phone for a variety of people, but we can think of two groups of users who still should look elsewhere for their dream handset: people who just want a basic phone to make calls, and data-centric users who care more about email and browsing than taking pictures, playing music or other diversions.

Editor's Note: Because the W810 shares the same software as the W600, some sections of this review have been copied from our review of the W600 with only minor changes to reflect bug fixes or additional features added to the W810. Those sections are: Calls / Contacts, Messaging, Browse / Customize, and Other.

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