The first look at the Sony Ericsson w700i and you would mistake it for a w800i covered in gold. But you are not to be blamed and neither are the designers at Sony Ericsson because after all, how can one improve beyond perfection?
Although the W700i lacks the auto-focus feature of its immensely popular predecessor w800i and comes bundled with a 256 MB Pro Duo memory stick (the w800 comes with a roomy 512 MB stick), these factors are compensated for, by the titanium-gold body and the interesting price difference.
Features and Performance
Using this phone for over a month now, am bowled over by the “Walkman” efficacy and reliability of this phone. It can function as a standalone MP3 player with the phone turned off .Not only does it have a decent battery support of over 20 hours of music playback, the sound quality that the bundled ear buds provide is superb. Bass was rich and undistorted, even at high volume. There is also the Sony’s “MegaBass” mode for an enhanced music experience .Moreover, the ear buds are specially designed to shut out background noise. The in-built speakerphone may not be loud enough (like the much cheaper w550 or some models by different brands), but provides good sound-quality which is only better than that provided by the speakerphones of other brands' phones in the same (or even a little higher) price strata. Adding to the user-friendly interface is the ‘play/pause' and the 'volume' button on the left and right side, respectively. A "Walkman" button between the soft keys takes you directly to the "Walkman" media player that plays 3Gp video files as well. An interesting use of these buttons was that I was able to play and change saved tracks even while playing a game (without sound of course). Beat that! To add to the music functionality, the ear bud connectivity cable also includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack so you can attach your regular pair of stereo headphones or even your PC/Stereo speakers. Also, the music buttons on the sides can be used with the keypad lock on, if you have the cable connected. This feature turned out quite handy as I was able to change tracks and the headphone volume without taking the phone out of my pocket and without worrying about any key being pressed accidentally. On receiving a call, the music pauses and resumes afterwards on its own. The multimedia features include an FM radio; DJ software to play around with your photos, videos and audio files; and a voice recorder.
Imaging
Turn the phone on one of its side and it becomes a 2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. The flash is quite powerful and useful as indoor images often lack lighting even with the night mode on. Outdoor images turned out decent enough though the camera doesn’t allow zoom when the picture size is maximum (1600x1200). So, on the camera front, the phone is just average (greatly because of the absence of auto-focus).
Design
Moving onto the design...the titanium gold-silver combination makes it an eye-candy for many but the cheap stainless steel surrounding the back-camera loses its paint soon and spoils the look. The designers at SE could have used an alternate material like the one that runs along the edges. Alternatively, they could have hidden the camera behind a cover or in a depression rather than keeping it protruding in the rear which makes the tear-away process only faster.
Overall, this phone is a great buy if you can give up auto-focus for the bounty of Sony's prestigious "Walkman" trademark with the Midas look and Sony Ericsson durability.
Orginally written on Fri, 22 Jun 2007
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