Messaging, Internet & Connectivity
For a consumer phone that doesn’t have a QWERTY board, the w580i’s messaging features are fairly robust. The phone supports SMS and MMS messaging and POP/IMAP email via pre-installed software.
Messaging setup is fairly easy, and text, MMS, and Email messages are stored in separate mailboxes. The phone’s camera software makes it easy to take a photo and include it in an MMS or Email message, and video clips may also be attached to messages.
As always, I really liked SE’s implementation of predictive text input on the w580i. The software itself works well and allows for adding custom words to the standard dictionary, and SE’s user interface makes it easy to choose from word suggestions via a pop-up menu.
Sony Ericsson feature phones generally include full HTML Web browsers, which is still something of a rarity in the marketplace these days. The w580i features the latest revision of their browser, which can handle all but the most complex of Web sites with commendable grace, even constrained by relatively slow speeds of AT&T’s EDGE network.
Standard Web pages are reformatted into a single column for easier viewing, and both landscape and portrait display modes are available during browsing. The browser of course also can handle mobile format WAP pages, and the toolbar-esque integrated Google search feature was also quite handy.
Even more handy, however, was the RSS feed reader. Web browsing via EDGE isn’t as horrible as some 3G-aholics might have you believe, but it’s not particuarly well suited to quick checks of image-heavy sites and blogs, either. RSS is a great solution for mobile browsing over EDGE - I set up the phone’s RSS reader to track feeds from a handful of sites, and was able to get news updates much quicker this way than by checking and rechecking the sites themselves. The RSS reader shows feeds as headlines with collapsible teaser bodies capable of displaying images and inline links to the original articles.
Connectivity
The Sony Ericsson w580i is a quad-band GSM phone locked to AT&T in the United States. An unlocked quad-band GSM version is also available. The phone is compatible with EDGE networks for data transfer and does not have a WiFi radio.
Bluetooth implementation on the w580i includes support for file transfer, data synching and mono and stereo (A2DP) audio. I had no trouble pairing the phone with headsets or my computer, and I was able to move files between the phone and my computer easily. The included software allows for PC syncing and music management, though music can also be dragged and dropped directly to the phone or via the included M2 Memory Stick card. I was also able to sync the phone’s address book and calendar data with my Mac via a free plug-in for Apple’s iSync software.
Sony Ericsson has migrated away from the Memory Stick memory card format to the newer, smaller Memory Stick M2 Micro format. The w580i includes a 512MB M2 card and an adapter for use with flash memory readers made for the older, larger Memory Stick format. Music and video files, applications, and other data can be copied between cards and the handset’s 12MB of internal memory via the integrated File Manager software.
The w580i may also be connected to a computer via the included USB cable that connects to the phone’s accessory port. Data transfer, synching, and charging are all supported over USB.
Next: Conclusion »
4.7
