Sony Ericsson W705 Review - A Walkman With Connectivity

Weighing in at only 98g, the Sony Ericsson W705 (released October 2008) is suitable for the person who likes to go out to do their exercising - only don't get lost when you're out and about, as the phone does not have GPS. It does have a lot else to offer though, and for a price tag of around £270 (or free with some networks) you could own a phone which has good function and which - dare we say it - good looks as well.

This is not your all-singing, all-dancing clubber's friend, however it is a perfectly good music phone with adequate functions, decent connect ability and is able to keep going for a fair few hours on both 2 and 3G. The standard (Li-Ion) battery will last up to 400 hours on standby on 2G and up to 350 hours on 3G. Active talk time means a life of 10 hours on 2G and up to 4 hours on 3G.

Considering the audio first (it is a Walkman series phone) - the W705 easily rivals the sound of a dedicated mp3 player. Although the standard included in-ear earphones are of decent quality, the lack of 3.5mm jack limits its adaptability, for those who like the ear-covering style headsets. A hands-free adaptor is included in the package with 1m length cable.

With 120MB of onboard memory, the W705 has a 4GB memory stick which can be upgraded to 8GB. FM Radio is included in the handset, and the TrackID facility allows song identification based on clips just a few seconds long.

The W705 does not have touch-screen control. The dedicated music player buttons include a 'Shake Control' feature allowing shuffling, track skipping and volume control, activated by means of a button on the top of the phone.

The Sony Ericsson W705 sports a 3.2 megapixel camera without flash, with faster than average shutter speed. The 61mm (2.4 inch) 240 x 320 pixel screen (256K colour display) features the Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate (landscape to portrait and back) when viewing. Geo-tagging is possible, as is video and videocall camera.

In terms of connectivity, this phone has Wi-Fi and 3G at 2Mbps using HSUPA and 7.2 Mbps using HSDPA. It also includes Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, 2.0 USB and class 10 GPRS and EDGE, and HSCSD. It does not have infra-red.

The internal 120MB memory allows up to 1000 entries in the phone book and up to 30 received, dialled and missed call entries.

Other features include SMS threaded view messaging, MMS, Email, Push Email and IM. FM Stereo radio is also included with RDS, Games (allowing downloading with Java MIDP 2.0) and WAP 2.0/HTML, RSS browser. The w705 also has an MP3 /MP4 player, Walkman 3.0 player, shake control, SensMe, TrackID, YouTube and Picture Editor/blogging, organizer and voice memo.

What we liked about it:

We were surprised at the looks. With its square shape and brushed metal finish, this phone would enhance any pocket or handbag.

The excellent camera shutter speed and accelerometer portrait/landscape viewing was simplicity itself.

What we felt could be improved:

Considering this is a music phone and a member of the Walkman range, we felt Sony Ericsson could have included a standard 3.5mm jack fitting to bring it in line with the industry standard. The hands-free adaptor takes up the USB port - the headphones have to be unplugged to enable music transfer to take place.

The shake control activation button could be made easier to use.

The camera pictures were not as good as we would have liked. This phone's strength is in its music storage and playback.