Introduction
The current trend is to have functions and services from high-end phones slowly (or sometimes much faster) appear in lower category handsets, in order to have them live on and spread in a short time. This has been the case with Bluetooth, the camera; this is how it will have with GPS, or with the touchscreen. There is no problem with this.
Manufacturers know this very well, and many companies transfer features from 2-3 year old top phones to current mid-range phones. And the top model gets a successor, one that looks better, that has better features and that of course costs more. Sony Ericsson has a bit different attitude towards this matter.
In the case of W595 I have already told that this phone is a bit redesigned W910i for me. Of course we can say that it has evolved a lot since W580, which is true, but that made me go mad was that they didn’t even try to give a different design to the facelift they have sold as a new product. And now we get W302 from XXL GSM, and I think you can see on the pictures that they didn’t bother much about creating new shapes. Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s the revival of the W890 design, and the cooperating partner is – yeah, it really is – Sagem.
Exterior
Okay, it’s not the exact same as W890 has been. It’s a bit less, the contents of the box is the first minor disappointment: we don’t get the in-ear headset which made the Walkman series – besides other small things – famous. But this is available in silver and black as well, we had the shinier one – wouldn’t want even my enemies try to take a picture of this; it’s a real pain.
It’s not ugly. Of course the design resembles a brick again, which is spiced up by the circle navigation buttons, but the materials used are elegant, and the brushed front is still cool. The OK key and the music player button are a bit like copper (but of course they wanted them to resemble gold), such as the bit darker panel on the bottom of the phone, which has the well-known Walkman logo on it.
The changes related to the display are also more negative, as it’s only 176 x 220 pixels large, but it has a diagonal of 2”, which is larger, just as large as the QVGA screen of W890, which has been used as a donor. The display is still not bad, it’s nice and clear, we should just forget what it resembles.
The buttons are fat grains of rice, they are a bit too hard for me, but this is not surprising to see from the manufacturer. There is no problem with the layout, the keyboard is logical and easy to use. The unprotected data connector is on the left again (some people like it, but most of the users hate it), it’s still Sony Ericsson’s proprietary, although some kind of USB hole would be good nowadays, not mentioning the missing 3.5 mm headphone jack. On the left side there is a golden Walkman key as well. On the right there is the camera’s exposure key and the volume control keys.
On the bottom the handset is almost completely flat; there is only a small dent. We should only insert our huge nails under this if we want to take the very plastic back off, as this is the only way to do it. The white panel with holes has a Walkman logo, a company logo and an unmarked camera; it’s simple, but not disgusting. I have no complaints about quality; W302 is just fine to hold in our hands.
Hirdetés
Menu, basics
This could be a very short article. I could say that only those should read on who have never seen the software of a Sony Ericsson (or those – seen as strange people by others – who like our style), but there are a couple of small extras on the good old menu that have been highly anticipated. Of course this is the latest software edition, the windows are animated, just like the wallpaper, but there is no Media menu we used to see on QVGA models and there is no reflection effect on the bottom of the 12-icon main menu. There are, however, themes, but none of these change the icon set, there is no rotatable menu, so it’s quite simple. What’s the reason? The previous A200 platform has been swapped out to a new one, a version that has been made in cooperation with Sagem, even if they don’t like to advertise it too much. We’ll see that there are tons of small new features in the menu, which have only been present on Sagem phones. These have their pros and cons, we’ll see these in detail. I’ve made a video of the whole thing; you can see the box as well:
What could I say about the phonebook? Well, it’s used to store names. We don’t know exaclt how many contacts can be stored, as the amount is now displayed in percentages (well, this is a new feature, thanks Sagem). This is good, a great positive feature and a bonus point since we’re not limited, after copying 250 entries I have occupied 1% space (and I suppose the software rounds up). The use and the layout is the same as before, we have a tabbed interface displaying a contact’s details. Although this Sony Ericsson offers to copy names from a new SIM card to the phone memory as well, it can display them even if we don’t do this.
I must mention regarding to messaging that the result of the low resolution and the relatively good display size is that readability is good, as the letters are large. From now on there is no storage limit for SMS or MMS messages, as these are stored in the dynamic memory, just like the contacts, and I think it’s high time to tell you the size of this memory: 20 MB. Unfortunately we can’t copy messages or contacts on the 512 MB M2 card that comes with the phone, although I would have given another half bonus point for that.
As soon as I have taken out the memory card and reinserted it I managed to kill W302. It told me that there is no network, it didn’t react to any key (not the any key :D), and it turned off. It didn’t want to turn back on, so before panicking I’ve first taken the battery out, put it back and voila, the phone revived. But this is still worrying for a brand new handset.
PIM functions, games
I’ve almost covered the calendar in a couple of words, but it has a new feature: we can store not only text entries, but voice recordings as well, this has been characteristic only to Sagem phones. Furthemore – contrary to the previously mentioned phone – even voice entries can have their own type.
Let’s see the bad part: the alarm clock can store only one time point, although this can repeat. Snooze time is set at 9 minutes, we can’t change it. We can see a unit converter and a graphical world clock in the list of apps. The calculator is a new one as well, but it’s uglier, there is a rounded image instead of the good old square one, and it still doesn’t support scientific functions. The stopwatch is new, it’s a Java application, but it doesn’t have anything extra besides lap timing. And there is no code memory. It vanished, it disappeared, past Sony Ericsson users will surely miss it, it hasn’t been a useless feature.
I didn’t mention the email client yet, but it doesn’t have anything extra. The maximum message size is 300 KB, just like for MMS messages. When attaching a larger file it will warn us that we shouldn’t do it, but it won’t offer image resizing.
There are no new games. There are two of them: 3D Rollercoaster Rush and Quadrapop. The first is a rollercoaster management game, where we have to transport passengers on the levels as fast as possible, but we have to watch out not to let them fall out. The second game is a tetris clone, based on sound notes.
Camera, music
The hole on the back has a 2 megapixel camera beneath it. There is no flash, there is no autofocus, and videos can be recorded at 176 x 144 pixels. We have to keep the phone horizontally when taking pictures, exposure is fast, the list of options is simple. We can set image size (three of them), quality (two levels), a couple of effects, environment profiles and image sequencing. It’s the usual story: this is a Walkman, not a Cyber-Shot, it only has a camera because it has to, but as a matter of fact they didn’t really concentrate on it. Okay: they didn’t concentrate on it at all. There are a couple of test photos below, you shouldn’t expect any wonders based on the specs, but they aren’t terrible.
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We will surely be astonished by the musical part. Well, not when on handsfree, quality and volume are both horrible. The headset improves things a lot, this classical one is not bad at all, although I prefer the in-ear type. The player’s interface can be white or black, we can see the album cover or a selected visualization in the small window. We can seek tracks, and when pressing the up-down keys we can skip tracks. There have been no problems with the software until now, there is only one strange lack this time: there is no MegaBass (and there has been some other bass boosting feature since), so this time we can say goodbye to the bone-shaking experience.
There is of course TrackID, this has been included on almost every Sony Ericsson phone since a long time ago, the FM radio is also here with RDS support. Both the MP3 player and the radio can run in the background, and the headset – if it’s not already obvious – can be taken apart and there is a 3.5 mm jack in the middle to let us use any kind of headset. W302 supports stereo Bluetooth. It’s a pity, though that this time there is no charger that has a headset jack. We can choose between charging the phone or listening to music.
Data transfer, battery
The box has a data cable inside, and the software too, so we can use a USB 2.0 connection between the phone and a computer. If we’d like to become members of the anti-wire initiative, we can use the Bluetooth 2.0 connection, so there are no problems in this matter. The memory card (I’ve figured this out the second time I had to take it out) can be launched like hell, thanks to the spring mechanism, it can fly a couple of meters, although I didn’t play around much with this, as such small things disappear in a moment, just as I take them out of a device.
There is no 3G. I’ve been missing it. I know, this is a cheap Walkman, but it’s been still a pity to leave it out, if other manufacturers can put it in cheap phones. We have EDGE and GPRS and there is an HTML browser for these, although the screen resolution is no partner when browsing websites and the default browser is far from being perfect, an Opera Mini seems to be a better choice.
There is a 930 mAh Lithium-Polymer battery under the back, which is powerful enough for this set of features. It can keep the phone online for three days, and the charger fills up the battery level in only one and a half hour. As opposed to previous Sony Ericsson handsets W302 won’t cry for a charger every ten minutes, it just turns off quietly.
Summary. Its starting price – just like in the case of almost every Sony Ericsson handset – is way too high. But I think will take over the part of W200i in about half a year, and if it price will drop to an acceptable level (like something about €75 EUR), it will have a right to live. Those minor things that have changed are surely positive, but they are just not enough. Now, at this price, it doesn’t deserve an award (a Samsung L700 knows much more for much less money), I would recommend it though for about half the money.
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Sony Ericsson W302 has been provided by XXL GSM.
The handset can be purchased at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Specifications
| Sony Ericsson W302 | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 100 x 46 x 10.5 mm | |
| Weight | 78 grams | |
| Available colors | Black, silver | |
| Display | ||
| Internal display diagonal | 2” | |
| Internal display resolution | 176 x 220 pixels | |
| Internal display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 262.000 | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | dynamic | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | dynamic / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 20 MB | |
| Memory expandability | M2 (512 MB included) | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 850/ 900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 10 (236.8 kbps) | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | none / none | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / 2.0 (A2DP too) | |
| WiFi | none | |
| USB | 2.0 | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / none | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | present | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | none / none | |
| Sound recorder | present | |
| Alarm clock | van, kikapcsolva is | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | SE | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / present | |
| E-mail client | present (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated) | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 2 | |
| Currency converter | present | |
| Extra software | TrackID, Photofix | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | 2 megapixels, fix focus | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | present (H.264 format, 176 x 144 pixels) | |
| Music player | present, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | present | |
| FM radio | present - RDS | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 930 mAh Li-Pol | |
| Standby time | 300 hours | |
| Talk time | 7 hours | |
| Other | ||
| Headset and data cable included | ||
