Sony Ericsson W810 Review

Most of today's phones come with some type of software which is used to synchronize the mobile phone with a desktop PC. The current version of the Sony Ericsson Pc suite we tested is v. 1.10.176.

During the installation, several language options are available. The actual application consists of four parts which can be selectively installed. The PC suite allows synchronization of contacts, notes and file transfer. The Adobe Photoshop Album SE is used to store and edit pictures taken with the phone. The QuickTime application is used for viewing video and audio files.

The Disc2Phone software is used to search for music in the user computer or audio CDs, convert audio tracks to MP3 format and copy tracks to a Sony  Memory Stick for listening on the phone. In order for Disk2Phone to work, the phone must be restarted and put in File Transfer mode in which most phone features don't work which of course is very annoying.

Switching back to Phone mode again involves restarting of the phone. Unlike Motorola's PC suite, Sony Ericsson one does not allow the user to compose and send messages from the PC. The contacts, notes, calendar and to-do lists can be synchronized, but unlike the Moto's software, the information can not be managed from the PC (edit, delete, add), just synchronized. Also, the only bulk synchronization is allowed, whereas with Motorola allows the user only selected contacts to be synchronized.

The Image Editor allows the user to do basic manipulation on images stored on the PC and then upload them on the phone. The options include zooming, brightness, contrast and color management.

The MMS Home Studio offers an easy and fast way for creating multimedia messages including backgrounds, text, sounds, pictures and animation. The ready MMS can not be sent directly from the PC, but again must be downloaded to the phone first and then sent from it.

The File Manager simply launches a Windows Explorer and allows the user to browse the store images, sounds or videos on the Phone's internal memory or on the Memory card.

The last feature is the Mobile Networking Wizard. In a nutshell, it allows the user to use its mobile phone's data capabilities to connect a PC or laptop to the internet. Depending on the settings, the user can select either the slower circuit switched data (CSD / HSCSD) or packet data such as GPRS / EDGE / 3G.

Overall, Sony Ericsson PC suite functionality is limited and only features worth mentioning are the basic synchronization and MMS composition.