Sony Ericsson MBW-200 Evening Classic Review

Introduction and design:

Portable watches first appeared in 15th century and six hundred years later, they are still overused personal accessories, because they can be both appealing and convenient without necessarily being outrageously expensive. The Bluetooth wristwatch series of Sony Ericsson first rolled out several years ago and are, unfortunately, not as posh and dainty as, say, TAG Heuer, Rolex or RADO. However, the devices allow the pleasing opportunity to discreetly keep an eye on incoming calls or control your phone audio player. And of course, they track time. Today, we are taking a closer look at the Sony Ericsson MBW-200 Evening Classic, a device of the “modern ladies” lineup of devices of the manufacturer. What this should mean, in our opinion, is that the device needs to be elegant and stylish…

The latter words can be hardly found in a sentence that refers to products of the company. For an instance, most their cell phones can be best described as having youthful, aggressive and even attractive design, although always looking somewhat rough and edgy. The same goes for the Bluetooth watch as well, since it is too large and hefty for women and their fine wrists. Even if you happen to be OK with the mere size, the wristlet is rather unsightly and the fact it´s a leather strap doesn’t help much. The inlaid gem, placed where the “12” digits are, doesn’t contribute towards a more appealing overall look either. Charger connectors are below and yes, the watch comes with rechargeable battery that utilizes a small “clip” and standard Sony Ericsson wall-charger.



We do not have any gripes concerning the buttons – they are large enough and easy to press. The ones on the left hand side of the device are used to control your phone audio player, while those on the opposite side are function keys.

Functions:

As we mentioned, the Sony Ericsson MBW-200 Evening Classic has been designed to allow ladies to discreetly keep an eye on incoming calls and the device produces slight vibration when you receive one. The function works flawlessly and shows either the incoming caller ID or a phone number if it´s not been assigned a contact entry. It is a good thing that answering is really easy and the connection doesn’t fall through even if you happen to be away from your cell phone (the manufacturer claims the useful range is about 10 meters). We have quite a few bad news, though. First, to use the device, you must either have a latest Sony Ericsson model or Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Second, the small screen doesn’t show you who the sender of a received message is. Finally, the MBW-200 Evening Classic tends to be rather headstrong (because it´s a women´s model, we suppose) – our unit would sometimes interrupt the connection with the cell phone and wouldn’t reconnect, no matter what we did. We later found out that restoring the default settings of the phone helps. 

Controlling your music player is something we quite like – track titles appear on screen, holding the corresponding buttons pressed for a while starts the next/previous song, while a single touch turns volume up or down. How absurd would a “modern lady” look like with a pair of earphones plugged into her ears, fumbling a pudgy watch is a topic for another article.




Conclusion:

The Sony Ericsson MBW-200 Evening Classic has made us ponder over complex philosophical issues, such as “Have modern ladies (being the target audience in this case) developed a taste for horribly looking wristwatches?” What we like most about the device is the particular way of controlling your phone audio player and we believe that many teens would have loved the watch if it had more youthful design (colorful and Swatch-like), plus being able to discreetly keep an eye on calls would come in pretty handy in class. Unfortunately, the current overall look of the Sony Ericsson MBW-200 Evening Classic just doesn’t make the cut.