Sony Ericsson W902 Preview

Introduction:

The key feature for all devices in Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series have always been its music features with the camera always staying in the shadows. Apparently, it’s time for a change and the new W902 is the messenger of a new era. It is a high class phone equipped with a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and „photo flash”, accelerometer and many musical features, which are in combination with the SE new headphones (HPM-77) included in the package.

Currently, all versions (globally) of the phone are prototypes and that’s why we are previewing it instead of giving you an in depth review. For our full detailed testing, we always use only final versions of the product, to make sure the results are impartial.

Design:

The phone doesn’t have an attractive appearance, but the designers’ aspiration to add interesting elements is apparent. It looks massive and reliable, but it still is quite slim.



You can compare the Sony Ericsson W902 with many other phones using our Size Visualization tool.

The display is 2.2 inches and supports 262k colors, which is standard for phones of such class. Interestingly, only the right edge is rugged and we see that as an attempt to freshen up the classic design. In addition, it helps the phone not to slide from your hands.

As in the other new top shelf Walkman W980, here the D-pad, the Send/End keys and the soft buttons are also united in three interlaced circles, which are very nice to look at.

On the right side, there are transparent player controls (play/stop, FFW/RWD). It also houses the volume rocker and the camera shortcut.

On the opposite side, we only find the charger connector. The back were the 5-megapixel camera is positioned is also rugged. Unfortunately, you have to remove the lid in order to get to the M2 card slot.

The main group of customers to buy the phones from the Walkman series has always been the one representing the youth and they will definitely like the aggressive image W902 has.


Interface:

The software is identical to Sony Ericsson W980’s or in other words, it’s the latest one offered by the company. The only application available to be placed on the homescreen is the „Standby World Clock 3D”. It has 3 changing clocks, indicating the time in London, New York and Tokyo and to our regret, these cities cannot be changed.


All multimedia features have been packed in the flash menu we are familiar with. Now, its background has the same motives as the theme used and not only a dark or a light version like in the previous models. The phone employs the latest, third version of the player which can be controlled via the accelerometer. It also adds some extra options compared to previous models with the ShakeMe function. In contrast to them, besides for changing the current track, it can also be used to control the volume. To do that, you have to hold the Walkman button and tilt the phone towards or away from you. The equalizer selection menu looks very good, but not the visualizations seen when listening to music, because they are too small.



In the previous high-class Walkman phones, the camera interface was similar to that of the cameraphones with a few minor differences. In W902 we see all the extras, including color pictures, indicating the various scenes and the BestPic option. The geo-tagging of pictures is done in an interesting way. Since the phone doesn’t have a built-in GPS, for the purpose the information of the GSM cells is used. This of course is not the most precise way to do it but we think it’s good enough for picture tagging.

The Internet browser is also very promising, because it opens heavy pages without a problem and there is pan view as well, which greatly facilitates navigation. Thanks to the accelerometer, you can easily switch from portrait to landscape view. It is also used as a game control, which is quite entertaining.




Overall, Sony Ericsson W902 doesn’t offer anything special in musical aspect besides the new model earphones. However, thanks to the promising 5-megapixel camera, it could become a rival of the new mid-level cameraphones (like C902), and thus transforming in a good multimedia device. We will find out what the phone’s destiny is once a final model comes out.