Sony Ericsson W995 Review

There are always things to the Walkman lineup that surprise us. On one hand, most devices come with cool, upbeat design, offer entertaining functions (ShakeMe, SenseMe) and comfy interface. On the other, they lack 3.5mm jack (so an adapter is needed) and have mediocre video playback capabilities. The flagship, the Sony Ericsson W995 is designed to turn these views upside down.

We finally have 3.5mm jack on a Walkman device and it´s located on the top side of the phone. Despite it, the boxed earphones are still plugged into universal port (for cable, charger, earphones), but you get a 3.5mm adapter with the set. What you will also get with the phone is 8GB expansion card, wall charger, USB cable, manual and software CD.

Similarly to the Sony Ericsson W705, the phone looks stylish, presentable and buttoned-down. Both its front side and battery cover are made of metal and sport nicely looking brushed pattern that is, however, hardly noticeable on the black handset we are reviewing. Still, the W995 also comes in silver and red varieties.

Display looks pleasing with its 2.6 inches. This is a feature Sony Ericsson has definitely improved on alongside of the previous models – all of them have smaller ones. Resolution, however, remains the same – QVGA and the screen supports 262k colors. No matter, image quality is really good. Thanks to the light sensitivity sensor, display is usable even in bright light, although colors get rather worn-out.

As a whole, we do not have any gripes relating to the navigational buttons or the keypad. They are prominent enough and easy to use. Send and end buttons are a bit harder to press, because they have small travel. Volume rocker, audio player and camera shutter that are on the right hand side of the phone are also fine. We are once again pleased with the lighting effects that Sony Ericsson have integrated – starting the phone audio player makes controls light up in orange, while camera shutter begins to glow in white when you get down to taking pictures.


There is a pair of quite big loudspeakers on the top and bottom sides that, by the look of them, should be able to provide high quality sound. The back houses 8.1-megapixel camera with photo flash and expandable video stand and a M2 expansion card slot is located under the battery cover. The video stand is unsteady and even light shakes or sways can cause the phone to tumble over.

The Sony Ericsson W995 doesn’t surprise us here at the least. Its interface is comfy and can be heavily personalized with phone themes. Unfortunately, the preloaded ones are somewhat unvaried. Home screen can host applications - aside from the Swaggering Elvis and Pedometer, you also have an odd device (looks like a TV-set) that reacts to environmental noises.


Phone contacts disappoint a bit, because there is no option to search through your entries by second names. Still, you can filter entries fast by entering digits on the home screen - the phone will seek through both contact numbers and names. Working with your messages is comfy and a row of icons at the bottom allows you to easily attach symbols, add emoticons and enclose files. When you have finished editing, you can choose whether to send the message as an SMS/MMS or email. The phone comes with preloaded settings for major mainstream email providers - the weird thing is emails cannot be checked over Wi-Fi.


Calendar, alarms and tasks are where they typically are and they are up to the task of keeping your daily routine in order. We are impressed with the sheer number of preloaded apps, most of which are really entertaining. Say, Voice Transformer modifies recorded voices and makes them sound as if said by a robot, a slurring wobbly person etc. and then you can set them as ringtones.



We have already got our keyboards worn out writing Sony Ericsson offers one of the best internet browsers for feature phones. Even heavier pages load without a hitch and the app comes with a pan option to make your navigation even easier. The W995 delivers great connectivity options - HSDPA 7.2Mbit/s and Wi-Fi with DLNA support. The latter allows the phone to wirelessly connect to other devices. The browser home page lets you navigate to PlayNow easily, where you can listen to new bands or install Vringo to download video ringtones.

It seems a bit odd that the second 8-megapixel camera phone of Sony Ericsson comes as a Walkman and not C-Series device. Well, the lines delimiting their different lineups have been getting increasingly blurry and the Sony Ericsson W902 is an illustrative example - its interface is pretty much the same as the one found on top camera phones of the manufacturer. The W995 features all modern functions available on latest C-Series models (C510, C903). You have:

-    Shooting Mode – standard, smile detection, BestPic, panorama, colored frames
-    Presets – auto, sunset shooting, landscape, portrait, beach/snow, sporting events, documents
-    Resolution
-    Focusing settings – auto, face detection, macro mode, infinity
-    Flash on/off
-    Self-portrait
-    White balance
-    Effects
-    Extra settings – geographical tagging, image stabilizer, picture quality

Image quality of outdoor pictures is identical to what the Sony Ericsson C905 delivers – snapshots have enough details, but colors are rather pale. Pictures taken indoors are mediocre, due to the badly performing camera flash. As a whole, the phone camera delivers passable quality, especially if you don´t go through your snapshots at maximum zoom level.






The iPhone couldn’t capture videos until recently. The W995 can, but at QVGA resolution and with rather low quality. Let´s get to the audio player, shall we?

The Sony Ericsson W995 utilizes Walkman v4.0 that shows multimedia menu against the main menu background. The audio player features equalizer with quite many presets, plus you can fine tune its settings to your own taste and save them. You won´t be caught off guard at the sight of trail-blazing extras or beautiful visualizations (like those on the Yari and Aino, for an instance). Sound through the loudspeakers is clear, enjoyable and packs quite a punch. The boxed earphones lack basses almost entirely and sound is painfully sharp, plus they are plugged into the left hand side of the phone, which prevents the video stand from opening. We put the 3.5mm jack to good use and connected our headphones, which instantaneously resulted in significantly improved sound quality. We do recommend that everyone invests in a better pair, if intends on using the Sony Ericsson W995 as a music player.





Sony Ericsson has never been famous for the video capabilities of their cell phones. The W995 is unfit for being a proper video player by today´s standards as well. The obvious solution to the problem with codec support is called MediaGo. This is a program that is quite similar to iTunes – it automatically converts videos, so that they can be played on your phone (including DivX/Xvid, but you would need to have the codecs installed on your computer). Video playback quality cannot be compared to what multimedia monsters such as, say, the OMNIA HD deliver. All told, it is OK for killing time during long travels or exhaustive waits. Despite being rather unsteady, the video stand contributes to the pleasant experience and like we said, sound quality is really good. So, just open the stand, set the phone steady, put your feet up and enjoy.

The Sony Ericsson W995 sports FM radio with RDS that store up to 20 stations and comes in handy when you get bored with the music you have on the phone. We are happy to see the device comes with preloaded games and some of them are really entertaining (Playman Extreme and Real Football 2008 for an instance).





The other piece of good news is the phone is equipped with Wayfinder – software for navigation that tells you where to take a turn and is much better than Google Maps. It comes free for three months and you would have to buy after the trial expires – If you want to use the Sony Ericsson W995 for navigation.

Performance:

As a whole, we are quite pleased with the Sony Ericsson W995 during talks. We could hear loud sound and realistic voices at out tests. People on the other end complained voices were coming out rather sharp, but when we asked them to turn the volume down, almost to the lowest setting, quality got substantially better and they said the problem was solved. Unfortunately, with the sound through the loudspeakers turned on, we were heard properly on the other end, although we couldn’t easily make out what we were told.

Batteries that do last have always been one of the strengths of Walkman models and Sony Ericsson W995 is no exception. According to the manufacturer, you will have 20 hrs of continuous audio playback, 9 hrs of talk (4 on 3G networks) and 360 hrs in standby.

Conclusion:

Just a simple glance at the specs of the Sony Ericsson W995 should be enough to convince you that this is the most high-tech model of the Walkman Series. Does that mean it is the best as well? In terms of sound quality (not through the boxed earphones), camera performance and GPS, this is the case indeed. All other functions are on level with what the W705 delivers. In other words – OK, meaning good, but not impressive.

The thing is the flagship status gets the phone into the same pricing range of where devices like the Samsung INNOV8 and the UltraTOUCH are and they both have cameras that aren’t worse and better video playback capabilities. Still, the W995 is a nice option, because along with MediaGo, it is up to the task of providing enough entertainment.

Sony Ericsson W995 Video Review: