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Sony Ericsson W508

Sony Ericsson W508 is a new midrange clamshell cell phone with 2 displays, good web browsing experience, 3.15 megapixel camera and much more.

Overview:
Sony Ericsson W508 is a new clamshell phone and in fact it is very similar to Sony Ericsson T707 which we recently reviewed. The two phones have similar specs, design and performance and the difference between them is that the Sony Ericsson T707 is more women-oriented. The W508 has Shake control, Gesture control and multi-tasking support.

Sony Ericsson W508 pros:
+ Quad-band GSM and 3G with HSDPA support
+ 3.15 megapixel camera
+ 2.2″ 256K-color TFT display with 240 x 320 pixel resolution
+ Secondary monochrome OLED external display
+ Touch sensitive external music control keys
+ Hot-swappable M2 card slot, 1 GB included
+ Walkman music player with Shake control and SensMe
+ FM radio with RDS
+ Gesture control

Sony Ericsson W508 cons:
- Camera with disappointing image quality
- Low-quality video recording (QVGA@15fps)
- No web browser screen auto rotate
- No document viewer/editor

The design:
Sony Ericsson W508 measures 93.5 x 50 x 14 mm and weighs 98 grams. Inside the Sony Ericsson W508 you will see the main 2.2” display working in QVGA resolution. The screen displays 256K colors and had very good sunlight legibility. Above the display is the video call camera along with the earpiece. The keyboard is very comfortable to use and the button are placed in a way that makes errorless writing almost certain. The left side of the Sony Ericsson W508 features the FastPort, whereas the right side houses the volume rocker and lock slider. On the front of the phone are music controls and the secondary display. Both displays are covered with scratch resistant surface, yet the external one is monochromatic. It is very handy and shows you time, battery information, network type and signal strength. Although the phone looks cheap it seems very durable.

sony-ericsson-w508

Performance:
The Sony Ericsson W508 has quite a decent battery performance and good reception. Also the voices are always audible while making phone calls. The phonebook in Sony Ericsson W508 can store up to 1000 contacts with multiple fields for information. Although the name and surname are written in only one filed you can search contact by either of those and the phone knows what you intend to find. The Sony Ericsson W508 features gesture control which means that if you get a call the phone activates the front camera and uses it as a motion detector. So when you wave your hand in front of the cell phone the call is silenced. Messaging with the Sony Ericsson W508 is a pleasure and the phone supports push email. It also supports threaded messaging and you can view it as the so called conversation style.

Multimedia:
The Sony Ericsson W508 has the Walkman 3.0 music player and supports shake control. The music library can be sorted by artists, genre, album. The music player displays album art, or visual effects. The audio quality is really good so the Sony Ericsson W508 may be used as a MP3 player replacement. The phone has also radio with RDS and can remember up to 20 radio stations. Both the music player and radio may be minimized to work in the background.
Sony Ericsson W508 comes with the Access NetFront web browser which makes surfing the interned a real pleasure. All the websites are rendered very well and thanks to the virtual pointer and ‚find on page’ feature you can easily and quickly get to the most important information.

sony-ericsson-w508-closed

Camera / Image quality:
The Sony Ericsson W508 comes with 3.15 megapixel fixed focus digital camera built in. The maximum image resolution is 2048 x 1536 and there is no flash so don’t count on taking excellent photos in low light. Although the phone has no GPS receiver the cell inserts geolocalization information right into the photos. There is a bunch of manual settings such as white balance, color effects and shooting mode. In fact, almost entire camera interface and performance is identical to the recently reviewed Sony Ericsson T707.

Menus / ease of use:
The menu structure in Sony Ericsson W508 is quite standard. It has the usual theme-dependent icon layout. The entire User Interface is visually appealing thanks to the choice of a few flash themes and it works fast. This Sony Ericsson cell phone can also work in flight mode, yet it requires a SIM card. The Sony Ericsson W508, of course, comes with the usual time saving applications such as calendar, unit converter, timer, stopwatch. Additionally, you get the Walkmate – useful for sports-oriented people, AccuWeather and Music Quiz.
Selected Sony Ericsson W508 features and specifications:
Network

  • GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900
  • HSDPA 2100

Screen

  • 256, 000 colors, TFT
  • 2.2 inches, 240 x 320 pixels
  • Auto rotate accelerometer sensor
  • Scratch-resistant

Memory

  • 1,000 x 24 entries: with multiple contacts storage per entry
  • 30 (received, missed & dialed calls)
  • Internal memory: 100 MB
  • Memory Stick: Micro (M2) up to 16 GB

Data Service & Connectivity

  • EDGE Class 10
  • GPRS Class 10
  • 3G 384 kbps
  • Bluetooth v 2.0
  • USB

Camera

  • 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels
  • Video recording

Battery

  • Standard battery, Li-Ion
  • Talk time up to: 10 h
  • Standby time up to: 400 h
  • Video call time up to: 2 h

Others

  • SMS, MMS, IM, EMS, Email
  • WAP 2.0, xHTML, HTML (NetFront)
  • Speaker phone
  • Organizer
  • Built-in hands free
  • T9 function
  • FM-Radio with RDS
  • Walkman media player
  • Image viewer & editor

Other recently reviewed cell phones:

BlackBerry Bold 9000, Sony Ericsson T707

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Cell Phones, Sony Ericsson cell phones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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