Sony Ericsson Walkman W902 mobile phone

Is there any real reason why a Walkman phone shouldn’t have a top spec camera like a Cyber-shot phone? With the W902, its first 5-megapixel camera-packing Walkman mobile, Sony Ericsson is attempting to address this often-asked question. While Sony Ericsson’s Walkman line-up have been consistently high quality music performers …

[Anonymous Coward]

and the connectos still on the side!

when will sony realise that having the cnnector on the side makes these phones about as pocket hostile as you can get... if they wont ass a dedicayed 3.5mm headphone socket then why cant they move the cnnector back onto either the top or bottom like in some of their rarlier phones

at least that way the connector wont get ensnared in everyting in your pocket

plus if they make the connector lock into the phone and reinforce the lead out wire you could use it to retrieve the phone form your pocket without looking like your having a quick game of pocket biliards in the process...

finally havint he connectoron the top or botom would mean thy could create an ipod-esq docking station and speaker syytem for it so you could use it as your all in one media device at home and on the move

[James Pickett]

Nice but...

Lovely looking item - shame about the headphone socket! Why is it so difficult to fit a standard 3.5mm one?

[David Paul Morgan]

I prefer the connector...

... 'sidesaddle'. I have a K850 and a W880 and I much prefer the headset adapter being on the side, as I feel that it's not 'squashing' the cable.

/If/ there was a general SE Docking station, then I agree that it should go on the bottom. Ideally, 3.5mm socket on the top and the mains/docking on the bottom. Pocket friendly and bedside friendly.

[David Gosnell]

"attempting to address this often-asked question"

The answer to the opening question is that it's very difficult to make a phone camera perform as well as a dedicated camera with the constraints a phone imposes in terms of size. Camera phones still almost all have poky little lenses, which translates to poky little sensors, and that means you can't have too many megapixels before the image quality really suffers as a result. Pixel density is the new key metric in choosing cameras, and mobiles do not perform well.

This review avoids showing us a view of the rear of the phone, so I can only assume it's the same old same old generic drop-in module with about a 5mm lens and correspondingly tiny sensor with those 5 million pixels crammed in. The lack of any sample photos would raise suspicions that this really doesn't perform any better than my 2 megapixel phone (also with ~5mm lens) in everyday and low-light use (especially with only the LED torch as a "flash").

As a camera phone (and if you buy one you either don't care about image quality or are prepared to accept it's an inevitable compromise photographically) it's nice enough, and I wouldn't say no (especially if they put a proper headphone socket on it), but comparisons to dedicated cameras, even cheap compacts are flawed.

[James Whale]

Great phone

I've had my W902 for a couple of months now and having been an SE fan for several years (T610, K700, P910, K750, P990, K800) it's definitely my favourite handset so far. Build quality is good, and HSDPA on an unlimited data plan makes web browsing on the large screen a joy. Considering it's only the first firmware iteration too, it's fast and stable, apparently with none of the bugs that have plagued recent SE handsets at release.

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer to all your question...

Q: Why don't Sony Ericcson just put a 3.5mm headphone socket on the phone?

A: Coz then they can't charge you twenty quid each time you knacker one of their flimsy connector leads!

I've got through four of the poxy cables in the past two years, and they just compromise sound quality. I'm off to the HTC Touch series until I see a 3.5mm socket on a Walkman phone - there's absolutely no excuse Sony Ericsson!