Sony Ericsson W902 Review

The C902 was released in the summer, and now we’ve got the W902 that doesn’t seem a whole lot different.

There are a few cosmetic changes but nothing extraordinary. Most notable is the lack of a pop-up camera cover and the removal of the touch sensitive camera controls. On the W902, the camera controls are now on the numeric keys. Although this makes the camera slightly harder to operate, the upside is a larger display that is much easier to read.

Because this is the Walkman version, the phone has the more advanced media player that includes many more ways to select music on the device, including the SensMe service that moves music into specific categories by their tempo. You can then create a real-time playlist based on the music you fancy listening to at the time, based on your current mood. It’s a lot easier than selecting a specific genre, when most music tags are pretty inaccurate or vague. The only problem is you need to do the music analysis on a PC using Sony’s Media Manager and it isn’t the best bit of software in the world.

When you have eventually chosen the music to put on the 8GB memory card that comes with the phone, you’ll discover the other difference over the C902. Harking back to the days of the original cassette Walkman, Sony Ericsson has put buttons on the side that gives the phone a real retro-feel. It also makes it a lot easier to control your music when your phone is in a pocket.

The 5-megapixel camera is exactly the same as the C902, and it even includes the Cyber-shot ‘Best Pic’ mode that takes a series of shots in close succession. It’s more proof that Sony Ericsson has started to realise how important it is not to deliberately remove the features users want in order to create distinctive categories.

Sony Ericsson has been accused of producing too many bland products this year, however the W902 is anything but. The battery cover is very loosely clipped on though, and moves when you hold the phone to make a call. There’s no real chance the cover will actually come off, but it doesn’t feel solid and things like this don’t give much reassurance when you’re about to sign an 18 or 24-month contract.

There’s also no GPS, which is gradually becoming pretty standard on all handsets. You can use base station information to get an approximate location when using Google Maps (and if you wish to Geotag your photographs) but you can’t expect anywhere near the same level of accuracy as GPS. Of course, if you’re on holiday and want to know where you took your photos, a variation of couple of hundred metres isn’t going to make much difference.

The W902 doesn’t just lack GPS, but also goes without Wi-Fi. So far this is limited to the C905 and another new Walkman, the W705, which goes on sale in early 2009. The W705 has to make do with a 3.2-megapixel camera, so if you want an excellent all-round experience in music and imaging, this is the phone for you.

Good

The Walkman player is accompanied by Cyber-shot functionality

Bad

The loose battery cover calls the build quality into question

RATINGS (OUT OF 5)

PERFORMANCE: 4
FEATURES: 5
USABILITY: 4
OVERALL: 4