Review: Sony Ericsson W880i mobile phone

The W880i mobile phone is remarkably slim. It measures 9.4mm from front to back and is beautifully designed.

Whereas Sony's earlier W950 phone had 4GB of memory for music tracks, but lacked a camera, the W880i comes with a 1GB memory card (enough for more than 200 songs) and finds space both for a 2-megapixel camera on the back and a lens on the front for video calling. For a 3G-enabled phone, its thinness is even more remarkable.

The Sony W880i is also a great tactile experience - it has a brushed metal front (choose from black or stainless steel) and rubberised paint back.

But once you’ve marvelled at the elegance of design and how much has been crammed into such a small space, you hit the phone’s Achilles heel: the keypad. Tiny slats of metal are neatly placed under the numbers to which they correspond. They’re well-spaced, but they’re so little that dialling and texting are fiddly processes. The four-way navigation button that directs you through menus is similarly tricky.

Get beyond that (and it’s a problem that takes some getting past) and you have a really impressive phone. The music software on Walkman phones is intuitively simple, and the sounds this phone produces are excellent. Transferring tracks from your computer is simple, as well.

hen there are little extras like Track ID: if you hear a track on the radio or in a shop and don’t know what it is, hold the phone near the speaker for a few seconds. The phone transmits the sound to a database which texts you the track and artist name. It’s not new – a service called Shazam has done this for years – but it’s a neat trick that is all the better for being built into the phone.

The W880i's camera, at 2-megapixels, is not Sony Ericsson’s best, especially as the slim profile meant there was no room for a flash or self-portrait mirror. Still, it works well and the images it delivers are decent.

The diddiness of the phone means it has a screen that’s noticeably smaller than on many handsets, but it’s sharp and bright, at least.

If you’re after a phone that does a lot but takes up hardly any space, this model is hard to beat. Providing you like the keypad.

Vista compatible: Yes