One feature any self-respecting music phone should surely boast is a 3.5mm headphone jack.
“So why,” asks Mobile Choice, “doesn’t the phone have the one thing that’s essential for a music player – a 3.5mm headphone jack?”
“This has to be the biggest mark against the W395,” agrees Pocket-lint. “Meaning,” says Knowyourmobile, “you’re forced to use the ugly bundled in-ear monstrosities Sony provides.”
Fortunately, as Knowyourmobile goes on to explain, “the W395 does excel in other music-focused areas. The media player is nice to use and sound quality is excellent, with the built-in stereo speakers on the back of the handset delivering superb, tin-free audio.”
“The little speakers may not look much,” Mobile Choice concurs, “but they’re loud and reasonably bassy” and “the sound quality really isn’t bad.”
Cnet thinks “the handset's stereo speakers are one of its key features” and even though “they sound quite tinny, on the plus side they're quite loud, so you can use them to kick up quite a racket.”
“They are sure to be a hit with those who like to publicly play music on the bus or on street corners,” Pocket-lint acknowledges, “much to the chagrin of everyone else.”
In other words, if you haven’t already guessed who Sony are aiming this handset at then the discovery that the W395 is, as Knowyourmobile points out, “available in a range of hues, some are funky others are fairly traditional,” and “ours was a vision in purple” should provide the answer.
Even so it remains, as Mobile Choice says, “a neatly sized and effectively designed handset” that, according to Cnet, “feels extremely sturdy, and is free from the plasticky feel that often mars cheaper phones. Its design is appealing too.”
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It is, in the words of Pocket-lint “a traditional slider handset” with, they warn, “some features ominously missing”, adding “this is a GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone with basic hardware specs, so there is no Wi-Fi or GPS, but you do get Bluetooth and an FM radio.”
“The slide-out keyboard comes into play smoothly without any jerkiness or lag,” notes Knowyourmobile, “presenting you with nicely spaced keys that are pleasant to use and ideal for textaholics.’
Pocket-lint agrees “it has a nice crisp positive action, making it easy to quickly bash out text messages to friends,” but they warn “the keyboard is rather small for those with larger fingers.”
Cnet also thought “the keypad is on the small side, so those with larger fingers may struggle to reach a decent speed when texting, but at least the membrane-style keys are quite responsive.”
Similarly “the screen is a 2-inch 176 x 220 pixel display which,” as Pocket-lint says, “isn't the greatest you'll find on a phone, but given this device's budget position is adequate.”
For Cnet it is “certainly one of the better displays we've seen on a budget mobile, and it works well for reading text messages or emails.”
Lacking flash, the basic 2 megapixel autofocus camera “isn’t going to set the world of photography on fire but does a decent enough job nonetheless” states Knowyourmobile. Cnet considers it “iffy” while Pocket-lint thinks it “reasonable quality for sharing online, but it suffers the normal noise, lag and slow ‘shutter speed’ problems” experienced by many mobiles.
“Video capture is also available,” as Pocket-lint goes on to say, “but with a resolution of 176 x 144 pixels at 15fps, it's a poor showing anywhere other than on a handset.”
The in-built 10MB of memory was also thought desultory for a music phone, although the handset will support cards of up to 4GB.
Conversely, “despite the budget tag,” Knowyourmobile is pleased to discover “battery life to be pretty good.” Cnet also thought battery life “impressive”, adding “we got around 2.5 days of use out of the handset before it needed recharging.”
Essentially the W395 is “a dinky handset that’s going toappeal to the youth market that the manufacturer has aimed it at,” proclaims Mobile Choice. “It’s cheap, cute and fun.”
What’s more it is, at least as far as Cnet is concerned, “an absolute steal at its current pay-as-you-go asking price,” given that “you can pick it up for as little as £48 on a pay-as-you-go deal with O2.”
So, if you want a budget music phone and you’re not too concerned about the camera and such fundamentals as a 3.5mm headphone jack, the W395 might just be the answer.