The next Walkman series called Sony Ericsson W395 is rolled out to the market to fill the demands of small pocket cell phone that is still growing these days. Okay, in this
Sony Ericsson W395 review, I'm about to uncover everything from this phone, especially with its sound quality and the features that comes with it.
Sony Ericsson W395 review
- Type: Sony Ericsson W395
- Release Date: March 2009
- Price Purchased: $132
- Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson
Readers' Score
NextPhones4u Score
Phone Specs: 2G, MIDP version 2.0, TFT 256K colors, 176 x 220 pixels, 2.0 inches, 2 MP camera, Stereo FM radio, Walkman player, See full specs.
- Pros
- Great sound quality; decent and sophisticated overall design; 2 holes area for loudspeakers;
- Cons
- No 3G network, doesn't have really good compatibility to run applications; keypad buttons are not convenient to press; the stereo loudspeaker is not loud enough
- Bottomline
- Bottom line, Sony Ericsson W395 surely has every good element of portable music cell phone. The biggest let down from this cell phone is definitely the incompatibility of this phone to run some high quality java games. However, I have a much much better alternative for this phone.
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| Sony Ericsson W395 Review |
Design
In term of design, Sony Ericsson w395 looks really decent and portable based on the whole body design and the size of this phone. The sliding mechanism that has already become the trade market of some Walkman series from this manufacture performs such a stable and smooth sliding, which gives a good impression and elevates the whole design of this phone to the next level.
The keypad buttons are also pleasing to press but unfortunately the distance between each button is too close one to another, and makes it hard to reach with our thumbs.
Interface and Functionality
The screen interface looks pretty standard with the other Walkman series predecessors. It looks attractive and colorful, of course when performing an animated theme on the screen. With the support display of TFT, 256K colors, everything that being presented on the 176 x 220 pixel screen looks pretty accurate and clear.
The size of the screen, which is 2.0 inches, also elevates this aspect a lot because on some other Sony Ericsson phones that supports 176 x 220 pixels screen resolution, the screen size are smaller than on this phone.
Phone Specification
Without the 3G network, Sony Ericsson W395 features some functionality of standard cell phone, such as: Bluetooth, USB, 2 MP camera, Stereo FM radio, Walkman player, TrackID music recognition and Picture editor.
Multimedia and Entertainment
The Walkman media player that has been injected to this phone without a doubt will be one of the best things you will get from this phone, besides galore of awesome features that being offered to the users. The sound quality of Sony Ericsson W395 can deliver such a clear and great sound into our ears.
This Walkman media player also offers some nice options when listening to music, the sound equalizer as an example. This option can give you a full power to control the genre or sound quality from Treble bass, Classic, Pop, Rock, and many more, which can be suitable to your hearing.
Unfortunately, the great sound quality from the headset is not followed by the sound quality from the loudspeaker. Although, this phone deploys the stereo loudspeaker with 2 holes area on the back, the sound is not loud enough. The good thing is, the loudspeaker can still deliver such a clear sound to the users.
Gaming Compatibility
Playing games with this phone doesn’t bring such a good experience because users of this phone feel that this phone doesn’t support some of high quality applications and games. Although this manufacture has already ported the java platform MIDP version 2.0 into this phone, apparently this java platform is not the most advanced version of this platform. However, some standard and medium quality applications or games can still be played with this phone.
Data Storage
Running out of 10MB internal memory and 1GB Memory Stick Micro (M2), you can also expand the data storage of this phone with another external memory up to 4GB.
Battery Life
Battery life of this phone is still considered good. Playing Java-based games or browsing internet with this phone can last around 5-7 hours in the heavy usage. While listening to music with this device will give you much longer period. I would say it could survive around 7-8 hours if you use it solely as a music player.
My Recommendations
However, if you ask my recommendation, I would be happy to tell you that the other Walkman series, Sony Ericsson W910i is much much better than this phone. The reasons are:
- W910i has much bigger screen size (2.2 inches)and better screen resolution (240x320 pixels),
- W910i has 2 dedicated gaming keys on the top of screen
- and the most importantly, it can run all applications and high quality java games without a problem.
The second one would be Sony Ericsson W810i. Yup, although this cell phone still uses 176x220 pixel screen just like W395, this phone has the most advanced version of java hardware than W395. So you can absolutely play all kind of high quality java games with this one, including Need for Speed: Shift 3D, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Blades and Magic 3D, and many more. It's sold around $98.
Conclusion
Bottom line, Sony Ericsson w395 can be a great choice for those people who are looking for a good pocket cell phone that comes with galore of features and good music capability, wrapped up in a lovely appearance. However, the incompatibility to play high quality java games around the market would be the biggest problem for you. So i only give the score "2" for this phone, which is pretty good because the sound quality of this phone is still good.
