Sony Ericsson W902  

Sony Ericsson W902 is taking a shift towards an all-in-one functionality, able to challenge some of the strongest Nokias present on the market. To be worthy of its claims, the product has to be up to some of the highest standards in all aspects, ranging from camera and connectivity to music and design (let’s say once more W902 has a very impressive appearance). All of these strengths combined produce a gadget which you aren’t likely to find a single compromise about… This handset is likely to become a mass market bestseller, a goal far out of the reach of W980i – the later has a less popular form factor and is exposed to a number of limitations in the different departments of functionality. W902 offers a much better balance, covering a vast audience.

Design and Ergonomics

The exterior design of the new handset only arises positive emotions; Sony Ericsson are traditionally strong in this aspect. A variety of materials and textures were put to work: the frontal panel enjoys a glossy surface, the side and back pieces are made from a black matte plastic; the battery bay cover is reinforced with a grooved steel plate, sharing the pattern with a secondary steel plate on the handset’s left side. The latter fact gives a sense of asymmetry expanded only further by the use of semi-transparent side buttons (serving as player controls) standing against the gilded volume and camera buttons. The glossy front surface glitters in the sunlight in a way looking like Sony Ericsson W980i.

Just as the rest of models from the higher price brackets, w902 bears a strong accent on its image; the handset is unusually good-looking and original. Judging by its positioning and design, it hardly has any direct competitors. The same is true about the W980i, these two top-ranking music phones look like two sisters. Yet, W902 proves to be handier in practical use, offering a classical candy-bar form factor and a powerful cam. The phone will be issued in three base color variants. The Volcanic Black will become available first, followed by the Earth Green and Wine Red. Only the color of the side and back pieces is variable, the rest of surface retaining the basic black color.

The shoot button and the volume controls are of a golden color; these buttons are located on the right edge of the handset, bordering the three transparent player control buttons on either side. In the earlier music-focused models, the lack of dedicated player buttons felt like a most disappointing thing, but the recent Walkmans make a good use of this much awaited and handy addition (W350i, W980i and W902). The button stay active regardless of the currently viewed menu, so you don’t have to get back to the player application if you want to switch tracks when you’re in another menu.

The only element housed on the left edge is a Fast-Port firmware slot accompanied by a 3.5 mm audio adapter and a HPM-77 hi-end headset. The latter is probably the best plug-in headset to have appeared so far as part of a cell phone’s bundling. It was first featured in the sales package of W980i, and is going to start selling as an independent product this autumn. A high quality and an exquisite design combined, that’s what this piece of technology actually is. The upper edge of the casing hosts the silver-colored Walkman button, which is also used for engaging the Shake Control mode.

The keyboard of Sony Ericsson W902 is quite convenient, comparable to that of W890i. The buttons are small in size but have a very good feedback. They are made of a matte plastic resistant to physical damage. The backlight is of a white color, switching to red when the player is launched.

The back surface houses the polyphonic speaker underneath. Its quality is pretty high yet it tends to get gagged when the back panel faces a flat surface or the phone is put in a pocket. The battery bay cover is manufactured from a thick solid piece of plastic reinforced with a ribbed metal plate that adds some exquisite feel. The camera unit is seated at the upper end of the casing, lacking any special protection and, moreover, sunk below the surface. Hence it’s a bit hard to get it properly cleaned prior to shooting, you have to remove the battery cover in order to get to the lens. The former is tightly fixed, but gradually a small play develops between the parts. The phone is equipped with an M2 flash card slot with full support for hot swapping. A 8 Gb flash card comes in the sales package. Just as well you are getting an USB card reader for M2 Micro card compatibility which looks a bit different from the one shipped with W910i.

Screen

Sony Ericsson W902 is equipped with a TFT screen sporting a QVGA (320x240) resolution. It has a 2,2’’ diagonal which isn’t much judging by the modern standard, the majority of products from this class typically equipped with 2,4’’ screens (e.g. Nokia N82, N79). The actual difference is minimal though, partially compensated by a perfect screen quality. The maximum brightness level is a bit too low, at times the backlight doesn’t feel strong enough. This peculiarity is explained by Nokia’s desire to maximize the power saving.

Nokia N78 / SE W902

As you see, the maximum brightness of the N79 screen is higher but the quality is superior in W902. Here we must make an important point: the screen of Sony Ericsson W902 is protected with a hardened glass which isn’t susceptible to scratches and wearing. The glass is rather thick and a bit shaded, that’s another reason for the screen to appear less bright. The screen of our W902 showed no signs of damage while Nokia N78 got some nasty scratches.
A frontal cam used for video calls and a luminance sensor are located above the screen. The latter automatically adjusts the brightness level depending on the environmental lighting.

Battery

The model uses a standard BST-38, 930 mAh battery, providing up to 9 hours of talktime or 400 hours of standby. A normal duty cycle (amounting to about an hour of talktime, two hours of listening to the music and camera work and an hour of menu browsing) wastes a full battery charge in about three days, which is a fairly good score, especially for a slim phone like that.

The Walkman series products all share the traditional strength of a firmware power saving scheme which boosts the battery life in the player mode. W902 isn’t an exception to the rule: in Flight Mode, it can be playing music for a whole 26 hours before a full battery charge fades down to zero. This is one of the most remarkable scores on the market, only third to N85 and W980i. The main rival to the device in question, Nokia N79, displays a comparable result: 24 hours, just a bit less.

Sony Ericsson W902 Battery

Connectivity

Just like the rest of 3G-compatible models by the company, a frontal cam for video calls is available. HSDPA is fully supported, but the model lacks an infrared port. Expectedly, you get Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR. It works just fine. We didn’t have any problems with the wireless headsets either. The following profiles are supported;

• Basic Imaging
• Dial-up Networking
• File Transfer
• Generic Access
• Generic Object Exchange
• Handsfree
• Headset
• HID
• JSR-82 Java API
• Object Push
• Personal Area Networking
• Serial Port
• Synchronization
• SyncML OBEX binding
• Audio/Video Remote Control
• Phonebook Access

The Flight Mode is in a way very much limited: you have to keep the SIM card inserted even when the GSM unit is switched off, otherwise the phone won’t let use certain features like the player and camera after booting. Perhaps this is one of the biggest disadvantages of all Sony Ericsson gadgets.

USB 2.0 is used for cable communication, though the real speed is substantially lower than the presumed maximum, only equaling to about 800 Kbytes per second. Mass Storage, PictBridge and Modem connection types are supported.

The required mode is selectable from the corresponding menu. Both the onboard memory and flash card storage were accessible during a test Mass Storage connection. Phone-to-PC synchronization is possible with the aid of the Sony Ericsson PC Suite software which comes on a CD in the sales package. The only really disappointing thing is the awkward location of the headset jack.

The integrated FM tuner supports the TrackID service and RDS. An autosave feature is included into the radio functionality, as well as a bookmark list enough for storing 20 favorite stations. The application interface is very user-friendly. The signal quality stays on a high level, the same is true for sound volume.

Java performance

Just as typically expected of a Sony Ericsson product, the Java functionality enjoys an excellent implementation, including support for 3D profiles and an opportunity to send midlets over Bluetooth. The performance stands up to the respectable level of K850i.

User Interface

A variety of user themes are available, each very different in its own way. The main menu, just as before, uses the three standard viewmodes: icon grid, merry-go-round or a single large icon per screen. The menus make an extensive use of animation and transition effects including some nice pop-up windows. Sony Ericsson products probably have even better looking menu graphics than the S40v6 Nokia ones, but the performance leaves much to be desired.

Preinstalled Software

The phone comes with three preinstalled games: Need For Speed ProStreet, JewelQuest 2 (a logic puzzle) and the new FMX II. We found them pretty entertaining.

The default software package is quite standard, including applications like AccuWeather (weather forecast viewer), StandbyWorld (a variety of clocks with customizable time zones to be shown on the screen during standby; you can have several clocks replacing one another in a loop, all running with different time zone settings) and WalkMate, a pedometer program. The latter application makes use of the onboard accelerometer, but the accuracy is a bit disappointing. The Music Quiz program provides a plain ‘guess the tune’ entertainment using the tracks stored in the phone’s storage space. The quicker you give the correct answers, the more points you score.

Google Maps is one of the standard components of the A200 platform; a full-fledged GPS receiver stands for precise hardware GPS navigation. Models lacking such a unit (like Z770i or W890i) have to do the positioning by processing the acquired coordinates of the closest carrier stations. Google Maps is free; the program comes fully configured and has a number of extra settings in addition to the standard functionality of the base version. You can choose the preferred system of measures, to precise map scaling, add chosen locations to your favorites list, customize the route calculation routine and search by locations and bookmarks. The application interface is rather handy; the downsides are a lack of possibility to recalculate the route or save it. Nokia Maps 2.0 available to most existing smartphones offers a much better functionality and comfort of operation, remaining the market's leading solution.

Multimedia Features

The Media menu utilizes the same interface in all A200-based products – it looks like a standard view window but with a resemblance to Sony PSP. The motion sensor finds a real use here: it switches the screen aspect depending on the physical position of the handset. The following menu items are available: Photo, Music, Video and Settings, names saying for themselves. The interface enjoys a very pleasing graphics style; menu actions are animated, activating menu items and entering the corresponding submenus works without the slightest lag, thanks to the platform's high performance. The interface design doesn't depend on a product's market positioning or model, even the new UIQ-based smartphones sport the very same kind of interface – Sony Ericsson's signature feature.

In addition to the rest of the features, the player application works in a close cooperation with the onboard accelerometer. You can easily switch tracks by shaking the phone in specific fashion. On many occasions this proves a huge advantage. You can perform three basic gestures standing for three actions: Next Track, Previous Track and Random Track, which are correspondingly activated by shaking the handset forward, backward or chaotically. The trick is that you should keep the Walkman button pressed when doing so, otherwise nothing will happen. Shake Control never misbehaved during our test, which was the best thing we liked about it. Sony Ericsson W902 also supports Shake Control volume adjustment, which is done by leaning the handset forwards or backwards.

The player settings include looped and random playback, sorting by performer, genre; enhanced stereo mode (which doesn't give any perceptible advantage if turned on) Progressive track rewinding is supported. The track data are shown in the player window during playback. Visualization settings include displaying album cover (though its size is too small) or one of the following options: Walkman Lines, Album Lines, Inner twirl. There are two extra color schemes available in addition to the default black one - orange and white, though switching between them only affects the background and font color. Nothing very impressive considering that latest Nokia phones support full-blown player skins which look much more intriguing.

The playlist organization system is a very smart feature; tracks can be added to a playlist either one by one or a group (or all) of them with a single action (a checkbox is shown by the title of each track). The set of equalizers varies depending on the individual model. The non-music Z770i totally lacks any kind of an equalizer while W890i has a whole six of them: from the typical Rock and Pop to the brand Mega Bass mode. Unlike UIQ-based smartphones (e.g. G700/G900, W960i), A200 devices lack the Auto Playlists functionality which would normally include a rating system listing the latest added, the last played and the most and least frequently played tracks, also allowing for sorting by time (Time Machine)

Just like in Sony Ericsson W760i, W980i has a Clear Audio Experience setting, comprising the following three components: Clear Bass, Clear stereo and a quality handset found in the bundling to go along with. The Clear Audio features constitute an important part of the latest Walkman products by SE, effectively improving the sounding the maximum sound volume. It should be understood that all of the improvements are done on the software side without any engagement of dedicated sound processing hardware components. In this model, in a way similar to W980i, higher frequencies don’t get muffled when you notch up the basses, the music sound more natural and the equalizers exhibit a more pronounced influence.

One of the most remarkable features of the music player is the integrated SensMe system. As stated by the manufacturers it allows to automatically pick music which best fits your current mood. Now you can search for music and compose playlists basing off the genre and tempo in addition to the traditional criteria of album and performer. The track database is automatically transformed into a graphical square matrix where each track represents a pixel positioned at certain coordinates relative to the horizontal and vertical axes, corresponding to a certain mood. You can easily select a group of tracks sharing a common emotional impact.

The sorting is done on the PC using the Media Manager application, which is used for setting the ‘mood’ of the uploaded music. The user doesn’t have to specify these parameters manually; the SenseMe application analyzes the tracks automatically. Depending on the amount of data, it takes up to several minutes to analyze the songs and add their mood tags to the database. This function can be engaged in a forced mode, where all the music uploaded to the phone is automatically analyzed and sorted according to the mood once the uploading is over.

With the help of the navigation button, you can easily browse between the spots dispersed across the matrix. Once you’ve found a suitable track, you can inflate or deflate the surrounding sphere; anything which falls into this scope will be added to the playlist. As a result, you can grab a bunch of tracks sharing a similar emotional charge in a matter of seconds. Multiple skeptics complained about the limitedness of the TrackID service after its launch – now you get a nice alternative.

The TrackID service enjoys a fair implementation. Using it you can record a fragment from the currently played song (on radio or in the player) and upload it to the web for identification. If the sample is recognized as belonging to one of the track stored in the database, the song title and performer name are sent back in a message; all identified (and hence found in the database) songs are available for purchase. The service should prove interesting for a youth audience, especially combined with the FM tuner functionality: an unfamiliar song can be ‘captured’, ‘probed ’ and downloaded in a matter of minutes.

The bundled headset is actually one of the best models currently available from the market. It’s a HPM-77 with a supplied 3.5 mm adapter. The mp3 volume is high enough for most situations but won’t be doing perfectly in a very noisy environment. The sound quality is pretty good, above the average level of most SE phones and on a level with the present-day leader W980i.

Camera

The camera unit is seated at the top of the casing. The lens is protected with a mineralized glass to prevent possible physical damage. Since this model isn’t a pureblood cameraphone, there’s no specialized lens guard, though it uses the same camera with Sony Ericsson C902. Such a marriage between Walkman and Cyber-shot has been a long-expected arrival, in fact the previous music phone with a cam standing up the Cyber-shot level of quality was W810i, a successful product which was favored because of an impressive design and vast features. W902 can be in a sense though of as its sequel. An obvious continuity in design is traceable. The fans of W810i get an excellent alternative sporting a more up-to-date feature list.

Right beside the camera lens you will see a LED flash that can also support video shooting. The video quality is all the same for all the latest models like K850i or G900. Also you can use the flash as a flashlight by using a corresponding setting.

The camera is launched with a two-position button located on the right edge of the casing. The volume controls alternatively act as zoom controls in the camera mode. The screen refresh rate in the viewfinder mode is quite high, the same is true for the focusing and photo saving speeds. The screen quality itself is pretty high, so it’s always comfortable for viewing your photos.

Let's now see in detail what the interface looks like. It utilizes the landscape orientation, the difference from K850i is minimal, for the concept proved to be very successful. The right part of the screen is occupied by three small icons which serve for switching between photo, video and gallery modes. The viewfinder window contains a lot of indicators: the current resolution, the flash status indicator, the macro mode status indicator, the number of shots which will fit into the remaining space on the memory card or the onboard storage, the image stabilization indicator, the geo-tagging activation status indicator.

Pressing the joystick button left brings up a traditional Cyber-shot setting menu. There are four shooting modes available: Normal, Landscape , Frame and BestPic (the latter is a variation of the more common serial shot function) Nine shots are taken at a customizable rate between the moment of focusing and pressing the shoot button.

There are three focusing modes available: auto, macro and infinity (the latter means that the focusing is effectively turned off). There’s no Face ID feature available. A total of 6 scene presets (plus Auto) are available. That’s not too many but will do in most situations. The list of available options runs as follows:

• Auto
• Portait
• Landscape
• Twilight landscape
• Beach/snow
• Sports
• Document

During serial shooting, the maximum resolution of an individual shot is degraded from 2592x1944 to 640x480. A series may contain a total of 6, 9 or 15 frames at Normal or High quality. The following resolutions are available:

• 2592x1944 (5M)
• 2048x1536 (3M)
• 1280x960(1.3M)
• 640x480 (0.3M)

The available special effects are rather scarce in number: Sepia, Negative, Solarize and Black and White. Also, the following extra features are available: timer, exposure meter, two photo quality presets (Fine, Normal), shutter sound (selectable from 4 variants or no sound at all), image stabilizer. A total of 18 photo frames are available.

The available white balance presets are Auto, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent and Cloudy, but somehow this model doesn’t let you do any ISO adjustments – such a setting is simply missing. The available geo-tagging option is a very interesting addition, letting you tag your photos with a location ID. This option is eventually becoming a standard feature of handsets outside the core cameraphone segment. Image auto rotation is supported, so a photo will always keep the original orientation, portrait or album.

Photo samples:

The quality of shots stays on a level with C902 and K850i, which is a good score. Competitive solutions by Nokia as well as the Motorola ZN5 are preferable in this sense, but on the other hand W902 isn’t directly marketed as a pureblood cameraphone.

The Photo menu item allows to view the last taken shot or the whole gallery, filter the images according to user-defined tags, or access the podcast menu. Inside the photo folder a number subfolders are found, organizing the content in a number of categories: the camera gallery (in which the photos are grouped by month), the latest taken photos, non-photo graphics and tagged photos. The monthly camera gallery shows thumbnails for each individual photo, a brief stats tab shows the total number and size of photos. Photo tags are quite new to the A200 platform. Just like with Nokia S60 FP2, the user is allowed to attach custom tags to his photos. This serves to be able to sort the images by their assigned tags later, so your urban life pictures won't ever get mixed with your Hawaii trip shots. Once a 'Hawaii' tag has been created, all photos associated with this tag will become available through a separate folder titled 'Hawaii'. The X-Pict Story is in fact a slideshow composer program which only has a few basic settings. It won't let you set a custom time interval between the frames, and the transition effects as well as background music are hard-coded into the themes which are limited to four for the user to choose from. Once a 'mood' is selected, the background music and frame transition effect changes accordingly, these can't be customized in ways other than switching to another preinstalled theme. You can't create a custom user theme either.

The PhotoDJ image editor and Photo Fix are expectedly included as part of the handset's imaging functionality. The former allows post-processing a photo right after it was acquired; also you can use it just to do some basic drawing like in MS Paint. It includes the following options:

• Rotate,
• Auto Levels,
• Brightness,
• Gamma,
• Contrast,
• Red Eye Filter,
• Apply Effect (Negative, Cartoon, Frosted glass, Painting),
• Add Object (Frame, Clipart, Text)

The Photo Fix function is a preinstalled set of filters which seek to improve the quality of your photos, efficiently doing away with minor flaws. Once it has been through the filter, you get a crisper and more vivid-looking photo.

Editor's opinion

This handset surely ranks among the most balanced solutions by Sony Ericsson and deserves some real attention. As we have already mentioned, this model isn’t meant as a spin-off to C902 but rather acts as a totally independent product which we are inclined to view as preferable to the latter due to a number of reasons. The variety of used materials and an ambitious design give a ground for classifying it as a fashion model. The first thing your eyes fall on is the asymmetrical construction and the metal plating, the mineralized protective glass. At the same time, the functionality stays above the level typical for most fashion phones. You get a whole 5 Mp cam providing a fine shot quality and a dedicated block of player controls. The audio quality is also better than you would normally expect to get with a phone lacking a focus on the music capabilities.

The sales package of W902 stands up to the device’s top class positioning. You get a 8 Gb flash card, an M2 Micro USB card reader and a hi-end HPM-77 headset. The same treasure you would get with a W980i, a model which is a natural alternative to the W902. Both devices possess a fairly similar feature pack, the biggest difference being the lack of opportunity for memory expansion with W980i, which has its 8 Gb storage unit integrated into the chipset instead of being a replaceable flash module. The price for the device is going to revolve around RM2400-2600 (500-550 euros) in October, the same price bracket occupied by Nokia N79 and the slightly less expensive Motorola ZN5. It must be understood that Sony Ericsson W902 shouldn’t be viewed as a hardcore music-profile solution, rather maintaining a fair balance of various camera and music features. To your advantage, this doesn’t stand for some sort of a compromise in every possible aspect, better described as being an upper mid-end all-in-one device laying some claims to the fashion field as well. For the first time in history a music phone gets a camera of such power, let alone the generous bundling. All in all, this model stands among some of the best multimedia offers.

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