Thin Cell Phone Review: Sony Ericsson W350 a Low-Priced Music Phone

In this thin cell phone review of the Sony Ericsson W350, we learn why the slim and cheap cell phone is a double-edged sword.

Some of its qualities exemplify exactly what we’d want in a music phone and others epitomize what we wouldn’t.

Before we’re dragged down by the handset’s doom and gloom, though, the W350 – which is designed to be a complete music experience – does present a venerable handful of unique and standout features.

The W350’s Perks

First and foremost, Sony Ericsson says the W350 is the “thinnest flip phone available on the market” today.

Indeed, the phone measures in at a slim 10.5 millimeters. Unlike some cell phones, the W350 mostly disappears in your pocket or purse and won’t bulge.

Beyond its sleek design, the W350 may present an “ah hah!” music feature never offered to you before.

Say you’re at a bar, club or in your car. Say you hear a tune you’ve just got to have in your pocket to play again whenever you want. Say, though, you can’t recognize the song’s artist or you’re afraid you’ll forget to download it later.

The W350 can come to your rescue here.

First, just record a few seconds of the song into the W350’s microphone. While that feature alone isn’t unique (most phones today come with some sort of voice recorder), an interesting technology called TrackID is then designed to identify it.

Based on your recording, TrackID’s job is to deliver to you the song’s name, artist and even the album. With that information, you can then download it and play it to your heart’s content. TrackID will also identify music from the phone’s built-in FM radio player.

Next up in the W350’s list of perks is its price.

Despite a pricey retail tag of $229.99 from AT&T, singing a two-year service contract (which is often standard in the U.S. when purchasing a cell phone today) brings the price down to a manageable $79.99. Online discounts and other specials can knock the cost down even further to $29.99.

Buried in the W350’s details, we also have one other interesting perk: its talk time.

While even the iPhone 3G (the do-it-all smartphone champion) comes with 5 hours of talk time in 3G mode or 10 hours of talk time in 2G (2G provides slower data speeds than 3G), the W350 is rated at a surprising 7 hours of talk time. That’s a good deal more than today’s average cell phone.

The W350 offers 15 hours of music-listening time and up to 300 hours of standby time.

The phone’s last accommodating feature is your ability to use its built-in Walkman music player directly from the outside of the phone without flipping open its cover.

While the W350 isn’t the first phone to do this (both the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic and the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic also offer similar features on the outside of their phones), it is handy.

The W350’s Flaws

All that said, this is where the W350 can begin falling apart – literally.

Sony Ericsson aggressively pursued the slim factor to the detriment of its flip cover. While the slim flip cover shields its numerical keypad in a way the company spins as “unique,” in reality its attempt to pursue a “minimalist look” has gravely compromised its durability.

The thin flip cover is more than just a piece of plastic. It has gadgetry embedded within to allow users to play and stop music as well as skip between songs. This flip cover would be the first part of the phone to crumble given the everyday wear-and-tear test.

If you slightly bend the thin flip cover, you’ll even be able to see its weak structural integrity. This will add further to your fear of accidental rupture. Moreover, Sony Ericsson fails on structural integrity a second time with its battery cover, too.

While many phones have a battery cover that slides open relatively easily, the W350 requires you to dig a fingernail on one side and pop the cover open. Even though you’re following its intention, you may feel as if you’re breaking the phone.

Replacing the battery cover is just as awkward. As lots of “teeth” need to snap back in place, you’ll essentially find yourself trying to squeeze the phone back together. Again, the thin battery cover and gracelessness of removal and replacement are a directly compromised result of the W350’s overall slim design.

With some perks associated with the 10.5-millimeter mark, some may find that the resulting deficiencies cancel out this benefit.

The W350’s Feature Set

Here’s the full feature set of the Sony Ericsson W350, which hit AT&T stores across the U.S. on Aug. 19, 2008.

A Walkman player for listening to music with an included 512-megabyte memory stick that’s rated to hold up to 470 songs or 40 full albums.

As compared to many phones today that come with or can be upgraded to several gigabytes, though, some may find this initial storage space inadequate.

A 1.3-megapixel camera proves to be relatively low quality in contrast to many other cell phones today that come with 2.0, 3.0 or more megapixels.

Polyphonic ringtones, a built-in speakerphone and vibrating alerts for various actions.

A basic Web browser that’s optimized for the mobile Web.

Email, picture messaging (MMS), predictive text input, a sound recorder and text messaging (SMS).

Picture wallpapers, wallpaper animation and a main navigation key. This horizontal navigation key, which sits in the center of an oval-shaped button, may prove to be too small for some people. Some may find themselves accidentally pressing the “up,” “down,” “left” or “right” keys instead of the center navigation key.

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Image Gallery: See seven photos of the Sony Ericsson W350.

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