My favourite non-smartphone handsets have always been from Sony Ericsson (SE). My friends always found the interfaces a bit confusing before, as there were often no such things as "call" and "end" keys, and the UI relied very heavily upon softkeys that would do different things depending on the menu. The last SE phone I owned was the k750, which took some of the most fantastic picture I’ve ever seen on a mobile phone.

Today we’ll be taking a look at the Walkman w760 and the HVH-PV715 (I still think these need catchier names) Bluetooth headset. Let’s see what’s changed in the last four years since I used an SE device, shall we?

W760…

Hardware

The W760 features a   gorgeous silver colour scheme with black accents on the borders and the sides of the phone. It’s made out of plastic, but it looks and feels really solid. This is even more impressive, considering the phone is a slider. The phone has a little metal ridge just above the d-pad to help you slide the phone open, but it’s actually a lot easier to just push up from the button of the phone. The sliding action is spring assisted, so you only have to push part of the way up or down and the spring will take care of the rest.

The device is littered with buttons on the front end, with 13 buttons (if you count the two silver gaming buttons above the screen — I barely used these) to press. Unlike my k750, this w760 features dedicated call/end buttons so it’s dead simple to answer a phone call. One interesting design choice was putting the stereo speakers right under the call and end keys, so you never have to worry about flipping your phone over on its back just to hear a song. The other buttons consist of the directional pad, two soft keys, a "c" (erase/delete) button, and a sort of alt-tab button for SE devices.

The keypad looks great and functions well enough. The keys are all easy to press and have a nice click to them, and they don’t wiggle around when you put pressure on them. Good build quality here. 

The top of the phone features the M2 Micro memory stick slot (the phone comes with 1GB and an M2 adapter), the right side holds the volume buttons, and you can find the charger port (there’s a sync cable and AC adapter in the box) and Walkman button on the left. I’m a little disappointed with the lack of a 3.5mm jack for “regular” headphone usage, although the device does support A2DP stereo streaming.

Camera

There’s also a 3.2 MP camera that you can activate when you slide the phone up, and the quality is pretty good even without any auto-focusing capabilities. The pictures really don’t look that great on the phone, but they really surprised me when I put them on  the computer. There’s no autofocus, but as long as there’s enough light and you’re not bouncing on a pogo stick, the pictures are surprisingly sharp:

Battery

I’ve been using smartphones for a year or two, so I found the battery life of the w760 pretty stellar. I could go out for a night on the town with only 14% battery and get back home with a little bit to spare. I could usually go for four or five days without retreating to a charger, although I am pretty light on calling and texting. My iPhone, in comparison, lasts for about 2-3 days even without surfing or emailing. I’d wager that this phone could last through all but the most rigorous of days with charge to spare.

Call Quality

The people I talked to never really remarked on the sound quality of the phone, which really means there’s nothing to complain about. The volume and clarity of incoming voices was also acceptable. People I called understood me just fine as long as I wasn’t mumbling, and it isn’t Sony Ericsson’s job to fix my mumbling.

Software…

I won’t delve into every single aspect of the Sony Ericsson UI, as the Walkman W760′s is pretty darn similar to most any other Sony Ericsson phone you might have used over the last couple of years. However, I would definitely like to point out a few things (good and bad) that struck me during my two weeks with the device.

First off: slider phones rock. They just do. I mentioned this earlier, but I also love the fact that you can end calls or lock the phone by simply sliding it shut. There are times that the big slate that makes up the iPhone can just seem so blah.

The UI is still as gorgeous as ever, and I found it very simple to navigate. The main menu is laid out in a grid formation, and every menu item responds to a key on the T9 keypad. Unfortunately, just like my k750 from four years ago, the w760 could sometimes take a few seconds to switch from menus or load programs.

Calling and texting features are still very well implemented, and I still think that SE phones have the absolute best T9 support out there. It’s fast and it’s ridiculously easy to edit the T9 dictionary for new words.

The Walkman

One of the things I was really excited to try out was the actual Walkman interface on the phone. I did eventually get to try it out, but the first time I turned the phone and pressed the right soft key to open the "music" program I was confronted with the horrific Rogers media interface. I guess this is where the media from Rogers Vision will be played, but I’ve never really been one to use the carrier services on my phone, so I would never really need to use the Rogers music player. Not that I’d use it of my own volition, either — its plain red background and completely basic menu system left a lot to be desired. Rogers also took the liberty of trapping the right soft key on the home screen so that it always launches the Rogers media player and not the Walkman interface. I definitely have an issue with this because I think customers are buying Walkman phones partly for the Walkman interface, and having the Rogers player tied to the right soft key just seems absolutely unnecessary. I won’t go on more about that, though, since I’d be getting way off topic

You can navigate to the Walkman app by going through the main menu or just pressing the Walkman button on the left side of the phone. The built-in motion sensor also allows you to use the app in portrait or landscape mode. The Walkman button can launch and minimize the app, but only if the home screen was the last screen you used. If you are playing music and then decide to look at your artist selection, pressing the button then will take you back to the Now Playing screen. If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is. I’d rather the Walkman button have one basic function when you tap it: launch or minimize the media player.

The Walkman aspect itself has grown a lot since I last used it four years ago, and it now encompasses basically every aspect of mobile media: pictures, video, games, and music. The picture and video sections aren’t anything you haven’t seen before, but everything within the Walkman interface looks incredibly slick. Gaming was alright, but the T9 keypad was a bit of a stretch for Street Fighter II demo.

I still think music is the Walkman’s strong suit. The music section is organized by the usual artist/album/all songs categories we know so well, but the presentation is top notch: menus slide, titles scroll slowly across the top of the screen after a song change. It’s the kind of phone experience that makes you enjoy listening to music – like a record player made out of awesome.

Now for the best and last part about the Walkman app: the accelerometer support. Hold down the Walkman button, raise the phone towards the ceiling, and watch in delight as the volume increases magically. Lowering the phone while holding the W button will lower the volume. Shaking the phone will shuffle, and shaking left or right will switch to the next or previous song. I literally stood in awe for a moment when I first used the motion sensing controls, and I have to say they really added a huge cool factor to the phone for me. After seeing w760’s accelerometer integration I ran over to my iPhone and stood over it expectantly, but nothing happened. Pfft, iPhone Schmiphone. 

Internet Access + GPS

Unfortunately, I’ve had a spot of trouble getting the internet (3G) and GPS features of this device working. I’m not the best person to test GPS out in the first place (I don’t own a car), but I did really want to see what emailing and light browsing would be like on an SE phone since I now have a data plan. I tried going through my carrier as well as through Sony Ericsson, but the settings just wouldn’t stick. In any case, I hope to review more SE devices in the future and will definitely update this section when I find a phone that works with my carrier for internet access.

HBH-PV715…

The PV715 is probably the second Bluetooth headset I’ve ever really tried, and certainly the first I’ve used extensively. My testing routine is probably different than most as I’m not on the phone a whole lot, nor am I often in a car. However, I was interested in seeing how well an SE headset would pair with an SE phone and how much I’d use a Bluetooth headset given the opportunity.

I heard varying opinions on the sound quality of the headset, although none of them deemed it to be ‘great’. One friend complained about a bit of static even though we both had great signals, but he was the exception. The incoming voice quality wasn’t as good as the W760′s, but I still heard everything my friends had to say.

The controls on the headset are very simple once you’ve paired the headset with an SE device. You have the power button along the inside, volume buttons along the top (assuming right-ear usage), and the call/answer button on the outside. One nice touch is the small LED beside the power button that tells you when you’re switching the headset on or off. Once the headset was paired with the w760 it was absolutely flawless in its automatic pairing — I really wish all Bluetooth devices were integrated this well.

You’ll definitely find the fit of the headset a little lacking just on its own, so SE included two sets of ear hooks (left/right) that you can easily attach to the earpiece. I found the fit very secure with the ear hooks on, although my ear did start to hurt after wearing the headset for about 20 minutes. SE could add some padding or foam to the ear hooks in the future to make this more comfortable.

The back of the headset features the charger port, allowing you can use the included charger cable or any charger for a Sony Ericsson phone. This charger port also happens to fit a lanyard extension so that you can carry the headset more easily — even around your neck if you’d like.

Battery life was harder to test since I just don’t talk long enough to really give the headset a good workout, but I do know that its standby is good enough for at least three or four days with 10-15 minutes of calls each day (SE claims 11 hours of talk time, 800h standby).

Conclusion

It’s been a while since I last used a Sony Ericsson phone for an extended period of time, but the w760 was very easy to carry around. It’s a low spec device that features fantastic hardware and very intuitive accelerometer usage. The only things I could really ask for here would be a faster UI and easier access to the Walkman app. I really wouldn’t mind if the Rogers music player disappeared altogether, but I’m not asking for miracles here – I know carriers want put their own apps onto devices.

The HBH-PV715 was another interesting little experiment for me. I still don’t think I need one, but I really liked how well the headset worked with the w760. The headset always paired with the phone the moment I turned it on, and there were always alerts when the connection was severed. Overall, however, I probably wont’ end up using any BT headsets unless they are A2DP capable.

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Rogers carries the W760 for about $30 with a contract (currently discounted), and you can find the HBH-PV715 at a variety of locations for around $80 (SonyStyle).