Buy This Product
(Note: I am judging this phone against my previous long-term models, which include w200, z310, k550, w350, as well as some others I have poked at)
I am extremely satisfied with this phone, but let me start with a couple things which might be deal-breakers for some people.
1. The number keys are a little on the stiff side. Not unusable, but a little stiffer than the w350 or k550.
2. This phone does have some creaks and wiggles. However, I found that much of the creaking in the open position was actually caused by the battery lid, which I fixed by sandwiching a sheet of toilet paper under it.
On to the real features, most of them pretty good...
>> Sound quality AND volume
The w595 has the clarity of the old k550, but both the earpiece and the ringer loudspeaker are louder. It's not as loud as the ringer on the w350, which is among SonyEricsson's loudest for some reason, but it's still louder than the k550, w200, and about as loud as the z310 (without the z310's poor quality).
It has loudspeakers on both the top and bottom of the phone.
>> Display
This phone has a display with good brightness and color saturation, and SonyEricsson's new light sensor to adjust the display brightness based on ambient light (i.e., in a movie theater, the display automatically drops to low, but boosts to full in bright sunlight).
The viewing angle is not as wide as the w350 or k550. It is mainly for direct viewing, but there appears to be a tradeoff because viewing the display horizontally (for videos) is actually better than most other phones. Most phones look good in the "normal" position, but look bad when turned 90 degrees. This one is good both ways, as long as you look straight at it.
The 240x320 resolution is really good for mobile web browsing (especially with Opera Mini), Google maps, reading emails, and everything else.
It's more visible in sunlight than most phones.
>> Camera
Pretty decent image quality, though it lacks auto-focus (SonyEricsson seems to be reserving this feature for their new Cybershot models, so I wouldn't expect it elsewhere any more). The shutter responds fairly fast, which is actually an advantage over the autofocus models as long as you don't need to take pictures less than a few feet from the subject.
If you like to take photos as a way of making a quick note of something (like a product package), you can still do this. Take the picture a few feet back so it isn't out of focus, and use the volume keys to zoom in on the image when you want to read it.
>> Java applications
It runs games, Opera Mini, and Google Maps very well. Opera Mini starts up in just under 5 seconds. Much like the k550, the w595 will run almost any games.
***Upgrade: the new menu system lets you create a shortcut directly to a Java application (as long as it is in the Applications folder). I have the right-arrow shortcut set to load Opera Mini, so it can be accessed as quickly as the built-in browser.
>> Video playback
In addition to playing 3gp video, the W595 is one of the few phones which will actually play MP4 videos. Some phones claim it, but actually require you to convert it to a 3gp. True MP4 videos are much higher quality than 3gp. I was able to play an hour-long science lecture I downloaded, which makes this cool phone "educational".
NOTE: do NOT play videos by finding them through the "Media" menu. This new media menu is a fancy-looking scrolling interface which is completely unnecessary and causes video playback to lose sync with the audio. A firmware update "fixed" this by forcing the audio to synchronize every few seconds, which still looks like crap. Use the File Manager like a civilized human, and all of this trouble goes away. It's located in the Organizer menu, and you can make a shortcut to it if desired.
>> Email client
As I write this, my w595 is push-enabled by using the IMAP feature offered by GMail. As of last year, both Gmail and Yahoo have IMAP support for free. This sends you email to the phone without having to dial out manually to "check" it. I ignorantly declared that previous models did not support this without a carrier service, but it turns out some did (but no free email services offered it).
The email setup is also much easier. I just entered my GMail address/password, and SonyEricsson is clever enough to find all of the correct server/port settings for GMail. It was also smart enough to check if GMail supported IMAP, and asked me if I wanted to use it ("yes please!").
Regular POP3 is of course also supported, if you don't want a constant email connection.
>> Accelerometer
This is the kind of thing the iPhone and Wii have, so the phone can sense movement. It's not an entirely practical feature, but it adds "coolness" if you want to impress your friends with a bubble level (available on the SonyEricsson website).
>> RSS Reader
If you don't know what that is, skip this section and save hours of your life. If you are already using RSS and you want the Internet to be force-fed to you, this latest version offers improvements over the previous models:
- Set update times for any or all hours of the day, individually for each feed.
- New stuff shows up in a popup scroller on the home screen, with photos if available.
>> Multi-tasking
It seems to handle running one application while one or two others are minimized. To minimize a Java application, press the END key ONCE, and select minimize (pressing it twice closes it).
It offers full menu access during phone calls, so you can do things like check your tasks/calendar while talking to someone. Java applications can be run during the call, but Internet access appears to be disabled and media files won't play.
>> Organizer
As usual, SonyEricsson offers a good alarm clock which provides the only structure in my life. New and existing features:
- Multiple alarms
- Set any of them to either repeated (on whatever days you choose), or one time
- Use ANY sound on the phone as an alarm
- Adjust the volume for individual alarms (morning wakeup full volume, tea time a pleasant low)
- Add a picture to display
- Add a text description.
The organizer also include a lot of other good stuff, such as:
- Tasks, with instructions and reminders on set dates/times.
- Notes, so you can store notes without resorting to SMS drafts.
- Calendar, timer, stopwatch, etc.
>> Shortcut/event menu
This is one of many models with a really handy button which brings up a custom shortcut menu. It's complex to explain, but really handy to use.
The shortcut menu has 4 "tabs":
- New events (usually a missed call, new message, or a task due)
- Running applications
- My Shortcuts
- Internet
Unless something special is happening, clicking the shortcut key will bring up your shortcuts. If something special is happening (new event or running application), that tab will automatically come up. You can use the left/right keys to switch tabs at any time.
This shortcut key works at all times (e.g., while on a phone call or while browsing the Internet). Thus, you can be browsing the Internet, and if you hear the message alert, you can click the shortcut key to bring up the message and close it again without closing the browser. Or if you minimized an application to do something else, you can click the shortcut key to bring up the list of running applications without navigating to it.
>> Track ID
This is a really neat feature included with many of the Walkman phones (and a few non-walkman models). If a song is playing on the radio, in a store, etc, and you don't know what it is, Track ID will record some of it, and connect to some Internet server which will tell you the song/band. It's not perfect, but it works much better than you might expect.
>> Battery life
So far, it's pretty good. I watched a 1-hour video, which is a pretty hefty task, and only lost about 15% battery capacity. I keep the email connecting running 24/7, and I use about 45 minutes of internet and/or games per day. It doesn't ever fall below 50%.
The main reason I dropped one star from this phone's rating is because the housing just isn't well refined. Everything functions fine, but a 5-star phone just shouldn't have the creaks and wiggles.
Yikes, that's an enormous review, and I don't feel like proofreading. No warranties implied.
Tips and stuff:
1. Don't use the Media menu to play videos (see above).
2. If you are going to use IMAP for email access instead of POP3, make sure you are using GMail correctly or it will try to download every email you ever received (I will post a detailed explanation in the comments).
3. The battery lid sucks. Just pry it up from the obvious spot, as wrong as it feels. Careful, it may spring out and attack you. If it creaks when closed, see my ghetto fix (also in the comments section).
4. You can set the slider to end the call, or not end the call, via an option in the settings menu.
I am extremely satisfied with this phone, but let me start with a couple things which might be deal-breakers for some people.
1. The number keys are a little on the stiff side. Not unusable, but a little stiffer than the w350 or k550.
2. This phone does have some creaks and wiggles. However, I found that much of the creaking in the open position was actually caused by the battery lid, which I fixed by sandwiching a sheet of toilet paper under it.
On to the real features, most of them pretty good...
>> Sound quality AND volume
The w595 has the clarity of the old k550, but both the earpiece and the ringer loudspeaker are louder. It's not as loud as the ringer on the w350, which is among SonyEricsson's loudest for some reason, but it's still louder than the k550, w200, and about as loud as the z310 (without the z310's poor quality).
It has loudspeakers on both the top and bottom of the phone.
>> Display
This phone has a display with good brightness and color saturation, and SonyEricsson's new light sensor to adjust the display brightness based on ambient light (i.e., in a movie theater, the display automatically drops to low, but boosts to full in bright sunlight).
The viewing angle is not as wide as the w350 or k550. It is mainly for direct viewing, but there appears to be a tradeoff because viewing the display horizontally (for videos) is actually better than most other phones. Most phones look good in the "normal" position, but look bad when turned 90 degrees. This one is good both ways, as long as you look straight at it.
The 240x320 resolution is really good for mobile web browsing (especially with Opera Mini), Google maps, reading emails, and everything else.
It's more visible in sunlight than most phones.
>> Camera
Pretty decent image quality, though it lacks auto-focus (SonyEricsson seems to be reserving this feature for their new Cybershot models, so I wouldn't expect it elsewhere any more). The shutter responds fairly fast, which is actually an advantage over the autofocus models as long as you don't need to take pictures less than a few feet from the subject.
If you like to take photos as a way of making a quick note of something (like a product package), you can still do this. Take the picture a few feet back so it isn't out of focus, and use the volume keys to zoom in on the image when you want to read it.
>> Java applications
It runs games, Opera Mini, and Google Maps very well. Opera Mini starts up in just under 5 seconds. Much like the k550, the w595 will run almost any games.
***Upgrade: the new menu system lets you create a shortcut directly to a Java application (as long as it is in the Applications folder). I have the right-arrow shortcut set to load Opera Mini, so it can be accessed as quickly as the built-in browser.
>> Video playback
In addition to playing 3gp video, the W595 is one of the few phones which will actually play MP4 videos. Some phones claim it, but actually require you to convert it to a 3gp. True MP4 videos are much higher quality than 3gp. I was able to play an hour-long science lecture I downloaded, which makes this cool phone "educational".
NOTE: do NOT play videos by finding them through the "Media" menu. This new media menu is a fancy-looking scrolling interface which is completely unnecessary and causes video playback to lose sync with the audio. A firmware update "fixed" this by forcing the audio to synchronize every few seconds, which still looks like crap. Use the File Manager like a civilized human, and all of this trouble goes away. It's located in the Organizer menu, and you can make a shortcut to it if desired.
>> Email client
As I write this, my w595 is push-enabled by using the IMAP feature offered by GMail. As of last year, both Gmail and Yahoo have IMAP support for free. This sends you email to the phone without having to dial out manually to "check" it. I ignorantly declared that previous models did not support this without a carrier service, but it turns out some did (but no free email services offered it).
The email setup is also much easier. I just entered my GMail address/password, and SonyEricsson is clever enough to find all of the correct server/port settings for GMail. It was also smart enough to check if GMail supported IMAP, and asked me if I wanted to use it ("yes please!").
Regular POP3 is of course also supported, if you don't want a constant email connection.
>> Accelerometer
This is the kind of thing the iPhone and Wii have, so the phone can sense movement. It's not an entirely practical feature, but it adds "coolness" if you want to impress your friends with a bubble level (available on the SonyEricsson website).
>> RSS Reader
If you don't know what that is, skip this section and save hours of your life. If you are already using RSS and you want the Internet to be force-fed to you, this latest version offers improvements over the previous models:
- Set update times for any or all hours of the day, individually for each feed.
- New stuff shows up in a popup scroller on the home screen, with photos if available.
>> Multi-tasking
It seems to handle running one application while one or two others are minimized. To minimize a Java application, press the END key ONCE, and select minimize (pressing it twice closes it).
It offers full menu access during phone calls, so you can do things like check your tasks/calendar while talking to someone. Java applications can be run during the call, but Internet access appears to be disabled and media files won't play.
>> Organizer
As usual, SonyEricsson offers a good alarm clock which provides the only structure in my life. New and existing features:
- Multiple alarms
- Set any of them to either repeated (on whatever days you choose), or one time
- Use ANY sound on the phone as an alarm
- Adjust the volume for individual alarms (morning wakeup full volume, tea time a pleasant low)
- Add a picture to display
- Add a text description.
The organizer also include a lot of other good stuff, such as:
- Tasks, with instructions and reminders on set dates/times.
- Notes, so you can store notes without resorting to SMS drafts.
- Calendar, timer, stopwatch, etc.
>> Shortcut/event menu
This is one of many models with a really handy button which brings up a custom shortcut menu. It's complex to explain, but really handy to use.
The shortcut menu has 4 "tabs":
- New events (usually a missed call, new message, or a task due)
- Running applications
- My Shortcuts
- Internet
Unless something special is happening, clicking the shortcut key will bring up your shortcuts. If something special is happening (new event or running application), that tab will automatically come up. You can use the left/right keys to switch tabs at any time.
This shortcut key works at all times (e.g., while on a phone call or while browsing the Internet). Thus, you can be browsing the Internet, and if you hear the message alert, you can click the shortcut key to bring up the message and close it again without closing the browser. Or if you minimized an application to do something else, you can click the shortcut key to bring up the list of running applications without navigating to it.
>> Track ID
This is a really neat feature included with many of the Walkman phones (and a few non-walkman models). If a song is playing on the radio, in a store, etc, and you don't know what it is, Track ID will record some of it, and connect to some Internet server which will tell you the song/band. It's not perfect, but it works much better than you might expect.
>> Battery life
So far, it's pretty good. I watched a 1-hour video, which is a pretty hefty task, and only lost about 15% battery capacity. I keep the email connecting running 24/7, and I use about 45 minutes of internet and/or games per day. It doesn't ever fall below 50%.
The main reason I dropped one star from this phone's rating is because the housing just isn't well refined. Everything functions fine, but a 5-star phone just shouldn't have the creaks and wiggles.
Yikes, that's an enormous review, and I don't feel like proofreading. No warranties implied.
Tips and stuff:
1. Don't use the Media menu to play videos (see above).
2. If you are going to use IMAP for email access instead of POP3, make sure you are using GMail correctly or it will try to download every email you ever received (I will post a detailed explanation in the comments).
3. The battery lid sucks. Just pry it up from the obvious spot, as wrong as it feels. Careful, it may spring out and attack you. If it creaks when closed, see my ghetto fix (also in the comments section).
4. You can set the slider to end the call, or not end the call, via an option in the settings menu.
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