It is the first camera mobile that I bought. Sony Ericsson is known for its best in class Camera for mobiles. This was the main reason for opting this mobile in the range of Rupees 10,000 in Hyderabad,India. I have tested the Camera functionality extensively on this mobile and have found it to be satisfactory when compared to other mobiles from different companies like Nokia, Samsung. But after using it for 1 year I had problem with the Camera button and I was unable to take pictures. I did check with the servicing center folks and they said that I had to replace entire button setup for it to work. My troubles started with this mobile from that. Another major flaw in this mobile is, it doesn’t come with a shutter cover for the camera. This worries many people in making a decision towards buying it. In fact I too was apprehensive about the shutter but still took the risk. Believe me, the chance of dust spoiling the camera definitely ponders your mind. You end up being ultra cautious in handling the mobile and to keep it out of dust.
There was Sony Ericsson W610i model before this which was a big hit in the mobile market in India. I was initially trying to buy it but was surprised to find that it was out of stock. Later I came know that such big hit mobiles are intentionally not pushed further in order to make room for other mobiles from the same company. This makes the buyers left with no choice than picking up the next best mobile. Thus I finally landed at Sony Ericsson W810i which can be said as a big brother of Sony Ericsson W610i.
Then I enquired about White and Orange model in Sony Ericsson W810i and was again put down on knowing that it comes only with Sony Ericsson W610i and Black,Orange combination is the only available model in 810i series. Then my deep urge to pick the best camera mobile pushed me to invest 10,500 Indian Rupees at this 810i model.
Coming to other fine features of it, it has good Walkman feature. The speaker sound is definitely very good. It is in fact a best replacement for Radio/Tape Recorder. I also liked the Voice Recording in this mobile. The clarity is very good and the memory size is unlimited, as long as you can add more memory to the device. The audio file gets stored in amr format and you should have a software to convert amr to mp3. There are many such free conversion softwares available. The mobile comes with a USB port so that we can connect it to a Computer. With the mobile kit there’s a CD attached and we have to run Sony Ericsson setup and install its software so that we can avail all the features of the mobile that can be accessed through computer. My experience in using the mobile with the computer is that we should be very careful and patient in getting our work done with the mobile. It takes some time to detect the content from mobile on the computer. The data transfer is also slow. But nevertheless its the only best way to get your data on a PC. The infrared and blue tooth features are also satisfactory. Their performance was good when I tried them with my friends mobiles placed around.
One of the disadvantages in this mobile is keypad. Its strenuous to type on the mobile. If you are SMS savvy then this mobile would be nightmare for you.
The most agonizing thing that happened with this mobile is that, after using it for 2 years one fine day it suddenly became dead. I tried several means to switch it on but nothing worked. When I put the power charger only the Infrared light was glowing and nothing else worked. I took it to servicing center and they too could not find the root cause and said that it can’t be repaired. It was for the first time that I ever heard that some mobile problem could not be fixed even by the authorized servicing center.
Then I tried my luck with some outside mobile repairing persons and one guy gave me the exact root cause for the sudden demise of my mobile. He found out that the battery got swollen and has caused a short circuit in the mobile and its very complex to fix it. On knowing this I had no option left than to go for a new mobile.
So folks beware of the battery size and monitor it once in a while. I could escape with a short circuit and there are even more serious dangers like mobile might even blast.