Sony Ericsson continues to come with mobile phones. In April I looked at both the non-Walkman lime green and white K660i 3 and W890i Walkman brand. The two are combined candybar style, and both have a lot of good things about them.

Today, the tri-band W380i arises. It is a clamshell mobile and format is designed to bring the Walkman brand and characteristics of those who want to watch the pennies.
In terms of design that I saw the best of Sony Ericsson. I am not excited by the angle of looking at this phone or by the strange bumpy buttons that sit on the front fascia. It just does not seem very attractive to me. But in fact the buttons are mostly on music playback. Above their mailbox is an OLED display style that remains invisible until you play music, or until something, it is to display such information on a call or SMS.

In both cases, the screen shows you that attempts to make contact. In the first, you can control playing music by touching the buttons to be retro that you use. They are divided into three blocks which, if you look carefully, to assimilate front, rear and pause / play symbols.

A cursor on the back that looks like the whole world as a lock for the battery cover is actually a lock of these function keys. The lock is a piece of violin to be used, but at least you can activate and deactivate the “buttons” as required.

If you think this is bizarre, then wait until you start using the gesture control. There is a bright light mounted under the front of the camera lens. This light illuminates when a call is coming and when an alarm that you set for the phone lights up. You can reject it, either by telephone or alarm, shaking your hand on the light. As long as your hand is not more than 7cm dark alarm is triggered or the appeal will be rejected.

I tried, and it worked. But I felt like a numpty shaking my hand on the phone when and on the verge of being rid of an unwanted call. And when you use the phone as a wake-up habit, I had to find the phone before you shake it, so that the opening of clams and revocations in the former has never been much extra work.

I have already said that I am not a fan of watching the angle of the camera. Its size will also reduce its appeal to me. The weight of 100g is not a problem at all. But this phone is great. With the clam closed height measurements 92mm, 49mm wide and 16 mm thick. Open the clam and it grows somewhere in the region of 165mm high. It’s just huge when you compare this phone to the small Sony Ericsson candybars mentioned earlier.

The good news for those with big hands is that a clam buttons are large and well spaced. You must be a giant still can not work around your keyboard, navigation button and SoftMenu keys.

Sony Ericsson could have tried harder with the main screen, however. I measured at 1.8 inches diagonally and offers a simple 176 x 220 pixels. There is room here for a much larger screen and whoever is planned looks a little lost and underspecified.

As a Walkman phone a couple of things are important - battery life and memory. The W380i comes with a mere 14MB of built in memory, a gift it is a combined budget. But it also comes with a Memory Stick 512 MB Micro, which is nestled in a slot that is easily accessible once you remove the battery cover.

The battery life is not as warm as it could be. After a full charge the phone plays music non-stop for a total of seven hours and seven minutes. This should give most people a full day of music between charges, but every day the burden is probably recommended.

The earphones supplied with phone use Sony Ericsson connector owner who is shared by the power cable and cable PC. The connector is also voluminous than ever, and something Sony Ericsson really need to consider recasting. However, the good news is that there is a 3.5 mm connector just after the microphone, you can replace your own headphones if you want to do.

Regarding the camera, and it leaves a little to be desired. It does not push the video at all. It is not automatic and without flash. Stills are limited to 1.3 megapixels, which is really low for any mobile, and Sony Ericsson, which produces some of the best camera phones there, is shameful. Even if the budget is a mobile and does not have branding Cybershot, Sony Ericsson does itself a disservice by opting for a 1.3 megapixel sensor. The main consequence of the low resolution is that you can not do a lot with the photos you take. They are really good for viewing on the phone itself. The impressions on the issue.

Regarding the test plans, flat color, photographed inside in the light of ordinary households, has a good color reproduction. The President has a reasonable amount of detail and his white is quite uniform. The flower is much deeper purple in real life that the picture indicates, but I got close enough for this picture and the emphasis is not too bad at all.

Other software on the W380i includes a web browser, RSS reader, recorder, FM radio, a calendar synchronization with PC, task list, manager, timer, stopwatch, calculator, five alarms and several games. You can blog photos of the phone.