W760i is meant to become an extension of the outdated product’s life cycle. It’s also a slider, sharing a common style with the predecessor model. Certain aspects were simplified. The handset has grown thicker and the design isn’t too striking. The casing has no metal parts. The target audience of this model seems to be a younger one, W760i no longer looks like a real fashion phone. The functionality is more interesting than the appearance: the model even sports a GPS unit. That’s the sole difference from W910, though. The updated A200 platform makes no big difference except a few extra animations and alternate viewmodes for the menus, and a boost in photo resolution (the lack of auto-focus still makes the photos look very plain, so the theoretical increase in quality looks rather disputable when it comes down to practice).

	Specifications of Sony Ericsson W760i
Supported Networks:	GSM 850/900/1800/1900 + UMTS/HSDPA 2100
Memory:	38 Mb of user memory Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot, up to 8 Gb Gb card bundled
Screen:	2,2" , QVGA (240х320), 262K
Connectivity:	USB2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, A2DP supported
Camera:	3,2 Mp (up to 2048х1536), video (QVGA 30 fps)
Battery:	BST-38, 930 mAh up to 9 hours of talktime up to 400 hours of standby
Size:	103 x 48 x 15 mm
Weight:	103 g
Guiding price:	€300

GPS is a much demanded feature nowadays; however those who are after a good functionality would rather prefer a smartphone, one from the great variety currently available on the market. A GPS unit makes much less sense in a music phone with a small screen and average specs – more looking like a nice extra than a proficiency item. Few people will ever get attracted by it. Is the very existence of W760i justified when we have a slimmer, better looking and cheaper W910i, sporting the same specifications minus GPS? A complex question; or not ?

I expressed a similar opinion regarding the C702 model; being a (pseudo) ‘tough phone’, it could still find a use for the GPS unit as long as the model was regarded as an option for tourists, campers and hikers. In a music phone, this sort of functionality look bewildering.

Design and ergonomics

The casing is entirely made of plastic; it has no metal parts. The assembly quality is very high, and the quality of the sliding mechanism is next to ideal. The plastic isn’t too thin, has a nice texture, is resistant to physical damage. Three alternate color versions are available: red, gray and black&yellow. The first and last versions look much more vivid than the grey one. A large Walkman logo is placed on the back panel, twinkling white when the player is active.

The size of W760i is by no means miniature, yet it can’t be called large. A golden means, the same size shared by its direct competitors: Nokia 5610 XpressMusic, Samsung F400 and Nokia 6210 Navigator (the latter sports a comparable music capability). The phone gives the hand a comfortable feel, the weight is quite balanced.

The only controls residing on the side edges are the volume rocker on the right and the Walkman button on the left. The latter is used not only for launching the player, but also gives you control over the Shake control feature: a good implementation of a well-known idea. You can alternatively switch to the next or previous track, or select a random track from the playlist by shaking the handset in a different manner: respectively, sway forward, backward or chaotically. You have to keep the Walkman button pressed when making the trick, otherwise it won’t work. Once a Shake Control action has been completed, the handset responses with a vibro signal. A great feature for those who want to switch tracks without looking at the screen, in a matter of a few instants. The young audiences are bound to get attracted by it.

The product is marketed as a music phone, yet lacks a standard headset socket. The only available option is the onboard Fast-Port slot, located on a side edge. W760i feels rather annoying when you put it in the pocked with the headset plugged. The same goes to all the recent models issued by SE. It’s unclear whether the SE engineers just wanted their work to look different from the other brands or thought it to be an ergonomic solution.

The top edge of the sliding part hosts an M2 memory card slot. It’s protected with a plastic flap. There’s no dedicated profile switching button available, the call reject button used instead. The back surface of the slider has a specific texture; the non-autofocusing camera unit is housed there. There’s no flash, which is natural for a music-focused handset.

The keypad of Sony Ericsson W760i is very nice – the buttons are large and responsive. The backlight is of a white color, not too bright, yet that’s quite enough. The backlight intensity is controlled via an integrated luminance sensor. The navigation button is also very comfortable. The stereo speakers are housed on either side of the call and reject buttons, protected with fine metal meshes. They also remain backlit in the dark, which looks interesting. The actual audio quality is indistinguishable from that of models sporting only one speaker. Y ou can hardly expect a stereo effect from a model which has the speakers separated by a mere 20 millimeters; to tell you the truth, there’s almost no sense in the use of whole two speakers in W760i.

Right above the screen you will find a few buttons officially labeled as gaming ones, though you can’t use them in the preinstalled games (it is claimed that third-party games can make some real use of them) You can still use these buttons in the gallery application, though a dedicated shoot button would have been a more logical addition instead these triggers.

Screen

Sony Ericsson W760i utilizes a TFT screen (QVGA, 320x240). The diagonal size equals to 2,2 inches, which is a bit too small for a device sporting a GPS functionality. The quality of the screen is exceptionally high; the image is crisp and clear-cut, the colors are vivid. The brightness level is fine; the colors fade off in the sunlight though, and the thick protective glass causes some nasty glaring. Let’s compare the screens of Nokia 5610 XpressMusic and W760i:

Apparently, W760i gets a higher score; the Nokia model has a worse brightness and duller colors. Sony Ericsson have long been known to equip their handsets with the best screens around, in spite of all rumors.

Battery

The battery is of the standard type found in many SE phones – a BST-38, 930 mAh unit. The manufacturer claims 9 hours of talktime and 400 hours of standby respectively. A moderate duty cycle (approximately one hour of talktime, two hours of listening to the player and handling the camera, an hour of miscellaneous menu activity) wastes a full battery charge over about three days – a good (yet not perfect) score.

	Sony Ericsson W760i	Nokia 6210 Navigator	Nokia 5610 XpressMusic
Normal duty	3 days	2 days	3 days
Multimedia cycle, video (3GP)	4:11	3:53	3:22
Multimedia cycle, audio (MP3)	18:46	19:03	20:12
GPS	3:20	3:15	-

Connectivity

Just like in the majority of 3G-supporting handsets produced by the company, a secondary video call camera is available. HSDPA is supported, though there’s no IRdA port available; the sole means of wireless communication available on the device is Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR. It functions quite all right, the wireless headset working all right as well. The following profiles are supported:

• Basic Imaging
• Dial-up Networking
• File Transfer
• Generic Access
• Generic Object Exchange
• Handsfree
• Headset
• HID
• JSR-82 Java API
• Object Push
• Personal Area Networking
• Serial Port
• Synchronization
• SyncML OBEX binding
• Audio/Video Remote Control
• Phonebook Access

The Flight Mode is only accessible with a SIM card; you can still turn the phone on without a SIM card, though features like camera or player will be blocked out. That’s a big minus of all SE gadgets (smartphones included) which looks just lame against the competing solutions by other brands.

The cable communication is done through a firmware interface. A USB 2.0 support is claimed, though the real life data transfer speed is a good way below the expected 500 Kbyte/s. Modem, Mass Storage and PictBridge connection types are also supported.

The required mode is selectable from a corresponding menu. In our tests, the Mass Storage connection functioned quite properly, both onboard memory and expansion card were visible in the file manager. Phone-to-PC synchronization can be done with the supplied Sony Ericsson PC Suite software. The only disappointing thing is the above-mentioned left-side positioning of the slot.

The integrated FM tuner has a TrackID capability. RDS is supported, the bookmark list can store up to 20 favorite stations. The application interface is very friendly. The signal level is high, as well as sound volume.

Java Performance

As usual, Sony Ericsson did their best to make Java run perfectly on their new product – just as expected, the handset supports 3D profiles, the midlets can easily be sent and received via Bluetooth, the performance rate keeps on a level identical to K850i.

	Java performance
Model	Sony Ericsson W760i	Nokia 6210 Navigator
Jbenchmark 1.0.1 Score	7011	6271
Text	2197	1821
2D Shapes	1705	1595
3D Shapes	816	756
Fill Rate	555	412
Animation	1699	1800
Jbenchmark 2.0.1 Score	1221	598
Image Manipulations	402	380
Text	756	722
Sprites	583	535
3D Transform	765	706
User Interface	3945	591
Jbenchmark 3D HQ	167	204
Jbenchmark 3D LQ	305	368
Triangles ps	32956	51919
Jbenchmark HD Gaming Score	95 (3.2 fps)	156 (5.4 fps)
Smooth triangles	44004	102634
Textured triangles	25433	83654
Fill rate, KTexels	556	2181

User interface

Sony Ericsson W760i is based off the A200 platform and has all the standard features listed as native in this article: Sony Ericsson A200 platform base functionality review Please refer to it to find out more about such aspects of A200-based products as player, multimedia, gallery and so on.

Preinstalled software package

The supplied games are all very amusing, the only bad thing is that you can’t make use of the above-screen buttons in these applications.

GPS

Google Maps 2.0 is yet another standard application preinstalled on all A200 platform products. Sony Ericsson C702 comes with a full-fledged onboard GPS receiver, just like W760i. The positioning can be done not only by the carrier’s base stations, but also utilizing the real hardware GPS.

Google Maps is free; the program comes fully configured and has a number of extra settings in addition to the standard functionality of the base version. You can choose the preferred system of measures, to precise map scaling, add chosen locations to your favorites list, customize the route calculation routine and search by locations and bookmarks. The application interface is rather handy; the downsides are a lack of possibility to recalculate the route or save it. Nokia Maps 2.0 available to most existing smartphones offers a much better functionality and comfort of operation, remaining the market’s leading solution.

In addition to Google Maps, the Wayfinder Navigator application is also available. It requires periodical subscription, which is done for a fee. The offered features in many ways resemble those of Nokia Maps. The routes can be calculated for pedestrians and car drivers alike, a route can be optimized by time, distance and traffic-jam-wise criteria, paid highways can be optionally excluded from the pathfinding routine, several map viewing modes are available. The application isn’t as convenient as some of the competing solutions, and the number of options is rather limited. In a nutshell, little to get excited over.

The Tracker application is used to assist in physical exercise, jogging and collecting statistical data about these activities. The integrated GPS unit is used to calculate the route and overall distance. Considering the slow speed of starting coordinate acquisition (about five minutes), you are hardly ever likely to get precise results with the aid of C702. The applications prompts to specify the user’s personal data required to compute the amount of calories burnt during the training. All the collected statistical data are stored in the coach log. You can view your scores and a variety of miscellaneous statistical calculations including overall energy consumed, total covered distance and so on. The application can indeed prove of some help during your jogging sessions, provided that you run for distances long enough to smooth down the calculation inaccuracies.

Multimedia features

The Media menu utilizes the same interface in all A200-based products – it looks like a standard view window but with a resemblance to Sony PSP. The motion sensor finds a real use here: it switches the screen aspect depending on the physical position of the handset. The following menu items are available: Photo, Music, Video and Settings, names saying for themselves. The interface enjoys a very pleasing graphics style; menu actions are animated, activating menu items and entering the corresponding submenus works without the slightest lag, thanks to the platform's high performance. The interface design doesn't depend on a product's market positioning or model, even the new UIQ-based smartphones sport the very same kind of interface – Sony Ericsson's signature feature

The player settings include repeated and random playback, sorting by performer, genre; enhanced stereo mode (which doesn't give any perceptible advantage if turned on) Progressive track rewinding is supported. The track data are shown in the player window during playback. Visualisation settings include displaying album cover (though its size is too small) or one of the following options: Walkman Lines, Album Lines, Inner twirl. There are two extra color schemes available in addition to the default black one - orange and white, though switching between them only affects the background and font color. Nothing very impressive considering that latest Nokia phones support full-blown player skins which look much more intriguing.

The playlist organization system is a rather smart feature; tracks can be added to a playlist either one by one or a group (or all) of them with a single action (a checkbox is shown by the title of each track). The set of equalizers varies depending on the individual model. The non-music Z770i totally lacks any kind of an equalizer while W890i has a whole six of them: from the typical Rock and Pop to the brand Mega Bass mode. Unlike UIQ-based smartophones (e.g. G700/G900, W960i), A200 devices lack the Auto Playlists functionality which would normally include a rating system listing the latest added, the last played and the most and least frequently played tracks, also allowing for sorting by time (Time Machine)

One of the most remarkable features of the music player is the integrated SensMe system. As stated by the manufacturers it allows to automatically pick music which best fits your current mood. Now you can search for music and compose playlists basing off the genre and tempo in addition to the traditional criteria of album and performer. The track database is automatically transformed into a graphical square matrix where each track represents a pixel positioned at certain coordinates relative to the horizontal and vertical axes, corresponding to a certain mood. You can easily select a group of tracks sharing a common emotional impact.

The sorting is done on the PC using the Media Manager application, which is used for setting the ‘mood’ of the uploaded music. The user doesn’t have to specify these parameters manually; the SenseMe application analyzes the tracks automatically. Depending on the amount of data, it takes up to several minutes to analyze the songs and add their mood tags to the database. This function can be engaged in a forced mode, where all the music uploaded to the phone is automatically analyzed and sorted according to the mood once the uploading is over.

With the help of the navigation button, you can easily browse between the spots dispersed across the matrix. Once you’ve found a suitable track, you can inflate or deflate the surrounding sphere; anything which falls into this scope will be added to the playlist. As a result, you can grab a bunch of tracks sharing a similar emotional charge in a matter of seconds. Multiple skeptics complained about the limitedness of the TrackID service after its launch – now you get a nice alternative.

The TrackID service enjoys a fair implementation. Using it you can record a fragment from the currently played song (on radio or in the player) and upload it to the web for identification. If the sample is recognized as belonging to one of the track stored in the database, the song title and performer name are sent back in a message; all identified (and hence found in the database) songs are available for purchase. The service should prove interesting for a youth audience, especially combined with the FM tuner functionality: an unfamiliar song can be ‘captured’, ‘probed ’ and downloaded in a matter of minutes.

The bundled headset is a standard HPM-72 piece with a 3.5 mm adaptor. The audio volume is enough for most situations, yet it won’t do in an extremely noisy environment. The quality of the sound is comparable to other Sony Ericsson models, a bit below the standard quality of Nokia and Samsung. The actual difference between 5610 and F400 isn’t too big though, yet noticeable. A continuous playback cycle lasts for about 19 hours.

Camera

The camera of W760i is an unimpressive 3.2 Mp unit lacking an auto-focusing capability. There’s no flash either. The interface is pretty plain, utilizing a vertical orientation. The settings are only accessible through a context menu – the music phone received a severe curbing in the camera department. The W910i had a full-fledged camera interface.

Brightness is tweaked with the volume button, the navigation button serves for zooming in and out. A variety of status indicators are shown in the viewfinder window, yet the screen isn’t as informative as in Cyber-shot series phones. The top line shows brightness, zoom ration and photo storage folders indicator. Switching between photo and video modes is done by pressing the navigation button left or right.

The settings are pretty standard:

Photo shooting

Shoot modes	Normal, Panorama, Frames, Burst
Scenes	Auto, Twilight landscape, Twilight portrait, Landscape, Portrait, Beach/Snow, Sports, Document
Picture size	3 MP (2048x1536), 2 MP (1632x1224), 1 MP (1280x960), VGA (640x480)
Self-timer	3, 5, 10
Effects	Off, Black & white, Negative, Sepia
White balance	Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent
Picture quality	Normal, Fine
Shutter sounds	On, Off
Turn on time and date	Adds a timestamp to the image
Geo-tagging	Adds a geotag to the image
Reset file number	+
Save to memory	onboard memory / memory card

Video shooting

Shoot modes	Normal, Panorama, Frames, Burst
Video size	QVGA (320x240), QCIF (176x144)
Night mode	+
Turn on/off microphone	Off, Auto
Reset file number	The same with photo mode
Effects	Off, Black & white, Negative, Sepia
Save to memory	onboard memory / memory card

The photo quality is mediocre according to the modern standards; the lack of an auto-focusing capability has a pronounced degrading effect on the quality of photos. You have to be shooting with some really good lighting around in order to get an acceptable picture. Poor lighting condition result in comparably poor shots. The camera wasn’t obviously meant to be on the model’s priority list. Such an approach is typical for mid-end products; nevertheless, the market offers a variety models utilizing the same form factor yet having more functionality and better prices – e.g. Samsung F400 or Nokia 5610 XpressMusic, 6210 Navigator.

SMAPE's opinion

Sony Ericsson W760i produces the impression of a well-designed, quality phone. The appealing yet not too showy design is really one of the weightiest selling points of this handset. The quality of assembly and materials is just as good as the functionality, everything is very balanced. The only question which is left open is why should this cost so much money? Nokia 6210 Navigator has a comparable price label, yet offers an even higher level of functionality, while Nokia 5610 Xpress Music offers a comparable functionality (save for a missing GPS) but costs a third less! Here’s a table listing the rival’s specifications:

Model	Sony Ericsson W760i	Nokia 5610 XpressMusic	Nokia 6210 Navigator	Samsung F400
Size:	103 x 48 x 15 mm, 103g	98.5 x 48.5 x 17 mm, 111g	103 x 49 x 14.9 mm, 117g	103.2 x 48.2 x 16.9 mm, 105g
Screen:	2,2” QVGA 262K colors	2,2” QVGA 16M colors	2,4” QVGA 16M colors	2,2” QVGA 262K colors
Memory:	38 Mb + M2 Micro (1 GB card bundled)	20 Mb + MicroSD (512 Mb card bundled)	120 Mb + MicroSD (1 Gb card bundled)	24 Mb + MicroSD (512 Mb card bundled)
Slots and sockets:	Fast-Port	2,5 mm	2,5 mm	3,5 mm jack
Speakers:	Stereo	Mono	Mono	Stereo
Music cycle lifetime, hours:	19.5	20	18	15
GPS:	+	-	+	-
Camera:	3,2 Mp	3,2 Mp, AF, flash	3,2 Mp, AF, flash	3,2 Mp, AF, flash
Video:	QVGA (30 fps)	VGA (15 fps)	VGA (15 fps)	QVGA (15 fps)
Release date:	July 2008	November 2007	July 2008	June 2008
Price, euros:	400	250	400	360

The choice is up to you, but if you were after our advise, we’d firstly point out the obviously inadequate price as the only but grave factor talking not in favor of buying this phone. A youth-oriented music phone with GPS shouldn’t belong to the upper price bracket, where only a limited group of enthusiasts could make up an interested audience. The same saying is equally applicable to Samsung F400. On the contrary, Nokia 5610 and 6210 constitute a very balanced duo, one of the two being an affordable youth phone with a perfect audio quality and a good cam to go, the other one being a GPS smartphone with a good sound quality and an elegant design. A salad mix of a phone, W760i just fails to find a befitting audience, at least one large enough to compete with the mentioned Nokia products.

+ High quality of materials and assembly
+ Onboard GPS receiver
+ SenceMe, comfortable player interface
+ Interesting design
- Mediocre photo quality, no auto-focusing
- Price above reason
- No standardized slots
- Average audio quality

Author: Anton Spiridonov

SMAPE

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