I was going to title this entry “another scant recommended rating from Mobileburn” but let’s be fair, it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep up with the fierce competition, and if recent news about Sony Ericsson’s figures is any indicative, perhaps business isn’t always about making every single supermodel worth a Mobileburn’s “highly recommended” rating. And after all, it’s an “enthusiastic recommended rating”. Next, some notable extracts from the review, including a description of the W710’s interesting pedometer “for people who sweat” (I’m just quoting there!):

The slider key located on the right side of the W710i locks the rubber buttons [around the orange back lit, 4 shade grayscale external display] so that they won’t be triggered by accident when you aren’t playing music

Some long needed functionality [is that] email accounts can now be configured to download headers or only the first so many KB of a message. This system will let users see what an email message is about without having to download any huge attachments that were sent with.

The overall quality of the photos is not quite as good as we have come to expect from Sony Ericsson. The issue seems to be the lens, which takes photos that are not consistently focused

I was pleased with the quality of the sound overall when the W710i was used with both wired and Bluetooth wireless stereo headphones.

The pedometer function in the W710i works really well, and does a good job of organizing your past exercise efforts by distance, time, and calories burned. You can calibrate it by inputting your height, age, and weight and let it guess about stride length, or you can actually use it on a known distance (like a track) and have it calibrate itself from that. While in use, the pedometer will display the number of steps walked that day on both the internal and external displays. An included Java app actually lets you see graphs of your training, and offers the user virtual medals and other rewards as incentive. In short, the pedometer is a fun addition to a mobile phone.

Sony Ericsson’s user interface is both intuitive and entertaining. It makes good use of screen real estate as well as color and animation – without getting in its own way.

While I don’t consider it to be one of the better looking handsets the company has created, the Sony Ericsson W710i is still a very capable and fun handset to use. It might not have a best in class camera, but the music playback (with stereo Bluetooth support) and the built-in pedometer make it a great companion for commuters and athletically inclined people alike.

If not for some issues with audio quality on calls, I might have been convinced to give the W710i a higher rating, but as is, I instead give it an enthusiastic “Recommended” rating.

Read Mobileburn’s W710 Review

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