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[luiscamino]

Let's start with the W300:

This is Sony Ericsson’s approach to bringing the Walkman experience to the mass market. Apparently that wasn’t the W550/W600, with its better screen and camera (leave that stuff for Cybershots  ). The W300 uses a humble 1.8″ 126x160 pixel screen with not-so-humble 262.000 colors, and as you know, the camera is just VGA without flash and 4x digital zoom (although SE’s VGA cameras can interpolate images to megapixel resolution without much quality loss). The external screen, while it is 101x80 pixels and monochrome, shows a cool orange on black background design rather than the old black on gray or blue. The star in the package (and advantage for music users against the W550/W600) is the Memory Stick M2 slot (up to 1gb cards available soon), and the 256mb card included in the box; the internal memory being just 20mb. The side volume keys integrate a play/pause music button, I wonder how tactile they feel; how easy or not is it going to be to press the actual key you want to press. Other features include Radio FM, MegaBass, Bluetooth (doesn’t seem to support A2DP), Infrared, EDGE, Quadband GSM connectivity, and the usual Walkman stereo headphones/handsfree, in either black or gray depending on the color of the handset: Shadow Black or Shimmering White. We’re all fearing that it’s going to be a brick, but despite the bulky looks, at 90 x 47 x 24 mm it weighs the same 94 grams and it’s “only” 7mm taller than the tiny Z520 (which in some way it’s replacing); same width and thickness. But the Z520’s loop antena was huge compared to the W300’s, making it look a lot smaller than in numbers, so let’s wait till Cebit comparison photos for the veredict. Not the most beautiful SE design lately, but it certainly doesn’t hurt anybody to see external memory support in a low/mid range handset, don’t you think? Available all over the globe from Q2 this year.

W300 Official Page
W300 Press Release

[htiek1]

I hate it already because it has a memory slot and my 'higher-end' w600 doesn't   .
Also, notice the lack of a real dedicated camera button.

[kamron_1]

the thing that bites me the most is that this phone really doesn't feel like a music phone, looking at it, it looks like some sort of 'style' phone you'd have just for looks (such as the moto V3). One thing i do like though is the black HPM-70, anyone seen a real one yet? (i mean the mic part)

[bjornlammers]

Well, I'm a bit disappointed. For almost the same features as my Z520 (sans the memory slot and the radio in the W300) you get a bulkier and less stylish phone.
And I would really miss my external color screen! So, I'll wait for an updated (and hopefully smaller than current) Z800, or a clamshell model between the Z530 and Z800: memory slot, external color screen, 2MP camera in Z600-size casing (as I've wished before on these here forums :-)).

[luiscamino]

Mobile-review reviews the W300/Z530, says it’s 1.3 megapixel?

They mention it twice in the review, and the sample photos are indeed 1280x1024 pixels resolution… but their EXIF data reveals they were taken with a K510. Caught!  One thing that surprises and pretty much infuriates me is the little effort Sony Ericsson has put in making the icons in the monochrome external display look right. They’re just inverted versions of the positive ones. It just looks so cheap. Bad SE, bad!



The design of this clamshell is unusual – the pictures provoke the feeling of the handset’s disproportion, however in practice, the phone turns out to be a very attractive appearance, owing to its small size (...).

A small mirror, as well as an objective glass of a 1.3 Mpix camera, is placed right above the display. The camera module is made in a common way for Sony Ericsson and doesn’t bring anything new of any innovative solutions (...).

NetFront browser is applied as a standard in phones by Sony Ericsson (…). There is no work with html-pages containing complex formatting, or exceeding 500 Kb in size. In many respects the standard browser is optimum, but use of Opera Mini is more preferable, as it gives more capabilities (...).

Model Sony Ericsson Z530i looks poorer compared to Walkman-series phone, it has worse display [65k color STN-UBC versus 262k color TFT], the memory card is only 64mb, the headphones are similar to ones in Sony Ericsson K750i, which means that they are made of plastic, however it has exchangeable covers. This provides 40-50 euro difference in price (...).

The price of Sony Ericsson Z530i by the end of May and beginning of June will be around 175 Euro, meanwhile W300i will cost around 220-230 Euros

Read Mobile-review’s W300/Z530 review