Sony Ericsson w580i

Good phone, the speaker is very loud, it is a good thing if you are outside.  but if you are in a meeting or at work may be al little emabarrassing.  The camera is okay for candid shots, but not the greatest...but oh well better than nothing.

The only negaives would be the build, it feels cheap.  It is also not the smoothest of sliders.  I also don't like the fact there there is a button for the web in the front.  It frequetly gets pushed when in my pocket and next thing I know I'm connected to the the internet.  I wish there was a way to customize that button. 

Otherwise great phone.

A few months ago the wife and I were looking for new phones and lucky for us there was a buy one get one free sale going on.  The wife went straight for the Palm Centrino.  I wandered through the store looking at phones and to be honest, I pretty much just go by looks.  All I really need out of a phone is the calling and texting feature which all phones can handle.  So if I'm going to have to look at this thing for the next couple of years it better look cool.  It's also gotta be comfortable to use.  For that reason I generally go for flip or slide phones.  Maybe it was just me but all the phones in there were pretty ugly.  Nokia might be a solid product but the styles are not attractive; big, box-like, and bulky.  Not for me.  And due to a family member's horrendous experience with Samsung's customer service I will not go near their products.  With nothing really to choose from I was left with defaulting to the Centrino.  I wasn't excited about it but it was the best they had.  So there we were standing at the counter, the wife was dealing with the paperwork and going over the final details and I was entertaining myself by wandering around the room, looking at stuff.  And there it was, hiding behind a sign, my new phone.

I don't have the data plan so I can't tell you much about surfing the net or using apps and whatnot.  What I can tell you is that this phone rocks.  For starters, the radio/walkman feature is clutch for those bus rides when you really need to block out the 15 teenagers screaming at the back.  The 2MP camera is quality and with the night mode option you can still get clear pics in dark bars (though you do have to keep the camera steady).  On top of that, there's a video option complete with 4x optical zoom (unfortunately, the camera does not zoom) and a microphone.  With a 1GB memory card you can hold over 3000 photos or hours and hours of music.  The only problem is you have to buy Sony's version of the miniDisc card which is slightly different.

And then there's the look.  This is a cool, sexy phone.  I went with the black and orange option but all the colours are very stylish.  As well, this phone is fairly small.  I need something that'll fit in my pocket and won't make a big bulge and this phone accomplishes that.  And so far, this phone has proved to be fairly durable, escaping from being dropped a half dozen times on concrete with nary even a scratch.

And finally, the extras.  Alarms, notepads, calendars complete with reminders, a task pad, and for those health concious users, a pedometer.  Yeah, it keeps track of how far you've been trucking throughout the day and week complete with calories burned.  Pretty slick.

A couple little issues to be aware of.  Because of the kickass walkman and camera features the battery can go after a very long day or two though I rarely have had to charge it two nights in a row and usually go every third night.  If you are on a plane and forget to turn off any alarms you may have, despite having turned off your phone, they will still go off.  Kind of embarrissing at 30,000 ft.  I've heard there's a way to turn this feature/pain in the butt off but I've yet to figure it out.  And lastly, the volume on the phone isn't super loud so if you're in a noisy place it may be hard to hear.

All in all, greatest phone I've ever used.

This is the best phone I've owned. I drowned one and missed it so much I bought a new one. The camera is amazing at it has all the features one could want, including the internet.  

I have only ever bought Nokia phones because they last forever and are really intuitive to navigate. My old Nokia finally died and the news ones just weren't appealing to me. This Sony Ericsson phone has totally met and exceeded my expectations - the FM radio is key because I listen to it on my walk to work, the nav is very similar to the old Nokia menus I'm used to, and its camera quality, text memory, sound quality, etc have all been great. I'm a big fan! I've already dropped it once and nothing happened to it. Phew.