The Sony Ericsson W910i - Martin's Quick Review

The Sony Ericsson W910i is a splendid gadget, and may be the best fusion yet between a mobile phone and a digital music player. It's a slider-format phone with a gorgeous screen on the front of the chassis. It feels quite solid in the hand, and seems very sturdy. It's clearly meant to be used, not treated like a piece of fragile artwork.

The phone supports every digital music format imaginable, from MP3s to AAC to WMA and a few others that aren't as well trafficked. The headphones are good, but if you're a true audiophile, you'll want to replace them with something a bit more robust.

Operation and navigation are, as one would expect from a Sony Ericsson device, well thought out. The gorgeous display makes the menu items really stand out, and the icons are well designed and well placed. Most are quite similar There are now specific icons for audio books and podcasts, and the device is wireless enabled, allowing you to buy music that you hear if you're in a public wireless area.

One of the neatest ideas in this device's design is the use of motion sensors. You can shake the phone to the left or the right with a brisk motion, and shuffle forward or back from the song you're listening to, to another on your play list. In addition to this, it also auto-configures the device's screen for landscape or portrait viewing.

Its other features are well thought out. It supports ultra-fast HSDPA connections for purchasing your tunes quickly online, and it has built in Bluetooth for wireless headset or speaker use. Talk time was quite impressive at 9 hours. We're not sure how they packed that much talk time in a gadget with this bright of a screen and this small a profile.

As a phone, the device works well – it's hard to imagine something from Ericsson that doesn't, to be honest. Our chief grumbles with it come down to the camera that's built in – 2 megapixels is tiny for a modern phone, and that it uses Sony's Memory Stick instead of the more reasonably priced MicroSD cards. Onboard storage is good, and they give you a one gig stick to start out with.

The "song shaker" mechanism, while clever, does require that you hold down the Walkman button, which is in a bit of an odd place on the device. It takes some getting used to, but it's really convenient after you've gotten the grip of it (pun intended).

All in all, the W910i is a great device, and if you're looking for a multi-function phone/camera/music player, you could do a lot worse. Strongly recommended if you're looking for a top flight music phone with good wireless capabilities. We expect that this will be copied by other manufacturers within a year; with the exception of the accelerometer, nothing here is novel, but the way that all the parts work together is excellent.

The best Sony Ericsson W910i mobile phone deals and other cheap mobile phone contract deals with cash back can be found online rather than on the high street. Do your research to get more for your money.