Sony Ericsson W800i review from United Kingdom

The screen and case in general have become badly 'scuffed', and the battery cover has come loose and comes off all too easily in pocket.

The phone sometimes randomly crashes for no reason.

The camera lens cover opens up too easily in your pocket, which can result in pictures being taken, and a black dot has developed in the middle of the camera (have tried cleaning the lens, even had a phone shop look at it apprantly its the camera.)

I really like the phone, I got it free on contract from T-Mobile last year (2006) in March on their 'Flext 35' plan, which is excellent value for money.

Anyway about the phone, first impressions are excellent! The battery can be fully charged from flat in approximatly 2 hours, which is excellent, and then it will hold the charge about 3-4 days on average usage. Not really sure how long it would be when not in use, so have put 5 days, which is probably a very conservative estimate.

The camera is 2 mega pixel and takes excellent quality pictures, to say it's just a camera phone.

I also like the mp3 function of the phone, as the phone comes with Sony's own 512mb memory card, so it can store approximatly 120 tracks as standard, which is OK for me as I don't really use it all the time.

I have heard the memory can be expanded upto 2gb though, which is excellent if the need arose.

The rest of the phone is pretty straight forward and simple to use, with its joystick function. I like the style of the phone more than the newer w810i model, which is supposed to be superior. However, having borrowed my mates for the day, it has no joystick and a 2gb card crashes that phone for some reason, as my mate found out after shelling out 60 quid for one!

However in the last couple of months, it has developed the faults listed above, which I am unhappy about, especially the dot in the middle of the camera, which is proving most annoying. I shall be contacting Sony Ericsson to get it repaired, as it is still under 1 year old.

Also the scuffing of the phone and the generally scratched screen are only from having it in my pocket! I do not use the phone on my motorbike or anything like that. In fact I don't even have it with me in the gym! So it does get light usage really.

I would say as long as you don't have it in your jeans pocket or do any hard excercise with it, it will remain clean and undamaged.

I find the styling of the phone with its fancy orange metallic colouring round the side to be a bit 'gimmicky' and it's not hard wearing enough for normal everyday use.

My previous phone, a 'Samsung D500' was hardly scratched at all in the 2 years of usage I had out of it. Apart from the slider and screen soemtimes going faulty, it was just about trouble free.

Overall I would recommend the phone, but just be careful with it!