Sony Ericsson W350 Cell Phone Review - Messaging
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Marianne Schultz Published on November 12, 2008 Comment on this |
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| As with most feature phones in this price range, native email applications are rare and IM's incur charges for each message sent and received, and the W350 is no exception here. It does do quite well with SMS and MMS messages, with a clear interface that easily allows the creation of an MMS message when an SMS was the original plan. | |
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Supported Email Services (0.0)
As with most non-smartphones, the W350 does not have a built-in email client, only a web-based one. This web-based client offers easy set-up for Yahoo, AOL, AIM, Windows Live, and other accounts that AT&T users will be likely to add, but we only award points for native email clients.
Push Email (0.0)
The W350 does not offer push email.
Multiple Email Accounts (0.0)
We only award points for native email clients that support multiple email accounts, but without a native email client, the W350 earns no points here.
HTML and Attachments (0.0)
We award no points here since the W350 lacks a native email client.
Email Customizations (0.0)
We award no points here since the W350 lacks a native email client.
Time to a New Email Message (0.0)
We did not perform this test since the W350 lacks a native email client.
Email Usability (0.0)
We award no points here since the W350 lacks a native email client.
Instant Messaging (0.0)
The W350 is capable of instant messaging, allowing easy set-up for Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and Microsoft Messenger accounts. Once you've signed in to an account, there's a nice tabbed view so you can easily navigate between buddies, conversations, and see or edit your current status. If the IM service allows it, you can remain signed in to your account even after you've left the Messaging application. Unfortunately, AT&T charges for each IM sent or received as if it were a text message, and we do not award points for IM functionality when this is the case.
IM account set-up
MMS Support (10.0)
The W350 is capable of multimedia messaging and it does it pretty well. It has an integrated inbox for both SMS and MMS messages, which we like, so you don't have to go to 2 separate places to view or send the different message types. When you create a new message, the first option is to create an SMS, and from there you can easily add a picture, video, or sound file using the menu at the bottom. If you don't already have the desired media saved to the phone in the photo album or appropriate media folder to attach to the message, you can also take a picture, video, or record a sound file right from the new SMS dialogue, which is really nice. The W350 earns full points here for MMS capability and ease of use.
A new MMS message
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (6.0)
The W350 automatically interpreted 2 out of our 4 test smileys into graphical images in incoming and outgoing text messages. When creating a new text message, choosing the Add Symbol option from the More menu offers 6 graphic smileys to insert automatically, or you can choose to enter the punctuation symbols manually as well.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
While the W350's SMS and MMS support is quite good, it doesn't offer some of the more advanced features found on more and more phones, like a threaded message view. So, if you are having a conversation via SMS with someone and can't remember what was said a few messages back, you'll have to back to the inbox and open each previous message individually to find it. This can be a bit of a pain, but this was the same on comparison phones like the Nokia 5310 and LG Chocolate 3.
A new SMS message
You can easily move between the different standard folders (Outbox, Drafts, Sent, etc.) in the Messaging main menu, though you can't create any new folders to organize your messages any further. Moving between fields in a new message is as easy as using the D-pad to move up or down, and it's all intuitive. The soft menu keys are logically labeled so you can easily find additional options easily. Overall, the W350 messaging functions are quite easy to use with no obscure menus or layers to add unnecessary complexity.
The W350's Messaging menu
Time to a New SMS Message (5.07)
To see how easy it is to create a new SMS, we time how long it takes to go from the phone in the closed, unlocked state to the moment a new message dialogue box comes up. By default out of the box, the up button on the W350's D-pad is a shortcut to the new message menu in the Messaging application, so getting there quickly is a breeze. Then, it's simply a matter of pressing the D-pad's select button to choose to create a new SMS/MMS. This took us an average of 1.97 seconds, so those with urgent texting needs should be pretty satisfied with the W350. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
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