Sony Ericsson W350 Cell Phone Review - Organizer
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Marianne Schultz Published on November 12, 2008 Comment on this |
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| The W350's organizer functions are very basic, which is not surprising in an inexpensive feature phone like this. It's good enough to keep a calendar with very few appointments and saving notes, tasks, and voice memos is quick and easy. There's not much in the way of formatting or searching for most of these items, but it will keep you on track if you keep a light schedule and aren't picky about organizing and prioritizing everything you save. | |
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Synchronization (0.0)
The W350 is capable of syncing its calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes with a computer through Sony Ericsson's PC Suite software, which is not included in the box with the W350 but can be downloaded from their site here. This software works on PCs only, and no guidance for Mac users is given in the User Guide, though iSync with an appropriate plug-in may work. Syncing is possible via USB, Bluetooth, or remotely through the internet, and the Sony Ericsson PC Suite will allow you to select common Windows PIM applications with which to sync, like Lotus Notes or Outlook.
When a phone does not come with synchronization software in the box, we do not evaluate it directly or award any points for it.
Alerts (2.5)
The W350's calendar is capable of alerts for upcoming events. Alerts are off by default when creating a new event, and when turned on, you can choose between the start of the event or any date and time of your choosing for the alert to sound. You cannot change the alert sound, and it will only vibrate with an alert if the global vibrate setting is on.
When an alert sounds, you are prompted to choose to view the alert or not. Choosing to view the alert brings you to a screen showing the details of the event. If you ignore or do not hear the alert and its corresponding on-screen prompt, it will stay there until you next use the phone, and will sound no more prompts.
Over-the-Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The W350 is capable of over-the-air syncing with an internet server and the Sony Ericsson PC Suite. This requires specific settings and an account with a service provider. Since this is done through software that is not included with the phone and requires manual set-up and internet service that is not free, we award no points for it.
Adding Contacts (5.54)
To see how easy it is to create a new contact, we time how long it takes to add a new one starting with the phone in the unlocked and closed position. On the W350, this took an average of 18.05 seconds with our standard test contacts, faster than its big brother, the Sony Ericsson W580i and the LG Chocolate 3. This could have been even faster for the W350 with one change - with the entry of a phone number for a contact, the next screen prompts you to enter what type of number it is - mobile, home, work, etc. You absolutely must select a type before you can save the contact, and this extra step adds a little more time for the W350 in this test. By default, the down button on the D-pad brings you straight to the contacts list - a handy shortcut that was used in this test. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Looking/Sorting/Search (3.50)
Contacts on the W350 are automatically sorted alphabetically by first name. Buried within the menu system is the option to switch this sorting to alphabetically by last name. You can search through contacts using multi-tap, but only by first or last name, depending on the sort order you have selected. You can create groups, intended to use when you want to send mass messages, but these groups cannot be searched, a missing feature that will negate the usefulness of groups on the W350 for some.
The W350's address book
Fields (4.0)
A new contact has 20 fields that can be filled, allowing a home and work address, web and email addresses, a birthday, and more to be entered. Information for contacts is shown by tabs, requiring tapping right and left on the D-pad to access them. In each tab, the left soft menu key provides the option to add additional fields in each tab so you can store multiple email addresses, phone numbers, etc. in their respective tabs. There are no customizable fields in any of the tabs.
A new contact
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (2.33)
Contacts on the W350 can be assigned to a maximum of 9 speed dial spots. Activating speed dial requires 2 presses - the number of the selected speed dial contact on the dial pad, and then the call button. The W350 has no voice tagging or voice dialing capability, unlike every other one of our comparison phones that all have some level of voice dialing capability. If you prefer voice dialing for situations where you need to be hands-free, the W350 is not for you.
Adding Calendar Items (7.93)
To see how easy it is to add a new calendar item, we time how long it takes to enter a standard event starting with the phone in the closed and unlocked state. On the W350, this took an average of 12.62 seconds, a time earning it the third-best score among our comparison phones, behind the Samsung M520 and LG Chocolate 3. Unless you're regularly in a big hurry, entering new events on the W350 won't take you long at all. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Calendar Views (3.0)
The W350's calendar offers 3 views: day, week, and month. The day isn't very useful unless you have an event scheduled, otherwise you see only a blank screen with a shortcut to add a new appointment at the top of the screen, though this is the only event where the ability to read event titles is possible.
Weekly view
The week view is the most useful to provide an overview of free and busy time. In the Calendar's menu, it is possible to change the start day of the week view to any day of the week, though it cannot be changed to anything other than a 7-day week. No individual event information is visible in the week view - scrolling through this view with the D-pad only scrolls through the days of the week and does not select any events where selecting them could show more information.
Month view
The month view is the least useful view in the calendar - it shows virtually no additional information about events during the month, aside from bold text for dates on which there is an event. Scrolling through a month with the D-pad allows you to select individual days, where selecting them brings you to the day view.
Single day view
The month view is the calendar's default view - if you choose to view a day or week, using the back button brings you back to the month view. There's no way to view calendar events by groups or categories since these cannot be assigned to events to begin with. The Calendar does have a find function where you can enter the start of an event's name via multi-tap or T9 predictive text entry and ask to search based on it, and search results are presented on the next screen. This is not as dynamic as the calendar search function on the Nokia 5310 where search results are narrowed down on the same screen as you type.
All in all, the W350 offers only basic calendar viewing and management that won't be able to keep up well with anyone who must juggle multiple appointments on a daily basis and closely manage their availability.
Fields (9.0)
The W350 offers a reasonable number of fields for calendar events, more than any of our comparison phones. When entering a new event, information is split into 2 tabs. The first tab is where the event's name, start time and date, duration, and reminder are set. One odd thing here is that an event's end time cannot be set specifically without going through a few more steps. When setting the duration of an event beyond the default 1/2 hour, you can choose from presets to that go from 1 to 4 hours. At the end of this list is an Other option where you can manually enter the exact end date and time of your choosing.
A new calendar event
The reminder for a new event is set to go off at 15 minutes before the event's start time by default. Like the duration field, you can choose between a number of presets ranging from the alert sounding right at the start of the event to 1 hour before the event and the last option in this list allows you to choose the exact reminder time and date of your choosing.
The second tab has fields for the event's location and description, and options to make it an all-day event and set its recurrence. The available recurrence options are daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, with no possibility to create any custom recurrences to set events that occur every other week or some other frequency interval.
Adding ToDo/Task (9.30)
To see how easy it is to enter tasks, we time how long it takes to enter a standard task starting with the phone in the closed and unlocked state. We enabled T9 text entry for this test since it was the fastest way to enter our test text. The W350 performed well here, posting the quickest time among our comparison phones, averaging 10.76 seconds. The only phone without a score in this section is the LG Chocolate 3 since it did not have a tasks application. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
To Do/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (0.0)
There are no options to sort tasks in any way at all. Tasks cannot be assigned a priority or group and are shown in the order of entry, with the most recently-added tasks at the top of the list.
The tasks one and only list view
Fields (4.0)
The W350's Tasks application offers 2 types of to-do items when creating a new one: Task or Phone Call. Creating a task will bring up a text field to enter the task's title. After this, a pop-up menu asks if a reminder should be set for this task. Selecting yes brings you to a screen where you can set the alert date and time for the task, and selecting no saves the task and goes back to the list view of all tasks.
A new task
When creating a Phone Call task, the first screen prompts you to enter the phone number that must be dialed. This number can be entered manually, selected from the contacts list, or pasted in when copied from another application or task. The next screen prompts for a subject of the phone call to be made. As with a Task, the last selection is the reminder alert, where selecting yes allows the exact date and time of the alert to be specified, and selecting no saves the Phone Call task immediately and returns you to the list view of all tasks.
Tasks or Phone Calls cannot be set to recur or assigned a priority or group. In addition to the fact that tasks cannot be sorted in any way at all in the main view, this makes for basic task management functionality overall.
Adding Notes (5.23)
To find out how easy it is to create a new note, we time how long it takes to enter a standard test note, starting with the phone in the closed and unlocked state. On the W350, it took an average time of 9.56 seconds to enter our test note, the fastest time out of all of our comparison phones. Here again, the LG Chocolate 3 did not have a notes application, so it did not receive a score in this area. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Note Interface (5.5)
The W350's notes interfaces is quite basic - there's no way to sort or prioritize notes in any way and they are simply listed with the most recent notes at the top of the list. Notes cannot be searched either - typing on the keypad does nothing whatsoever to get you through the list any faster. The More menu accessed via the right soft menu key offers options where the selected note can be sent in a message or via Bluetooth.
The one and only view of the Notes list
The only interesting thing that can be done with an individual note is to select to have it "Show in Standby" which places the text of the note on the home screen. This is at least one handy feature of the application to act as a reminder or data that will stay in front of you for as long as you like.
Note Formatting (0.0)
There isn't really any notes formatting to speak of on the W350. Beyond adding text in a note, you can use the More menu to add a symbols, including emoticons, or copy text from a note in edit mode for use in another application. That's it - the W350 earns no points in this area for editing abilities, just like all of its counterparts among our comparison phones.
A single note
Voice Memo (6.0)
The W350 has a Sound Recorder application in the Entertainment menu, though the quickest way to record a voice memo is to use the up button of the D-pad, which brings up a Write New menu where the second option is to create a voice message. This isn't quite one-touch recording, as you'd find on some smartphones, but it's not too bad. Recorded memos can be sent via Bluetooth or MMS or easily designated as the default ringtone, alarm signal, message alert, or as a ringtone for a specific contact. Recorded memos can also be copied, removed, or renamed on the device itself, and they can be searched using multi-tap but not sorted in any way.
Recording a voice memo
The only annoying thing about the voice memo application is that it begins recording immediately when you access it through the Entertainment folder in the Main Menu. While this gets you to recording quickly, you have to stop it first before you can access the menu to see a list of all recordings already saved. But we do like the flexibility to do so many things with saved recordings, so the W350 earns points here on par with the LG Chocolate 3 whose voice memo application has similar functionality.
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