Home > Reviews > Manufacturer > Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone Review

Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone Review

Alfredo Padilla Published on September 24, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

The W580i is one of Sony Ericsson's line of Walkman-branded handsets. These music focused phones are popular globally, but few of them have made it to the United States. The W580i is one of the few that has, carried by AT&T. And it's a good pick for the carrier; it provides a decent set of media features that is on par with many more expensive handsets. True to its Walkman billing, the W580i's music player does a very good job, but it didn't last that long playing back music; we measured the battery life at 5 hours and 32 minutes. That's enough for everyday use, but is significantly shorter than other phones. Video playback was also a disappointment; the screen is too small for comfortable viewing, and the controls are awkward to use. The 2-megapixel camera takes decent photos, but the audio quality in calls could have been better. We did find the interface to be surprisingly responsive, and we liked the capabilities of the Web browser, which is good enough for casual browsing.

The phone is small and cute, but feels plasticky, leading to concerns about its durability. The plastic case and exposed screen could both be easily scratched. We liked the W580i's integration of MMS and SMS, but the lack of an e-mail client and a small keypad that can be difficult to type on probably doesn't make this a good pick for big texters. Despite these drawbacks,  the W580i offers a lot of good features for the price; it is available for $79.99 from AT&T with a two-year contract after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Tour & Design - The W580i is a small and cute handset that suffers from a plasticky feel and concerns about durability.

Audio Quality - The W580i didn't perform the best in our audio tests, with some aberrant results in the sound received.

Imaging - The W580i's 2-megapixel camera does a reasonable job, although it is a little lacking in the feature department.

Making/Receiving Calls - The W580i is easy to use and provides a solid feature set for calls.

Messaging - The W580i is not a good messaging phone, lacking an e-mail client and with a small keypad that's difficult to type on.

Organizer - The W580i's organizer is very basic. Don't expect it to replace a PDA or smartphone.

Multimedia - The W580i has an excellent music player, but does less well in the video playback department.

Software - We found the W580i's operating system to be very responsive, and the browser was surprisingly well featured.

Battery Life - The W580i could have done better in battery life, with music playback time our biggest area of concern.

Connectivity - No 3G is a problem, but Bluetooth capabilities are very good.

Hardware - We would have liked to see a bigger screen, and we had problems with the keypad, but otherwise the phone is solid.

Other Features - You can use the W580i as a dial-up modem for your computer, but there is no GPS or PTT functionality.

Value & Comparisons - At $79.99 with a two-year contract, the W580i is an excellent value.

[page title="Tour & Design"]

Front Closed
From the front, the W580i's 2-inch display seems dwarfed by the surrounding casing. Below the display is the Walkman logo along with the directional pad, two soft keys, back, clear, Walkman, and browser keys. Above the display is the Sony Ericsson name with the phone speaker just above it.

Front Open
A smallish keypad is revealed when you open the W580i's slider, with orange plastic buttons in a white plastic casing.

Left
The left side of the phone has a volume rocker key near the top on the upper part of the slider.

Top
The top of the W580i houses the slot used for Sony's proprietary Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards. The slot is spring loaded and protected by a cover that is attached to the phone. You also see the power button on the top near the bottom left.

Bottom
The bottom of the handset has a small pinhole microphone on the right.

Right
The right side of the W580i houses the proprietary connector that is used for power, data, and headphones. There is no standard USB port, and no 2.5-mm or 3.5-mm headphone or headset socket, but an adapter is included that allows you to connect a standard pair of 3.5-mm headphones. This also includes a microphone that turns a standard set of headphones into a headset.

Back
The back of the W580i has the battery cover with the Sony Ericsson logo on it. Above the battery cover is the Walkman logo.

Back Open
When the handset is opened the 2-megapixel camera is revealed on the back. We like the fact that the camera is protected when the phone is closed.

Battery Out
When you remove the battery cover you reveal the 930 mAh battery. You will need to remove the battery to access the SIM card slot, which is slightly hidden at the top right of the battery slot.

In the Box (6.5)
The W580i ships with a good selection of accessories, including a charger, USB cable, adaptor for 3.5mm headsets and a set of in-ear stereo headphones. A 256MB Memory Stick Micro (M2) memory card is also included. We were also pleased to see Sony Ericsson's PC Suite software for synchronizing data and media between your phone and PC. Compared to the dearth of accessories we've seen recently from phones like the Razr2, we appreciate having almost everything you need in the package, although those who want to use the phone as their main music playback device will probably want to invest in a larger memory card.

Handling (5.0)
The W580i is a small phone, measuring 3.9 x 1.8 x 0.5 inches and weighing in at a light 3.3 ounces. This makes it easy to hold up to your head during long calls. When closed, the controls are located low on the phone, which means you have to hold it along the lower end, but the light weight makes this fairly comfortable. We liked the "lip" on the bottom of the handset where it curves back, as this makes it easier to open the phone. Those with large hands may find the controls and keypad a little too small. It's not the most ergonomic phone ever, but there are no glaring deficiencies in handling either; it fits comfortably in the hand.

Portability (9.0)
The W580i is an eminently portable handset due to its small size and weight. It's not as slim as the Helio Fin or the Razr2 V9m, but it's not fat. It should fit comfortably into all but the tightest pants and any jacket or bag. We were very happy with the W580i's portability. Our only issue is that you have to use the included adapter with the headphones, which ruins the design and makes it less portable; putting a 3.5-mm socket right into the phone would have been preferable.

Aesthetics (6.0)
The W580i is a difficult phone to peg in terms of aesthetics. Some will love it, others will hate it. Like most Walkman-branded handsets, the W580i has orange highlights. Now, we happen to like the color orange, but others may find it garish. Thankfully the orange is tastefully underdone here, unlike on the W600i. The black casing that covers the AT&T version of the W580i gives it a nice understated look despite the orange highlights, and it's even vaguely professional looking. The W580i is "cute" rather than "sexy." Sony Ericsson has gone a bit overboard when it comes to adding lights to the phone; there are a variety of multicolored LEDS in the body that can be set to blink in a number of ways when a call comes in. We've produced a short video showing these color effects here.

Durability (3.0)
Like the Samsung Blast, another slider phone, the W580i feels plasticky and a little cheap. We certainly expect the handset to get scratched up fairly easily. Any phone that has moving parts like the W580i also causes us concern, and the flimsy plastic construction of the W580i makes us worry more than we normally would. We would be very concerned about how long this phone holds up under heavy use.

[page title="Audio Quality"]

For any phone, the most important feature is the quality of the audio sent and received during a phone call. If it fails in this most basic respect any additional features will likely be overlooked. So, we test phone's audio performance using industry standard professional equipment and software. To simulate the human head, torso, and ear we use a head and torso simulator (HATS), and to analyze the quality of the audio we use SoundCheck, a high-end electroacoustic analysis package. For more information on our testing methods check out this article on how we test.

Sound Receive Frequency Response (7.65)
The chart above shows the frequency response of sound received by the W580i during a call. This is a measure of how people on the other end of the call sound to you. The blue line represents the W580i's performance, while the red lines are the limits against which we test. The ideal phone would track right down the middle of our limits, and you can see above the W580i does not do this. Instead what we see is a  trough right in the middle of the frequency range and a large peak right above it. What this means is that the midrange frequencies of the human voice will be suppressed, while the higher frequencies will be exaggerated. This means voices may sound rather thin and reedy, so the W580i gets a pretty low score in this test. It gets the lowest score among our comparison phones except for the Razr2, which did slightly worse.

Cell Phone	Sony Ericsson W580i	Helio Fin (on Helio)	Razr2 V9m (Sprint) (on Sprint)
Score	7.65	9.33	7.48
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	Samsung Upstage (on Sprint)	LG Chocolate VX8550 (on Verizon)	Samsung Blast (on T-Mobile)
Score	8.34	8.27	8.85
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Sound Send Frequency Response (6.17)
In this test we measure the quality of sound sent by the W580i. This is how you will sound to the person on the other end of the call. The chart above again tracks the W580i's performance with a blue line, while the two red lines identify the limits we test against. As you can see the W580i performed reasonably well across most frequencies, with only minor deviations from the limits. It fell off very quickly at the end, however. This means high voices may sound clipped. This deviation had a serious negative impact on the W580i's score.

Cell Phone	Sony Ericsson W580i	Helio Fin (on Helio)	Razr2 V9m (Sprint) (on Sprint)
Score	6.17	8.25	7.16
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	Samsung Upstage (on Sprint)	LG Chocolate VX8550 (on Verizon)	Samsung Blast (on T-Mobile)
Score	7.36	8.06	5.56
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Handset Side Tone (9.23)
Side tone is the small amount of your own voice that is piped back into your ear during a call. This is meant to allow you to judge how loud you are talking. If this is too low you will speak louder to compensate, with the opposite true if side tone is too high. The W580i's average side tone was 18.77 decibels, which is right around the 18 decibels we test against. Side tone is right where we want it.

Cell Phone	Side tone Measurement	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	18.77	9.23
Helio Fin	21.25	6.75
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	17.31	9.31
Samsung Upstage	21.9	6.10
LG Chocolate VX8550	17.85	9.85
Samsung Blast	19.56	8.44

[page title="Imaging"]

Resolution (6.35)
To test the resolution of the W580i's 2-megapixel camera we took a series of photos of an industry standard resolution chart. These photos were then run through the Imatest software, which measures how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they start blurring together. This is measured as line widths per pixel height (lw/ph).
The W580i measured 1195 lw/ph horizontal and 960 lw/ph vertical. This is a very good score. Even phones like the Helio Fin with its 3-megapixel camera did significantly worse on this test than the W580i. We were very pleased with the W580i's performance in this test, although we should note that it compares poorly with a dedicated digital camera, most of which score 1500 lw/ph or higher these days.

Cell Phone	Sony Ericsson W580i	Helio Fin	Razr2 V9m (Sprint)
Score	6.35	2.77	3.22
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1195 / 960	790.1 / 866.5	851.2 / 1031
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	Samsung Upstage	LG Chocolate VX8550	Samsung Blast
Score	1.94	1.69	0.68
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	678.9 / 547.1	616.8 / 569.5	392.1 / 345.6
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Color (5.61)
To test the quality of colors captured by the W580i's camera we take photos of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart in carefully calibrated lighting conditions. The resulting photos are run through Imatest, which compares the 24 different captured colors to the original colors on the chart.
Imatest produces the chart above, where the ideal colors are in the small rectangle, the same colors adjusted for luminance are in the surrounding box, and the captured color in the outer box. Imatest also produces the chart below.
This chart marks the ideal colors with a square and the camera's captured color with a circle. The longer the line between these two points, the more inaccurate the camera. The W580i's camera didn't do a great job in this test, with some problems in almost all colors, particularly yellows and reds. Thankfully most of the inaccuracies were minor, and the overall color accuracy was decent for a cell phone, which results in a decent score for the W580i.

Cell Phone	Sony Ericsson W580i	Helio Fin	Razr2 V9m (Sprint)
Score	5.61	5.94	4.84
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	Samsung Upstage	LG Chocolate VX8550	Samsung Blast
Score	3.85	4.69	4.48
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Noise (0.36)
To see how much noise is present in photos produced by a cell phone's camera we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels. These photos are then run through Imatest and the amount of noise produced is measured. The W580i did not perform well in this test. Although the amount of noise produced at the three brightest lighting levels wasn't too bad, it was inconsistent. At the lowest lighting level noise levels shot up, producing one of the worst scores we've seen. The result of this is a rather poor score, as we judge not only the level of noise but also consistency in our final score. As you can see below, the W580i put up the worst score among our comparison phones.

Cell Phone	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	0.36
Helio Fin	1.46
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	1.00
Samsung Upstage	1.45
LG Chocolate VX8550	1.27
Samsung Blast	1.44

Live Preview (5.0)
The W580i's live preview does a good job of reproducing colors, with few artifacts when panning and a reasonable level of detail. The problem is that the live preview only uses up a little more than half the screen, with the rest assigned to controls and indicators. Because the W580i has a small screen to start with, your viewfinder ends up being postage stamp-sized. We much prefer phones like the Razr2 that use the entire screen as the viewfinder.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (7.41)
This test measures how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have captured a photo. We repeat this test until we start to get reproducible results. The W580i took 2.7 seconds to capture a photo from standby. This is a decent time. What's more impressive is that many of our comparison phones have a shortcut to the camera while the W580i does not. Instead, you have to go through the menu system. The W580i puts up such a good score despite this handicap because the camera launches very quickly, while some other phones take quite awhile for the camera to launch.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	2.70	7.41
Helio Fin	6.20	3.23
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	4.10	4.88
Samsung Upstage	2.70	7.41
LG Chocolate VX8550	2.36	8.47
Samsung Blast	3.75	5.33

Shot to Shot Time (8.10)
Shot to shot time is a measure of how quickly you can take a series of photos. When possible we use a Burst mode, and the W580i does have a mode that allows you to take four photos in quick succession. It should be noted, however, that when using Burst mode on the W580i your photos are taken at the much lower VGA resolution instead of the full 2 megapixels the camera is capable of. If you're willing to live with this, the W580i can take four photos in 1.46 seconds, which works out to 2.7 frames per second (fps). This is an excellent score. However, if you need the photos at full resolution be prepared to see this performance drop significantly. In our test it went from 2.7 fps to 0.6 fps.

Cell Phone	FPS	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	2.7	8.10
Helio Fin	0.19	0.57
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	0.84	2.51
Samsung Upstage	0.20	0.60
LG Chocolate VX8550	0.38	1.14
Samsung Blast	2.11	6.33

Shutter to Shot Time (16.67)
Shutter to shot time measures how long it takes the phone to actually capture a photo once you've pressed the shutter button. We repeat this test until we get a consistent result for our score. The W580i took 0.12 seconds to capture a photo. This is a very good score, and the W580i blows away all of our comparison phones. This is an example of the fast interface we've seen throughout the W580i, and the quick camera response means you may even be able to capture some action shots with the W580i.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	0.12	16.67
Helio Fin	0.60	3.33
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	0.38	5.26
Samsung Upstage	0.30	6.67
LG Chocolate VX8550	0.22	9.09
Samsung Blast	0.35	5.71

Interface (3.0)
The W580i's interface is different from many phones we've recently reviewed. The trend in the industry seems to be to use the entire screen as a viewfinder, with icons overlaid and menu systems resembling a digital camera. The W580i's camera interface is primitive in comparison; the viewfinder is postage stamp-sized and takes up the middle of the screen. The left soft key is assigned to capture, while the right soft key opens a menu to access additional options. At the top you see tabs that indicate whether you are in Still or Video Capture mode, and you can easily switch between the two using left and right on the directional pad. To the right of this is an indicator showing the resolution setting, where you are saving photos, and how many photos you can capture. At the very top is another bar that displays brightness and zoom settings. Brightness is controlled using up and down on the volume keys, while zoom is controlled using up and down on the d-pad. Overall, we found the interface fairly easy to use, but feel there is a lot of wasted space here. We think Sony Ericsson could have done better to create a more elegant and usable interface.

Photo Album Software Internal (4.0)
The W580i's photo album software is similar to that found on most phones. You have a 3 x 3 grid of thumbnails that thankfully load very quickly when the software is launched. The left soft key is assigned to view the selected photo, a function also fulfilled by the center select key. The right soft key opens a menu where you can access various additional functions. As we saw in the camera interface, the W580i's album software doesn't make great use of the screen real estate. The thumbnails only use about half the screen, with a large bar at the top to show you information about the date and time the photo was captured. Although this is nice information, it takes up a large amount of space. Combined, it's a lot of wasted space and makes the thumbnails tiny. Worse, when you open the photo it leaves large black bars above and below, although at least here the left soft key allows you to view the photo in landscape view. There are also a couple of nice extras here, such as a time line view that allows you to organize photos based on when they were taken. Overall, the album software is adequate, but we've seen better.

Manual Control (1.0)
The W580i does not provide much in terms of manual controls. There is no manual white balance or more advanced options like a Shutter Priority mode. There is a single Scene mode available for panoramas, but that's about it.

Zoom (0.0)
The W580i has a digital zoom, however it is not available when taking photos at the full 2-megapixel resolution. Digital zoom is of limited utility under the best circumstances, but is rendered completely useless when you can't use it at the camera's full resolution. As such we won't be awarding any points in this section.

Focus (0.0)
The W580i's camera is fixed focus, which is standard for cell phones. Some phones are now shipping with auto focus cameras that can improve the quality of the photos you take at the cost of speed, as they take time to make sure the scene is in focus. We do not award points for fixed focus cameras.

Flash (0.0)
The W580i does not have a flash.

Metering (2.0)
The W580i has brightness controls, however it lacks any true metering controls. Metering allows you to control from which point or points in the scene lighting is judged. We have started seeing basic metering controls on some phones lately, but not here.

White Balance (2.0)
The W580i has white balance presets available for Daylight, Cloudy, Florescent, and Incandescent light, plus the Auto setting, as is common on cell phone cameras. There are no advanced white balance settings like Evaluative white balance, however.

Image Handling (6.0)
The W580i has a photo editing program available via the album called PhotoDJ. This program provides a very nice selection of image handling options such as adjusting levels, light balance, brightness and contrast, and removing red-eye. These tools are far beyond what most cell phones allow you to do, which is usually just adding a caption and perhaps rotating the image. This is a definite plus, as it allows for some editing of images before e-mailing them.

Video

Overall Video Score (2.5)
The W580i can only capture video at a maximum resolution of 176 x 144. This doesn't make for very good video quality; we found videos showed serious pixelation and poor color fidelity. Panning doesn't produce too many artifacts, however. Overall, the video is really only useful for watching on a small cell phone screen; watch it on your computer or TV and it will become a blurry mess.

Video Resolution (1.32)
To measure the resolution of video captured by the W580i's camera we took video of the same resolution chart we use for the stills resolution test. We then run frames from the video through Imatest to produce a line widths per pixel height (lw//ph) score, which measures how many alternating white and black lines can be discerned before they start blurring together. The W580i did not perform well in this test, scoring 122 lw/ph horizontal and 108 lw/ph vertical. This is one of the worst scores we've seen from any phone; only the Upstage did worse in this test. As we mentioned above, the video camera on the W580i is only useful for sending an occasional video as an MMS message.

Cell Phone	lw/ph horizontal/vertical	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	122 / 108	1.32
Helio Fin	214.1 / 217.7	4.66
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	342.5 / 351.4	12.04
Samsung Upstage	77.11 / 109.5	0.84
LG Chocolate VX8550	218.3 / 200.8	4.38
Samsung Blast	107.1 / 129.2	1.38

Video Compression (2.0)
The W580i captures video in 3GP format, with no option to capture video in any other format.

Interface (2.0)
The video capture interface on the W580i is very similar to the stills capture. This means there's a lot of wasted real estate, as the window for viewing what you're capturing only uses about half the screen. The rest is taken up by indicators and controls, which frankly take up far more space than they deserve. We would have much preferred to see an interface that used the whole screen for the viewfinder. That being said, options are fairly easy to find and use, although we still don't recommend taking video using the W5801.

Manual Control (0.0)
The W580i's video camera doesn't have any manual controls.

Zoom (1.0)
There is a 4x digital zoom available on the W580i's video camera. However, since digital zoom just crops and enlarges what you're seeing and the W580i captures video at such a low resolution, you'll find the quality of your video suffers greatly when you use the digital zoom.

Editing (2.0)
The W580i has a program called VideoDJ that can be used to string videos together to create a longer video. You can also add a soundtrack or insert text or pictures between the videos. Due to the terrible quality of video captured by the W580i, however, this is more of a gimmick than anything else. Hey, at least it's there.

Modes (2.0)
The only mode offered by the W580i is a separate mode for capturing MMS video. Given this is all the W580i's video camera is good for it's nice to see it there. Of course you shouldn't be fooled by the "High Quality Video" mode, which gives terrible results.

[page title="Making/Receiving Calls"]

Dialing Speed (5.46)
To test how easy it is to dial a phone number on the W580i we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have dialed each of five different test numbers. We take the average time of these tests for our score. The W580i took an average of 3.66 seconds to dial a number. This is a solid time, but not great. It was the slowest of our comparison phones, but not by a significant amount. We found the number keys a little small, and as they are recessed between two "lips" we found our fingers bumping up against them. Our hands are a little on the small side, and we can imagine those with larger fingers might find the keypad much harder to use.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	3.66	5.46
Helio Fin	3.64	5.49
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	3.58	5.59
Samsung Upstage	3.38	5.92
LG Chocolate VX8550	2.96	6.76
Samsung Blast	3.36	5.95

Talk and End Buttons (2.0)
Because Sony Ericsson doesn't have very many handsets in the U.S., many probably aren't familiar with one of Sony Ericsson's signature features; the lack of dedicated send and end buttons. Instead of having separate keys, these functions are fulfilled by the soft keys, which dynamically change their functions depending upon the situation. So, for example, when you dial a number the left soft key is assigned to the call function, and once you're in a call the same left soft key is assigned to the end function. This may be confusing to those who are used to dedicated buttons, and we didn't like that the soft keys are pretty far away from the keypad, but aside from these issues the system works just fine. That being said, we do think that there is value in having dedicated buttons for send and end, so we are not giving the W580i the full points we would normally give in this section.

Call Management (6.0)
When on the home screen the left soft key takes you to your call history. This is divided into tabs, with the first default tab showing all calls and the other tabs showing incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. Each tab shows a chronological list of calls, displaying the phone number dialed. The currently selected item also shows the date and time of the call. The left soft key is assigned to call the currently highlighted item, while the right soft key opens a menu that provides additional functions. Data counters can be found in the phone settings, as well as total call timers and a message counter.
During a call the right soft key is assigned to end the call and the left soft key opens a menu with additional options. These options include the ability to turn the speaker phone on and off, add a call for conference calling, place the call on hold, or enable the mute function. The W580i also supports multi-tasking, so you can access other phone functions like your calendar and contacts while on a call. We found the call management feature set on the W580i to be fairly standard, with nothing that stands out, but nothing important missing, either.

Startup to Call (5.15)
To find out how quickly you can turn your phone on and make a call we time how long this process takes. We do five repetitions of this test and take the average for our score. The W580i took an average of 19.42 seconds to complete this process. As you can see below this is a fairly speedy time. It's even better when you consider that during the startup process you are prompted whether you want to start up in online or offline mode, an extra step most handsets don't require. We were pleased with how quickly the W580i started up.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	19.42	5.15
Helio Fin	28.18	3.55
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	37.90	2.64
Samsung Upstage	28.90	3.46
LG Chocolate VX8550	22.37	4.47
Samsung Blast	21.48	4.66

Ring Volume (8.55)
To test ring volume we set the phone volume to maximum and measure how loud the ringtone gets using a sound pressure meter from a few inches away. The W580i's ring volume measured 85.5 decibels in our test. This is fairly standard, with most phones falling within a decibel of this score. The exception is the Sprint Upstage, which scored significantly lower. The ring volume should be sufficient to hear in most situations, even loud ones; although we admit you may miss a call if you're at a Metallica concert.

Cell Phone	Volume (decibels)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	85.5	8.55
Helio Fin	85.6	8.56
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	84.7	8.47
Samsung Upstage	81.0	8.10
LG Chocolate VX8550	85.4	8.54
Samsung Blast	85.5	8.55

Ringtone Customizability (6.5)
We were very happy to see the W580i supports using your own music files as ringtones. This means any WMA, AAC, or MP3 song loaded to your device can be used as a ringtone, either for general calls or assigned to an individual. This is a great option, as most phones require you to pay the additional $2 to $3 for additional ringtones. In addition, you can also use videos as ringtones, either ones you have taken on the phone itself or those you create on your computer. You cannot edit music on the phone, but that's a minor issue, and we were very happy with the W580i's capabilities in this area.

Non Audio Alerts (3.0)
The W580i has several non audio alerts. First of all is the vibrate alert, which we must say isn't very impressive. We were barely able to feel it in our hand, much less in a pocket. In addition, the W580i has lots of blinking lights, which light up in a pattern when a call is incoming. Frankly, this is nothing more than a curiosity. The screen also lights up and shows you information about the incoming call, as is standard, but as always you must be looking at the screen when a call comes in for it to be of any use. Overall we didn't find the non audio alerts on the W580i to be very good.

[page title="Messaging"]

Supported Email Services (0.0)
The W580i from AT&T uses a Java-based e-mail client with access to several popular services including Yahoo!, Windows Live!, and AOL.  Other serives that support the POP3 standard can also be used, but you'll have to enter the server details yourself. Although better than the purely Web-based e-mail we've seen on a lot of handsets, this e-mail system suffers from the same fatal flaw; you can't use it while offline. This means you can't look at your e-mails and write out a response while on the subway or a flight. As such we will not be awarding points for the e-mail client on the W580i. It should be noted that the unlocked version of the W580i does have a true e-mail client, albeit a basic one, so this is clearly a feature AT&T decided to remove.

Push E-mail (0.0)
No e-mail client.

Multiple E-mail Accounts (0.0)
No e-mail client.

HTML and Attachments (0.0)
No e-mail client.

E-mail Customizations (0.0)
No e-mail client.

Time to a New Message (0.0)
No e-mail client.

E-mail Auto Complete on Address (0.0)
No e-mail client.

E-mail Usability (0.0)
No e-mail client.

Supported IM Services (0.0)
The W580i has AT&T's standard IM client, with access to popular services like AIM, Windows Live! Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger. However, because this service charges users a text message for every IM sent or received, we do not award points for it. We feel instant messaging is a data-based service and should be charged as such instead of the exorbitant rates carriers charge for text messages.

MMS Support (8.0)
The W580i has very good MMS support. Eschewing the typical approach of having separate interfaces for MMS and SMS messaging, the W580i has a single interface where you can compose any type of message you want. We find this to be a very elegant solution and applaud AT&T for taking this approach. There is also a single unified inbox for all SMS/MMS messages and MMS is integrated well into the camera and album. We really liked the MMS support on this handset.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (10.0)
The W580i impressed us with small details, and this was one of them. On most handsets smiley faces are left in text format, but the W580i turns them into graphics, making for a much more ... smiley experience. We were also happy to see you can easily insert smiley faces into outgoing messages without needing to type the symbol out.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
The SMS/MMS interface on the W580i is fairly straightforward. The Messaging menu has the folders for SMS/MMS messages, which are shared. When you enter the inbox you have a list of messages in chronological order, and you can control how much detail is shown in this list in the settings. You do have to back out to the Main menu to switch to another folder, however. When you compose a new message you can easily send it to individual contacts or a contact group. We already raved about the universal interface above, but let's explain a little more. When you create a new SMS/MMS message you are shown an interface with a large writing area and a few icons along the bottom. These icons allow you to easily attach media. The right soft key in the interface opens a menu where you can get access to a Symbol menu, copy and paste functions, and edit the layout and access templates, among other functions. We found the interface very full featured but still easy to use. This is what an SMS/MMS interface should look like.

Time to a New SMS Message (6.49)
To see how quickly we could create a new text message on the W580i we timed how long it took to go from the home screen until we had a new text message interface on the screen. We repeated this test five times and took the average for our score. The W580i took a quick 1.54 seconds to get to a new text message interface. This is very good, with only the Blast posting a faster time than the W580i. We were helped in this process by the fact that "up" on the d-pad when on the home screen is a shortcut to a menu that allows you to choose a new text message, obviating the need to go through the Main menu system.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	1.54	6.49
Helio Fin	3.40	2.94
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	3.52	2.84
Samsung Upstage	1.70	5.88
LG Chocolate VX8550	2.61	3.83
Samsung Blast	1.35	7.41

[page title="Organizer"]

Synchronization (0.0)
The W580i does support synchronization of your PIM information with a PC using Sony Ericsson's PC Suite software. Unfortunately, the phone doesn't ship with this software. Instead you will need to download it from this site. Because we only award points for features included in the box, the W580i will receive zero in this section.

The above mentioned PC Suite software allows you to sync files, calendar entries, and contacts with Microsoft Outlook. PC Suite only works with Microsoft Outlook by default; other programs and information managers are not supported. Again, because it is not included with the phone, we don't award points here.

Alerts (7.0)
You can create alerts on the W580i for calendar appointments and tasks. The options when you create an alert are pretty good, with a list of presets available or the option to choose "other reminder," which allows you to specify the date and time the alert goes off. When an alert sounds you can view the item, dismiss it, or snooze it. Choosing snooze gives you several snooze options, which is a great feature we don't often see outside the smartphone realm. We were quite pleased with how flexible and powerful the alerts on the W580i are.

Over the Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The W580i does not support over the air synchronization of your PIM information.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (4.40)
To see how easy it is to add contacts to the W580i we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have added a new contact name and phone number. We repeat this process for five different test contacts and take the average for our score. The W580i took 22.74 seconds to add a contact. This is an average time; it's comparable to other phones, although the slowest amongst this particular group. We found the interface for adding a contact required a few too many clicks for our taste, and the small keypad on the W580i slowed us down a bit.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	22.74	4.40
Helio Fin	22.02	4.54
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	20.74	4.82
Samsung Upstage	21.30	4.69
LG Chocolate VX8550	20.50	4.88
Samsung Blast	19.45	5.14

Looking/Sorting/Search (4.0)
The W580i allows you to sort your contacts by first or last name, although this option is buried pretty deep in the menus. Contacts are sorted by first name by default. You can also organize contacts into groups, although to view the groups you again need to go a couple of levels into the menu system, which isn't very convenient. Searching for contacts is done using multi-tap, requiring you to type out a name. The search function only works with the name that is being used for the sort. For example, Joe Bob sorted by first name could only by searched for by typing out Joe, not Bob. We found the search functionality to be a little truncated; we wish more handset makers would start using predictive search functions, such as those found on Windows Mobile phones.

Fields (3.6)
When you create a new contact on the W580i you have a good selection of fields to choose from. Thankfully they are organized into tabs, so if all you want is a name and phone number they're right at the front, with other fields nicely hidden away until you need them. A total of 18 fields are available, including up to five phone numbers per contact. These include features like setting custom lighting effects when a call from that contact comes in, a notes field for miscellaneous information, and birthdays. This is a better selection of fields than most regular phones offer.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (4.67)
The W580i supports speed dial and voice tags. Voice tags allow you to record a contact name that is then recognized for voice dialing. It tends to be much more accurate than voice command, which tries to guess what you're saying. The W580i does not include voice command software.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (7.12)
To see how easy it is to add an appointment to the W580i's calendar, we timed how long it took to go from the home screen until we had added a simple lunch appointment for the following day with a reminder 15 minutes beforehand. We repeated this test five times and took the average time for our score. The W580i took an average of 14.04 seconds to add our test appointment. This is a pretty good time. It's nowhere near as fast as we were able to manage with the LG Chocolate, but as fast as the Fin and significantly faster than our other comparison handsets. We found ourselves getting a good time despite the calendar program being buried in the menu system because we were able to make good use of the keypad shortcuts to avoid scrolling through program lists. We also liked that when you have set a field on the W580i it automatically moves you to the next field, which also reduces the number of key presses required to enter an appointment.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	14.04	7.12
Helio Fin	14.10	7.09
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	27.18	3.68
Samsung Upstage	26.46	3.78
LG Chocolate VX8550	6.48	15.43
Samsung Blast	26.46	3.78

Calendar Views (2.56)
The W580i's calendar application has the three basic views you see from most phones: monthly, weekly, and daily. The monthly view displays the current month with the current day highlighted by a box, and all days that have calendar appointments are bolded. Unlike some phones, like the Razr2, the W580i does not provide any information about the appointments on a given day in the monthly view. The weekly view is similarly stark, with just a standard grid with days along the top and time along the left.  Appointments block out the areas they are scheduled. Again, there is no way to get information about the appointment unless you actually go to the daily view, which is where you will probably spend most of your time if you actually use the calendar application.

Daily	Monthly	Weekly

The daily view is a simple list of all the appointments on that day in chronological order. At the top of the list is a shortcut to create a new appointment. Each appointment shows the title, start, and end time, but there are no indicators for functions like reminders. There is no support in any of the views for filtering or sorting your appointments. Overall, we found the calendar views on the W580i to be extremely simple. The monthly view is really only useful to look up a date, the weekly view is almost completely useless, and the daily view, despite some utility, is very simple. Anyone looking for a phone with a decent calendar program should probably look elsewhere.

Fields (3.0)
When you create an appointment in the W580i's calendar program you don't have very many fields to choose from. You enter a title, start time, appointment duration (you have to choose from presets), and reminder. There is no support for things like recurrence, all day events, location, or notes. Although we understand the W580i is not a PDA, we would have liked to have at least seen the ability to set recurrence for appointments that occur on a regular schedule.

To Do/Tasks

Adding To Do/Task (6.04)
To find out how easy it is to add a task to the W580i we timed how long it took to go from phone closed until we had added a test task reminding us to pick up groceries. We repeated this test five times and took the average for our score. The W580i took an average of 16.56 seconds to add a task. As you can see below this is about average. It's significantly faster than the Sprint Upstage, but slower than the Blast or Fin. We again used the keypad shortcuts to make the process faster and were helped by the extremely simple interface.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	16.56	6.04
Helio Fin	11.58	8.64
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	n/a - no tasks	0.00
Samsung Upstage	28.28	3.54
LG Chocolate VX8550	n/a - no tasks	0.00
Samsung Blast	14.53	6.88

To Do/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (0.0)
The W580i does not allow you to categorize or prioritize your tasks.

Fields (2.0)
When you create a new task on the W580i all you can do is add a title and reminder. There is no support for things like recurrence, categories, notes, or priority. Although this did speed up the amount of time it took us to create a task it's completely worthless for power users.

Notes

Adding Notes (4.17)
To see how easy it is to create text notes on the W580i we timed how long it took to go from the home screen until we had created a new note about a lunch appointment. We repeated this five times and took the average for our score. The W580i took 12 seconds to create a new note. Once again, we used keypad shortcuts and predictive text entry and were rewarded with one of the fastest times for creating notes we've seen on a regular phone.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	12.00	4.17
Helio Fin	15.30	3.27
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	15.22	3.29
Samsung Upstage	29.72	1.68
LG Chocolate VX8550	13.73	3.64
Samsung Blast	11.69	4.28

Note Interface (3.0)
The notes interface on the W580i is extremely simple. You are shown a list of notes in chronological order with the newest at the top. Above the notes is a shortcut to create a new note. When a note is highlighted in the list the left soft key opens it while the right soft key opens a menu where you can delete, send, edit, or have the note shown on your standby screen. This last feature is nice if you typed out something you want to remind yourself of constantly. There is no support for categorizing or sorting your notes.

Note Formatting (0.0)
There are no formatting options available in the W580i's notes program. You can't change font type, size, or style, nor can you add pictures or other media to notes.

Voice Memo (5.0)
The W580i has a simple voice recorder that is found in the entertainment folder rather than the organizer folder. When you launch the program it immediately starts recording. Once you have completed your recording, you hit the left soft key to save it and are then prompted to play it back. The right soft key in Playback mode opens a menu where you can see a list of recordings and delete, rename, or send the current recording. In the list view you have a few more options, like using the recording as a ringtone, alarm, or message alert. You can also move the recordings around in the file system. There didn't seem to be any limit on how long a voice note could be. We found the application to be fairly full featured, but the interface was a little clunky. It's also buried in the menus so you won't have quick one-button access to record a note, as found on some phones.

[page title="Multimedia"]

Accessing Music Software (12.82)
To see how quickly we can get music playing on the W580i we timed how long it takes to go from the home screen until we get a song playing. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The W580i was very fast, able to get a song playing in only 1.56 seconds. This speedy time is due to the lack of lag in launching the player, as well as the dedicated Walkman button. This time blows the competitors away. We were very pleased with how easy it was to access the music software on the W580i.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	1.56	12.82
Helio Fin	3.98	5.03
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	11.78	1.70
Samsung Upstage	6.54	3.06
LG Chocolate VX8550	2.04	9.80
Samsung Blast	2.61	7.66

Dedicated Music Controls (4.0)
The W580i's volume keys control music volume, and there is a dedicated Walkman button on the front of the phone that takes you to the music player. There are no other control keys, but this isn't an issue on the W580i because it launches the music player so quickly.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (7.8)
Sony Ericsson's Walkman line of cell phones are very popular globally. American consumers probably aren't aware of this because so few have made it to our shores. Their success has been driven by some very good music software, with a slick and usable interface. The W580i supports playlists, it recognized our standard .pls file, and also allows you to edit and create playlists on the device. Music tags were recognized for all three major file types: WMA, AAC, and MP3. Music can be sorted by artist, album, or title. There is no active search or rating support, however. Album art was not recognized for our test files, but visualization, automatic library updating, and background play are all on board. There is also an equalizer that has presets and allows you to manually set equalizer settings. We were very happy with the music software on the W580i, it's one of the best we've seen on any phone.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The W580i does not support direct downloads of songs to your phone over the air. This is mostly due to the lack of support for this feature from AT&T. They are adding an online music store soon, but it isn't currently supported in the W580i.

Streaming (0.0)
The W580i did not support any of the streaming audio services we tried, including streaming MP3, WMA, or Real Audio. The Walkman player has a section for online channels, but none were loaded. The MobiRadio application was also included on the handset, and it comes with a seven-day free trial, but after that you are charged $8.99 per month for the service. We only award points free streaming audio support, so the W580i does not receive any points here.

Podcast Support (0.0)
The W580i does not include any software to download or organize your podcasts.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The W580i can be used with the included USB cable to easily move music on and off of the device. It is recognized by computers as a mass storage device, and you can either drag and drop your files or use software like Windows Media Player to easily synchronize playlists and music over to the phone. Many phones support this feature, but few ship with the USB cable necessary to support it like the W580i does. You can also download Disc2Phone, Sony Ericsson's software for managing synchronization here.

Music Formats and DRM (4.0)
The W580i supports WMA, MP3, and AAC audio files. It also supports Microsoft's DRM protected music using PlaysForSure technology, so you can use it with music purchased from stores like Napster or Yahoo! Music. It doesn't support music purchased from the iTunes store.

Music Interruption (9.0)
The W580i handles calls during music playback very well. The music is immediately paused when the ringtone starts and resumes from the same spot when the call ends. We wish the music would fade out and in like on some phones, but otherwise were very happy with the functionality here.

Video

Video Software Access (5.85)
To see how easy it is to get a video playing on the W580i we timed how long it took to go from phone closed until a video played back. We repeated this test five times and took the average for our score. The W580i took an average of 3.42 seconds to get a video playing. This is a good score, but not great. It's much faster than the Razr2 or Upstage, but slower than the Blast and Chocolate and only slightly faster than the Fin. To watch a video on the W580i, go into the My Stuff section of the menu and choose videos from the list. Thankfully, pushing left on the d-pad while on the home screen takes you directly to My Stuff. Without this shortcut it takes a couple of seconds longer to get a video playing.

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Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Sony Ericsson W580i	3.42	5.85
Helio Fin	4.20	4.76
Razr2 V9m (Sprint)	11.8	1.69
Samsung Upstage	10.92	1.83
LG Chocolate VX8550	2.71	7.38
Samsung Blast