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

Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone Review - Organizer

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

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.

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