While the world falls deeply in love with smartphone, feature phones that specialise in a particular are still do well While the Sony Ericsson W395 won’t be a first choice for those seeking an iPhone alternative, it will certainly hope it can give an iPod a run for its money.
While it doesn’t boast a capacitive touch screen (or indeed any touch screen) the 2.2-inch display works very well as something that can be read even in bright sunlight. The device measures 96 by 47 by 14.9mm and is smaller than the Samsung BEAT, Nokia 5330 XpressMusic or the Motorola ROKR EM35 (all of which are music feature phones).
The phone appears to be made out of cheaper material to get a good price point, but it doesn’t feel cheap when in the hand. The shiny surface and plastic gloos gie the phone an appear. As usual, it has the proprietary port so if you want to add your own headphones you have to have a 3.5mm jack converter before it works. It also only accepts the Sony M2 memory format cards, which is located at the top of the phone.
The keypad is access via the slider and thumbing the pad is easy enough when dialling numbers or texting. It is very balanced and so can be easily used in one hand.
It has a 2-megapixel camera which seems a bit of an afterthought and less than others on the market. It lens s located by one of the two rear speakers on the phone. These speakers manage to give out a reasonable atempt at a full bass sound and not as tinny as we initially expected.
Overall, the phone is a great feature phone for those that don’t want a Blackberry or a new Windows Phone 6.5.
Rating: 7/10