Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A pretty good medium priced slick mp3 phone - W380, June 21, 2009
The W380 is a cool looking slick modern phone. It is Sony's answer to the best selling Motorola RAZR V3 series.
-MP3 player very convenient to control.
-Reasonable price.
-Digital camera is 1.3 megapixels, which is enough if they used a better ccd or cmos. The picture quality is not very good.
-LCD screen is very bright and colorful. Screen is a bit small.
-The Case is plasticky. Not metallic like the RAZR . Looks really exquisite and detailed(especially whe you open it) but does not feel luxurious. The paint is very durable. I put it in my pocket for 7 months and it still looks new.
-The gesture control is a total gimmick and is useless. The buttons on the exterior are easy to accidentaly press.
-Sony's typical easy to navigate interface.
-The worse speakerphone I have seen. A cheap Motorola W181 blows the doors off this sony.
-Battery life is mediocre at 1 or 2 days depending amount of use.
-Charging takes a few hours.
-Supplied headphones/earbuds pretty good for music (big bass and sizzling highs)and phone calls(loud and clear). Cord detaches and you can connect your own headphones too.
-bluetooth
I put in an extra Sony M2 flash card for mp3 which works out pretty good. I got the electric purple one which costs a little more in some areas. 6 months after using I lost the charger and bought an after market one and very soon there is no sound from the speaker for the ear(speakerphone speaker still working) and no sound going into the headphones/earbuds. I was told it's some internal wiring problem. I got it fixed and it's fine now still using the aftermarket charger. Notice that the other reviewer noticed somewhat similar problems.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Happy With My Purchase, April 16, 2009
I just purchased this unlocked Sony Ericsson W380a to replace an LG Shine that I got by contract. Calling and SMS (text) worked right away after inserting my GSM chip and powering on. If you use picture mailing, internet, e-mail, then the Sony website support is very good in that the proper settings can be sent to your phone (just need to enter your country, carrier, phone number) and all you have to do is to say yes when you receive the settings and it asks if you want to install the settings on your phone. The only one I personally got was the MMS settings and it went fine.
One big reason that I wanted a different phone was due to the Shine's weak battery life. So far I have been toying with my phone alot and believe that the battery on this Sony will be much better, but that remains to be seen. I am glad that I got this US version because it has a US plug and I don't have to fuss with attaching an international to US adaptor when I charge the phone. I would rate the call quality as good while the LG Shine did have better call quality that I would rate as very good.
Likes: Modern minimalist design, light weight, smallish form factor, loud ringtones (I missed a lot of calls due to LG Shine's ringing was not loud enough), very customizable, can use MP3's as your ringtone, easy to use software whereby you can drag and drop music/pictures/video when your phone is connected to your computer via the included usb cable, has radio although you have to use earphones and you must use the included adaptor to attach a standard 2.5mm earphone plug to the phone, good music playing functionality (hey its a Walkman phone), scratches and fingerprints due not show well
Dislikes: No video!, only 1.3 megapixel camera with no flash, battery cover is only thin plastic although you can't really tell when it is attached on the phone, the "hidden" display which lights up when you touch the music controls on the outside of phone is almost impossible to see in the bright sun, the buttons in the phone are kind of too flat
As you can see I like a lot more things about this phone than I dislike. This is my first Sony Ericsson phone and after my experience with this phone, it will definately not be my last. I highly recommend this product.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not so happy, May 5, 2009
I was really happy with my new cellphone, its performance was good, loved those external controls for music, the wap connection, the headset, everything was perfect. But in less than 7 months owning it, it started to do weird things, the speaker stopped working at all and the software started failing during the start up, so I couldn't use it anymore. Now a guy is fixing it and he told me he has some others W380 waiting to be fixed because of the same problems.
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