Customer Reviews

Sony Ericsson W580i Unlocked Quadband Phone (Black)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is one awesome little phone. First of all the screen is the brightest and most detailed I have found on any phone. In the store it is so bright it just screams at you. I have found that reducing the brightness to 70% is more than adequate. If you have trouble reading a phone in direct sunlight, fear no more. As for features, there are just too many to mention. I first learned about it from the Toyota website as I just bought a Prius. It is one of the VERY few phones that will integrate seamlessly with the car. It can even upload its phone book via Bluetooth to the car. Most phones (except smart phones/PDA's) will not. They are also 3 times the price. It has a great sounding MP3 player. It is stereo Bluetooth, FM radio...I could go on and on. There are some great themes free online so you can customize away. If there was one gripe it would be that it doesn't come with an M2 memory card which it needs if you are going to load up on music and photos. I can't complain though as this phone is very affordable. Some complaints I have heard are that the number keys are too small. Well, I'm 6'2" and about 280lbs. (not a small guy) and I don't have any problem getting my fingers to work the buttons. The other complaint I have heard about is battery life. Well I have talked and talked and played with this thing for 3 days now, and the battery is still more than half. I'm not sure what people think is good, but after my RAZR...pffft...this thing is great. My techie coworkers were amazed by the display and all agreed that it was unbelievably bright. I would recommend this jewel to anyone who wants a great phone that has a lot of cool features. It blows away the Samsung SCH-a737 and the LG Shine. Go to a local AT&T store and play with one. Then buy one at whatever outlet suits you.

I've gone through two phones in a year. With the first phone i had when you made a call the only way you could here the other person you were talking to was on speakerphone. That makes it a little hard when you are in a pulblic place. I sent my phone out for replacement and received a new one.
My second phone lasted 8 months, one night i turned it off and the next morning it would not turn back on. Sony makes some great products and i prefer Sony with my electronics, but after three differnt phones I'm staying away.

I have now been using this phone for almost seven months and I am pretty happy with it (AT&T Pay as you Go service). Some observations ...

Pros:
- Very comfortable and small. It feels good in hand. Nothing about the device looks cheap.
- Awesome voice quality and no dropped calls.
- The screen display is very bright and colorful - the best I've seen of any device so far.
- Decent bluetooth integration, though I do experience some dropouts. Bluetooth MP3 functionality (fast forward, next track, etc) is acceptable, but not great.
- Sports functions (like a pedometer) which work fairly well.
- Well designed menu structure and lots of functions to tweak.
- Good quality radio with RDS.
- Very good speaker quality.
- Great organizer functions, with a well designed Alarm.
- Nicely customizable themes and startup/shutdown animations (yea this is important to me!).
- Good internet browser.

Cons:
- Proprietary USB and Headphone jacks. I just don't get it! And naturally in this case you cannot listen to music and charge the phone at the same time.
- Proprietary memory stick expansion slot. MS is slow and expensive - total waste of money - but no choice on this phone.
- Firmware bugs ... too many to mention here, and no hope of getting them fixed.
- No way to organize contacts into folders.
- For an 'mp3' player, actual mp3 function is very basic. Depending on the firmware you get, you may not even be able to listen to an album in track order! There is no gap-less playback either.
- Horrible battery life. With BT turned off, and not using the phone AT all, the battery drains within 5-7 days.
- SE's sync software. That software barely works, especially via Bluetooth. I pretty much gave up on it.

Useless features:
- The 'shake' feature which uses internal accelerometer to switch or shuffle tracks is cute for a little while - but there is really no point to it.
- The cool colored lights on the side. They would actually be handy, but a recent firmware bug reverts them to a puke-green color upon use of the Walkman - useless.

Bottom line is that for its primary function, this is an excellent phone, with basic MP3 and digital camera support (do not expect anything amazing here), and I have really enjoyed using it. I however had to de-brand it from AT&T to enjoy full benefits of the device.

I have had the w580i for 1 year, 2 months now and I have enjoyed using the phone and most of its features. However, during that time I have experienced several quality issues. One of them (the ear speaker died) was probably isolated to my unit. But I also had my keypad crack twice. The cracked keypad seems to be a common issue with this model, just search online about it. I had to send in the phone twice for warranty repairs. Now, the left soft keys (select/back) have stopped working. Another search revealed this to also be a common flaw also. My warranty has run out, so Sony Ericsson will not fix this. Fortunately, there is a workaround by pushing hard on the area between the navigation keys and the LCD screen (where there is either the 'W' logo or the at&t logo), then the keys will work.

The bottom line though is that this phone has some serious quality flaws and therefore I do not recommend purchasing this model anymore. I give it 2-stars since the phone is still a very nice slider design with excellent software/interface.

I LOVED THIS PHONE! It was my favorite phone i ever had! i had a super fun golf game on it, i had some phil collins on it and i just loved my phone.

but then something mysterious happened.... oooooooo

the keys started cracking one by one. Until almost all of them were broken in half (but still usable)

And then i went skateboarding for 30 minutes and left it in a semi-shady area and when i was done i went and picked it up and the screen was messed up, it looked like i dropped it in water or something... yet.. the only possible explanatiion was the sun...

If your really careful with phones and arent active or anything go for this phone, it has amazing features. the only thing you have to worry about is that the keys crack

but if your active then dont go for this

my friend had to replace this phone with his warranty 3 times in like a 6 month period.

I bought mine off ebay so i didn't even try to fix it i just got a $25 go phone and put my sim in

i wouldn't recomend this phone, unless ur super inactive and you dont mind the keys breaking

im not here to sugar coat. worked good for little while now its dropping calls left and right it wont let me answer 80% of my calls same with outgoing calls. it shuts off by itself went through 5 in less than a year none of them under waranty had to pay retail every time. now the screen has horizontal lines through it. cant hear what anyone is saying to you it very quiet. at first it was loud though. might just be crappy providder in idaho but this phone is nothing but a pile of junk.

I had two of them. The reception was good. Probably the best among all brands. The keys were small but still adequate. With add-on memory card, my wife could take as many pictures as she liked. Everything seemed good until one year later they all broke one after the other for no reason. The manufacture warranty expired after one year. Somehow I managed to have the first one fixed but not the second one since the warranty expired anyway. The sells representatives told me that the price to get it fixed was worth almost 1/2 of the original price, so I forewent the option. The thing both of my two cell phones broke one after the other right after the warranty expired is just too much coincidence. My wife's and mine usage of the phones cannot be simpler enough. Even after Sony received the phones, they cannot find any exterior or moisture damage. If they cannot last long enough, how good are they anyway? Don't get me wrong. My wife is still using the fixed phone for three years now. So, the problem right after the expiration of the warranty is a mystery to us.

I bought this phone because it had Walkman FM radio, too. This phone is pretty (I got the PINK one), lightweight, has lots of whiz-bang menu selections, but doesn't wow or impress me as much as the Samsung A737 or Samsung A747 models which I bought for my children. I listen to the radio a lot, more than MP3s and really thought this feature would be cool. If you like effects, it has 16 settings for flashing light patterns customized for every caller. It takes a day to find out how to set the patterns in all the menus....

The keypad is a bit on the small side, and feels like dry plastic. It's OK for me because I have small hands, but I don't think a man would enjoy using the small, non-descript keys. The letters on the keys are hard to see being so small. When I enter text, I still have to look--er, squint--at the keypad. I don't pay for texting service, so it's not a huge hassle, but if you text, I can't imagine it would be much fun.

When I enter an phone number in the address book, it doesn't put hyphens between the area code, prefix, and last four digits. That's not fatal, but a pet peeve, and makes it difficult for me to figure out the numbers as they come up.

The M2 Memory Stick is not common, but Sony Ericsson uses it. They supply a 512MB one. Buying one with more memory will not be cheap. The access slot is on the top. It took me a while to figure out how to open the little, flat plastic door. Which side to open? It doesn't have a flap, can't open with a fingernail, so I use an unfolded paper clip or other similar-sized object to pry it open.

You need the wired earphones to have FM service. If you like radio, it's just one more thing to carry around. The sound quality is EXCELLENT on this wire unit and the ear buds very comfy. It also works as "handsfree" phone device if you don't want to do Bluetooth.

The display, although narrow, is bright and sharp. The sound is good, and it interfaces well with my Bluetooth earpiece and Palm device. The phone is very lightweight and slim. I dropped it a few times but the case didn't scratch or crack. The pink IS pretty, and has little red "jewels" between the number keys (other color models have different color jewels). The speaker phone option works well and is clear to hear. The slider is a little unusual to work at first, but works very nicely. Sony Ericsson phone support is SUPER, too.

I recently sold my iPhone and bought the Sony Ericsson W580i. This cell phone is amazing. It is by far the loudest cell phone I have ever owned. Ringtones sound very nice and clear, and so does the music.

not very happy with the product purchased, some things that left me unsatisfied like the headphones doesn't work and charger was a little open. but I think that is a problem more than anything in the store that sells the product they are not concerned with selling quality products. Cell phone is working fine