The Sony Ericsson W580i is a Walkman phone in a slide design. It's available in a choice of white, black or grey.
Physically, the W580i looks cool. It's a nice slider, with a very usable 5-way navigation key. The keypad has sensibly-sized keys that light up in use and are easy to press. Dedicated keys are used to control the Walkman functions, so you can play music when the slide is closed. The screen is of good quality and can be viewed outdoors without too much trouble. Like the S500i, the W580i features very cool lighting effects and is a beautiful phone to look at and play with.
The W580i features a "shake control" - you flick your wrist when the music player is on and a random song is selected to play. Gimmicky but cool. Another gimmick is the built-in pedometer. It's a useful feature if you do a lot of walking, but pedometers are cheap and readily available - do you really need one in your phone?
The main feature of the W580i (apart from making phone calls, of course!) is the music player. We've written about the quality of the Walkman music range many times on this site - take it from us, it's good. The W580i has the new version 2.0, and is also equipped with an FM radio. A stereo headset is included in the sales package, and there's also support for an optional Bluetooth stereo headset. The available memory is not generous - just 12 Mbytes built-in (enough for 3-4 songs) but the memory is expandable to 1 Gbyte (Memory Stick Micro™) or 4 Gbytes (Memory Stick PRO).
The phone also comes with a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, but this cannot compare with the autofocus-equipped cameras on the K800i or W610i.
However, the big problem with the W580i is that the keys are prone to cracking. Read the user reviews below to see just how many people have reported the same problem. It was exactly the same with the Sony Ericsson S500i. We recommend that you avoid the W580i and consider the very similar W850i slide phone, which is selling for a much lower price than the W580i and has the advantage of 3G too.
Features of the Sony Ericsson W580i include:
- 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
- Video camera
- 3D Java games
- Display: 262,144-colour TFT LCD, 240 x 320 colours (2 inches)
- Music player (Walkman 2.0)
- FM radio
- Megabass™
- PlayNow™
- TrackID™
- Polyphonic ringtones & music tones
- Speakerphone
- Sound recorder
- Pedometer
- Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email
- Animated wallpaper
- Personal organiser functions
- Flight mode
- Memory: 12 Mbytes plus Memory Stick Micro™ support (up to 1 Gbyte)
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB mass storage
- WAP, EDGE
- Web browser, RSS feeds, picture blogging
- Vibration alert
- Size: 99 x 47 x 14 mm
- Weight: 94g
- Quadband (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900)
- Talktime: 9 hours
- Battery standby: 370 hours