14 DAY TRIAL // Established in October 2001 the joint venture between Sony Corporation and Ericsson resulted in one of the world's leading mobile phones manufacturers ? Sony Ericsson. As of lately, all new Sony Ericsson handsets belong to the 2 well-known series, Walkman and Cybershot, both having different target customers. Businesswise, Sony Ericsson's phones don't compete each other. While quality and design is almost the same, features are different and up until today I can't say that you'll be able to buy a high-end Sony Ericsson that would include at least 3G, 5 Megapixel camera and excellent music features. Just to prove Sony Ericsson's market strategy, the W660i model is just another version of the "older" W610i, except that it has lower camera and lacks EDGE, which was replaced with 3G connectivity instead.
Announced in March 2007, Sony Ericsson's W660i has been made available on the market in June for a rather stiff price of USD 500.
Design
First of all Sony Ericsson W660 comes in two available colors: black (record black) and red (rose red). You might probably guess that the first color version targets men, while the second is more appealing for the ladies. As you can probably notice we had the latter version at our disposal, but it doesn't really matter as the features are the same. There's not too much to discuss about the design, especially if you're familiar with Sony Ericsson's latest handsets. The company hasn't changed its phones design in years and it seems they are simply centred upon technical specifications. What is different from the other SE's mobiles has only been included on the back of the model. The moment you look on the back of the phone you'll experience a strong feeling of "deja vu". Half of the back cover has been adorned with floral motives, while the black version has been encrusted with geometrical motives that look like concentric circles. This will probably be the moment when you remember Nokia's L'Amour or Samsung's Le Fleur collections which were the forerunners of the decorative motives encrusted in mobile phones.
Ladies will most likely enjoy the look of Sony Ericsson's latest W660 model, but men should probably stick to the black version, unless they wanna look pimpish with a red mobile phone encrusted with flower motives in their hands. The candy-bar form of the phone doesn't stand out from the crowd, but in a world of gray and black, the red and gold colors of the handset might lure plenty of (feminine) looks. Built to be used as an MP3 player more than a phone, W660 has external music controls on both gold colored sides. On the right side you'll notice the dual volume key and the camera button, while on the left side of the phone there's a Play key, the M2 slot card for memory expansion and the logo of the Walkman series, nicely engraved. The power off button has been placed on top of the phone and the charge port on the bottom. The 2 inch display covers half the front of the phone, while the rest represents the keypad. But before describing the keypad, bear in mind that Sony Ericsson's W660 is a 3G device, thus it features a front camera for video calls which is placed as usual right above the display.
If you haven never owned a Sony Ericsson branded mobile phone before, than it will take some time to get used with the keypad's layout. Forget about Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or other brands' keypads, 'cause this one is totally different. I'm not talking about the usual numerical keys, but about the control keys that help users navigate menus or access various features of the phone. There are 3 small circular gold colored buttons which have been stamped with various icons, so it may be easier to recognize it. The left one will give you direct access to the music player, while the gold colored button placed on the right displays a small secondary menu (which we will discuss later on). Obviously, the middle button will give access to the main menu, but can also be used as a Play button when the music player has been accessed. The middle button looks like a 5-way navigational key, but you will notice that it's not working like a joystick, instead it is surrounded by directional keys. The other 2 gold colored buttons have a soft key above and the one on the left has a "Back" key (see the sign stamped on it) and the one on the right has a "Delete" key under. This might be a problem for a frequent mobile phone user which has been accustomed to use the right button just like the End calls key. Now you have to be careful 'cause every time you push the right key (under the right gold colored button) you'll be asked if you wanna delete the object.
Other than that the rest of the keypad looks very nice in accordance with the rest of the design. Furthermore, it's easy to write messages as the buttons are well fit for women's fingers as well as for men's. The backlighting of the keys is pretty strong, but not too well balanced. If you turn the phone you can easily notice that the back cover has been parted in two halves. The one with the floral motives includes a 2 megapixel camera in the middle and an external speaker, both protected by a slim plastic. The other half is simply glossy and bears the Sony Ericsson green insignia and the Walkman series logo. Overall the phone might look a little bit flimsy at frequent use, especially the back cover which jogs a little the moment you pull out your phone from your pocket. Moreover, W660 doesn't inspire sturdiness at all, on the contrary, it looks fragile, like it will break any moment. Still, in this case it's a "lawful good" fragility that will make you love the phone rather than dislike it.
Display and Camera
Sony Ericsson W660 features a 2-inch TFT display that supports 262k colors and 176 x 220 pixel resolution. This might be a problem for some possible buyers as these days newly launched handsets usually feature screens able to support 240 x 320 pixel resolution.
