Thinking of W960i

bump!
😊

Well a lot of info is available about the 2 phones for people to decide for themselves but for me the biggest differences are :

1. W960 has a touch screen (great for running tomtom, web browsing etc)
2. Nokia uses the S60 GUI, SonyEricsson uses the UIQ GUI. (This is personal preference)
3. I would say the W950/W960 give the best sound quality of any music phone devices at the moment. (I have even seen reviews that suggest thanks to sonys heavy involvement in the walkman part of the phone the sound quality is better than an Ipod, again subjective).
4. Nokia have a dedicated standard 3.5mm headphone jack. (However I always use the wireless bluetooth headset with my W960)
5. Camera. W960 = 3.2megapixels, N95 5megapixels
6. Nokia has built in GPS. W960 will need a little external bluetooth GPS device.
7. weight : w960 = 119g, N95 = 129g

There are many other differences but the above are the main ones for me.

Thank you, Gebbly.

I've never really been a Nokia fan, but have had a few Nokia phones over the years. Then again, I've had a few SE phones too.

My last SE phone was/is the W850i... absolutely fantastic!
The missus has possession of it now.

I've had the Nokia N95 8GB, as an upgrade option, for 2 weeks, but sent it back only yesterday as it was hopelessly disappointing...

I'm looking for a good upgrade... now maybe it's gonna be an SE ...

possible options are:
1. SE P1i
2. SE P990i
3. SE W960i
4. Nokia E90
5. O2 XDA Orbit 2

spoilt for choice? you bet!

What would you go for?

[caveat, the following is merely my personal preferences, each to their own]

Well I recently got myself a new w960 and I am very happy with it so far. 😊

Firstly I rather like the whole open OS (SymbianOS+ UIQ) thats on the high end SonyEricsson phones that lets me install from a mass of software on the web. Presently I have tomtom, a tool that lets me connect to internet and access my home PCs files from phone, some games and more to go 😊 Also a big fan of touchscreens. I've had a few phones with the little joystick type control in the middle and find over time dust and dirt get in there, jam them up and make them unresponsive.

For me the only advantage the P990 has over the W960 is the full keyboard if you prefer that to handwriting recognition. However this is more than made up for with 8GB of internal storage, smaller/lighter and a better camera.

The E90 has some nice features like a larger full keyboard, HSDPA and built in GPS but for my personal use I found the E90 just a bit too big. My standard test is to take a pair of jeans which have that small change pocket inside the main pocket and try and fit a phone in there. (The W960 just fits)

I dont have much experience of the orbit 2 but its spec has some nice features with in-built gps and hsdpa however for me its a touch bigger, a bit heavier and doesnt have the 8GB of inbuilt memory (which is good to install apps and mp3s to). It does have a SD card slot but that will be an extra expense.

The P1i seems to bridge the gap between the p990 and w960 with a semi-full keyboard and more memory than the p990 yet less than the w960.

Two of the biggest influencing factors for me were using tomtom which I found more intuitive on a touchscreen device and the fact that I like to use my phone as my mp3 player too and the w960 has very good sound quality.

Each phone has ups and downs making them suitable for people with varying requirements. I suggest you have a think about the sorts of things you want to do with your phone and then check out the specs. For me the w960 was the perfect choice.

Hi all
Hi Gebbly

Thank you for your informative post

Regarding the W960's touch screen, doen't that make the phone vulnerable to some extent as there is nothing to protect it when dropped... I mean, I can drop it on a hard, rough surface, screen facing down... won't that affect the usability of the screen?

I have the P900, touchscreen, which is semi-protected by the keypad.

again this all comes down to personal usage. The screen is bigger than some phones certainly and hitting the screen hard may damage it but that is the same as all phones.

There was some concern when I first bought a mobile phone abut protecting the screen. However given normal usage I have found I have never dropped a phone hard enough to damage it.

Just have a think if your lifestyle has caused you to ever seriously bash your phone. For example part of th p900s screen is still exposed, have you ever hit that hard and damaged it? Only problems I have ever encountered with phones is getting dust into the little joystick.

Thanks again, gebbly:top:

Will be in touch for software info. if/when I get the W960i :call2:

Thanks, once again

I just got myself a w960i and I feel it was def a better choice. I am now a great fan of touch screen and to protect it I have ordered Martin Fields screen protectors, since they come according to the exact screen size per each phone.

I only got this phone 2 days back and since then I have been able to browse the net via WLAN (I have SKY bb and net gear router) with ease, watched a movie while travelling on the tube to work today, which I had converted using a very neat software.

The audio sound quality is amazing and the pics look great too.

Now I only need to figure out how to add the songs to playlist coz I have added diff music folders from my pc and all the tracks are showing up together which is very irritating. Also am looking for a something like a media player for managing and listening to my mp3s.

All in all a great phone.:top:

I had the w950i for about a year. At first I was a bit disappointed, but it was because I did not know how to properly use the phone. Once I became comfortable with it, I really liked it. It was a real head turner with friends as well.

The W960i is an incredible improvement. The WiFi and 3.2 MP Camera has made this phone 10X better than the W950i (although the internet browser is a bit limited) I'm having fun discovering all the new features of the W960I (like the capture business card feature I tried today).

So far the only negative I have found with the phone is the price. I had to buy an unlocked phone off of eBay for $600. If you can get it for free (or around $200) with a good provider contract: DO IT!
AE

This is undoubtedly the WORST phone I have ever used. :icon13:There are so many things wrong with the design of it I don't know where to start. One example is that when a text comes in an alert comes onto the screen. This alert uses half the screen space & until you have answered it you cannot continue to do anything else. So if you are in the middle of writing a text or dialling a number you have to tell the phone you don't want to read the text in order to continue. If you agree to read the incoming text, the one you were mid writing is lost. Everything about this phone is clumsy. There is not one saving feature. If you fancy touch screen think again with this touch screen. It is inaccurate & often you need to do the same action 10 times to get the response you want. Horrendous.

funny never had a single problem with mine

The views here are very interesting. I would like to get the w960i instead of the N958Gb mainly due to the size and weight. However, I would like to use it as a satnav when in the car. I note that Gebbly says he runs TomTom on his.

Can you confirm that TomTom works and what version?

Can you let me know what GPS recievers are known to work well with it?

Many thanks

W 960I is very interesting. Thank you much appreciated

Yes, I also run Tomtom on my W960i - It works absolutely fine.

I use mine with a Holux bluetooth GPS receiver. From my observations, it connects quicker to the satellite than the built-in GPS receiver on an actual Tomtom unit!

Now, as for my personal opinion of the W960i, I've heard a lot of bad reports, mainly from people who seem comfortable with the standard symbian layout.

I'm not sure about Ricky Cadden's comments. He's entitled to an opinion, but from what I read, he's decided to trash the phone on the basis of a single aspect (and incorrectly too...if you recieve a text message while you're writing one out, the message you're writing gets automatically saved and placed into the 'Drafts' folder) - Also, with regular calibration (something that most touch screen phones & PDAs have), the accuracy can easily be improved!

Personally, I really like my phone. It's not perfect, but I've not looked at another phone since! - If I was to make a gripe about the phone, it is that the messaging function can be a little slow, and that Sony Ericsson's accompanying software needs some serious debugging!

For everything else, I believe my W960i can do anything almost any other phone can, and in some cases, it can do it better! It's got a very good sized screen, music playback is superb, pictures are very sharp, calendar functions are user-friendly, the layout is intuitive (especially for such a feature-rich phone!), and it crams a hell of a lot in there!

Biggest bonus - it's not a Nokia (sorry, after several bad experiences with Nokia phones, the W950i was my first Sony Ericsson, and the 960i is a phone that I will be using for a VERY long time!

Yo, Crazy Dog & friends, you seem to have a pretty hold of you phone and the English language - I was wondering if you could give me your take on my following ...

I've been a Nokia smartphone user since pre 7650, but I've grown tired, I need a change and I want to know what others have to offer.

I was an iPaq user for a few years, pre the phone convergence, so I'm familiar with the mobile Windows platform (although I'm talking the 2003 version here). I liked the big screen, the many different input methods, particularly the Transcriber, which allowed handwriting (recognition) across the whole screen. Ok, maybe it was bit too big, but it made overviewing documents and surfing easier on the eye. That said, I found the browser useless.

Two months ago I started using an old Sony Ericsson k750i, as my 2nd Nokia N73 gave up and I needed a pocket camera in a hurry. I've grown to like the little thing, and find I'm curious to discover more from the Swedes, but at the same time, I am nervous that the proprietary nature of the GUI will limit my possibilities when it comes to synchronizing and working with Microsoft software and files.

I'm a (mature) student, and so I would like something I can take notes on - to eventually become Word Documents; view Powerpoint slides, Google the Web & Internet Radio (anything else is a plus, YouTube for example)

Other requirements would be: Windows Live Messenger (really like the Agile Messenger send photo function on s60 devices); Skype;

Music is not super important, as it won't necessarily be my primary mp3 device, but I like having radio in board, and a 3.5mm jack is ideal, 'cos I get through headphones like sock, and I can't be buying ones with special plugs on every 3 months.

The camera, on the other hand, is important. I have a proper camera, but that won't fit in my pocket. Being a dad, I like to have the possibilty to catch the moment digitally at any time. My N73 was the best I had experienced since my first 7650, but still I found it slow and unreliable. The quality was ok, but as long as were above 2mp, and the picture is comfortably viewable and sharp, I'm not expecting miracles.

So now I'm thinking Sony Ericsson W960i, with it's cut little one-handed operation, sexy little candy bare with no Cybershot, but a flash, or an HTC with seemless integration with My Documents folder and Microsoft applications (it should be noted I loathe the extent to which Microsoft is part of my electronic world) and touch-flo interface, but no flash - and no keyboard (that could make taking notes in lectures pretty difficult at spped and length).

Well that's enough parameters and variables for now. Can you identify with any of it, and give me your feedback as seasoned users of W9 5/6 0 phones?

my current favourites are:

SE W960i
HTC Diamond Touch (might wait for the Pro's keyboard)

😊

I have had my w960i since its was barely even out. I paid $650 for it so that tells you i got this phone as soon as it was possible to buy. Let me say i have used alot of Nokia phones in the past and i was always fairly satisfied with my Nokia as i found them to be very user-friendly and very functional as a phone first and foremost. I bought my w960i mainly for music and for the touchscreen, but i must say there are quite a few things that were tremendous problems for me.

1st: First and foremost the messaging on this phone is terrible. The interface is plain dumb....theres a LITTLE TINY arrow that you must click to change in between folders and its quite frankly annoying. Why couldnt there simply be folders to click on that were displayed? Anything at all would be more user friendly than this interface. Previously in this thread i believe it was discussed about leaving a message and it being saved in the drafts folder. It does save a draft of the message, but the problem i had is that it would save the message EVEN IF you told it not to by default save it. So after a few days you would have 30 or 40 messages that were blank and sitting in the draft folder. Then in order to delete them you can either delete them all or here is where the fun starts....you can go through and select each message individually with a RIDICULOUSLY small check box that you must put a check in and wait it gets better...if you accidentally click the message instead of the retardedly small check box then it opens the message and the other 42 messages that you had taken the time to check all become unselected so you have to start over. DUMB....How can this not seriously be changed with a firmware update? Did Q&A even try texting before they shipped this phone out to the masses? Surely they used this phone and realized the messaging interface is annoying?

2nd: Now lets get to my favorite problem. My phone would lock up on me on an average of 3 times a day. I am not exaggerating at all. If the phone was left on it would simply lock up after sitting awhile, but heres the cool part. You wouldnt actually know the phone was jammed up until you tried to use it AND everyone that had been calling and texting you for the past 2 hours while your phone was locked simply would get voicemail and the texts dont come through on your end. So picture yourself setting your alarm to got bed on your cellphone only to oversleep work by a few hours because your phone locked up AND NO PHONE CALLS came through nor would your alarm go off. So you reboot the phone and then after it turns on its like YOU HAVE 22 NEW TEXT MESSAGES because it downloads them all now that its not crapped out anymore. This problem alone makes the phone horrible. It has single handedly snaked me from getting laid on numerous occassions at 3am...enuff said
I will say that the music is fantastic. It really is, i can jam out forever on this thing and it sounds wonderful. I actually liked this phone quite alot, but it has some SERIOUS flaws. Overall i thought that the software was very slow. Everytime i sent a message i had to wait a solid 2 seconds while the phone was unresponsive. It wouldnt be so bad but every time this thing locks up you have to disassemble the plastic case or whatever case you have on it to get the battery out and reset it....and its not exactly fast for it to reboot either.

It also appears there is a WIDESPREAD problem with the touchscreen not working after awhile as i have read nothing but posts on here about the touchscreen acting stupid AND i personally had problems with mine randomly not working.

One last gripe, why doesnt the SE website have the w960i listed in its support at all. Did they forget they made it? I tried to find forums on their website and the dropdown list of phones for them only includes the w950i which isnt the same phone.
Im at a point now where im torn because my screen is cracked. So should i pay the $60 for a new screen and use it even if only for an mp3 player or do i just go get an iphone for 200? Ah the dilemma....

I just ordered a new w960 , because i just LUV the phone. I use it together with TomTom and I got Divx on it.. even i created my car-kit together with the head-phone wire and my car stereo. Only thing i had to buy was the HCH-72 Carkit holder. So also using the mp3 and Divx movies with the sound of my car-stereo 😃

I was out to the shop to buy a Xperia,since i need Windows Mobile to run my farm-management program, but i found there still is NONE Windows Mobile phone created that is farmer-proof , and the W960 lasts pretty long, probably the best farmer-proof smartphone yet !!! Only pity is that my management program doesnt run on it.

Its really a waste that UIQ runned bankrupt,because its one of the better operating systems ever!!

So now Sony has to try to make up their minds on their future Operating System .. the Xperia runs on Windows Mobile (WM) and their new concept, the Idou (beautiful phone ! (also not farmer proof😞 )) runs on Symbian s60

We all loyal UIQ users sure will miss our own UIQ..

Only negative detail i have with the W960 is it doesnt have internal Gps antenna (aGps) If it had that, it still would be a top-phone