Sony Ericsson W800i: The Perfect Cell Phone

Ever since 1998, cell phones have become a part of my everyday life. If I forget my cell phone or if the battery dies, it feels as if I'm reliving the 8th grade PE class when we were doing the high jump and after I landed I went to adjust my shorts and accidentally pants’d myself (True Story); it's like I'm half naked. I can't fathom how we were ever content at one point using pagers and payphones and before that, just payphones or home phones. I'm not sure what happened, maybe the prices of phones and plans dropped and the demand for widespread instant communication rose and at the crossroads of where they met, we left behind the notion of: The only people who use cell phones are drug dealers and Zach Morris.

For the most part, I have paid very little for my phones over the years until recently, which I will get to in a bit. While working at Best Buy in 1998, I made the purchase of my first cell phone using my excellent Employee Discount and a promo they were running with Pacific Bell Wireless (now Cingular/AT&T Wireless). After discounts and rebates I ended up walking away with a cell phone and one more cent than I had to begin with. I was excited and now I could play Snake in class.

I stand behind the following statement with conviction: Pacific Bell Wireless had the best cell phone service, coverage, and reliability out of all of the carriers up to this day. However, when Pacific Bell Wireless was acquired by Cingular in 2001, and in the months that followed, the service and reliability began to slide. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as Pacific Bell Wireless.

Years would pass and I would change out my phones when it was time to sign another ridiculous contract, always opting for the free phone since there weren’t any phones that were worth spending the extra money on. The Nokia 5190, 8290, 3395; I stuck with Nokia phones for the longest time because they seemed to be the most durable and user friendly.

Some time a couple years ago, I received a hand-me-down phone, the Nokia 7210 European phone, from my brother and I was super excited because it was my first color screen phone. It didn’t take pictures, but it had the charm of color.

Months later, my brother being the guy he is and knowing the people he knows, came to me with a deal for a new phone that would put me at a dilemma; I would have to turn my back on Nokia and Cingular and change to Motorola and T-Mobile. The phone, another European phone, was the Motorola E398 and it was impressive: still and video camera, mp3 player with songs as ring tones, small, and stylish. It was $80 for the phone and I had to sign a one-year contract. It was tempting enough to get me to switch and I was pleased with the decision. It wasn’t long before I wanted to make my already cool phone even better. I found a program that allowed me to access the files on the phone and delete locked files that came preloaded on the camera’s memory since I maxed out at 128Mb with an added micro SD card. I got a little carried away and apparently deleted some important files that ultimately made my phone operate like a retarded donkey. It was shaky, but at least it still worked. That is until the charging connector became unusable due to its poor design and wear and tear.

Pissed at Motorola for creating a fragile and poorly conceived charging connector, I was forced to go back to my last Nokia phone which now seemed like a lump of shit in comparison to the phone that I just had prior to breaking it.

I was now on a quest to find a phone replacement that was the perfect phone. Here were my desired features in order of importance:

1. Minimum 1 megapixel still camera
2. Non-flip phone
3. Voice recording
4. Video recording
5. mp3 player and ring tones
6. Expandable memory
7. Internet and email

To top it all off, I wasn’t too keen on having to sign a new contract. After a lot of research it was looking pretty grim. I was either going to have to pay an assload of money for a blackberry or smart phone and also pay 10-20 bucks more for monthly internet fees or I was going to have to sign a new contract with Cingular and pay more for the same amount of minutes at the same time settling for a phone that only had one or two of the options I was looking for.

I don’t know how, but eventually I stumbled across the Sony Ericsson W800i phone online. It met every single one of my requirements and more. It even had a 2 megapixel camera which takes really amazing photos for being a cell phone. The “flash” which is actually a light, is the best I have seen on a cell. Along with the above abilities, it also has an FM radio, password keeper, and the option to use the light as an SOS signal. The expandable memory is Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick Duo, which is readily available, so I ordered a 1 gig card on buy.com for $31 after rebates. The phone wasn’t offered by any US carrier, but I was able to purchase it unlocked and have it shipped to me (Lots of sites were selling it for $400-$500 but I was able to find a place that sold it for $344 shipped). I added T-Mobile’s T-MobileWeb for $6 a month that allows me to get email and browse the web with the built in browser, but I opted to download Opera’s Mini browser which works like a charm.

I don’t think I can recommend this phone enough. Yeah I paid a lot for the phone, but I figured I have spent $80 on cell phones over 8 years and I deserved an upgrade. T-Mobile has been as good as Cingular ever was. I don’t experience dropped calls or poor service except for a few random places that Cingular never worked at either. Not to mention, T-Mobile has the best plans available, hands down.

Tags: T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson, W800i, cell phone, mobile, Opera, Opera Mini, buy.com, Sony, Motorola, Nokia