Sony Ericsson W550 features Walkman music player, plenty of internal storage, good mobile internet options and an interesting construction. However, it lacks memory card slot. Is it to offer something more than the competitors? To find out - read the following review.

Key features

• full-featured MP3 player
• radio with RDS
• excellent sound quality
• top-quality display
• various accessories including a pair of very good earphones
• internet browser
• charging through USB

Main disadvantages

• no memory card slot
• keypad not very convenient
• no EDGE

Do you feel like getting yourself a good stylish phone with a MP3 player? And you find Sony Ericsson W800 much too expensive and conservative? Then you may consider Motorola E398 for example... ah...no, I got carried away. In fact, I meant the new Sony Ericsson W550.

Official photos

Sony Ericsson W550 has a lot of common with its forerunner, but it has been added some brand new useful functions facilitating the work with internet. The phone has already appeared in the shops and is being offered for a price lower than the one of W800.

No doubt pictures are taken with a horizontal hand-hold

I will not dare recommend Sony Ericsson W550 to highly conservative users. Its design has been created to provoke and, to tell you the truth, it is quite successful in doing so. However, if you do not want to look much too eccentric, simply replace the orange cover with a white one and you can be sure that no one will notice that your phone hides something interesting. Considered its rich equipment, Sony Ericsson is a truly good mobile phone for all those, who love music and technological innovations.

Japan in Europe

Sony Ericsson W550 yields in many aspects to the typical non-traditional Japanese mobile phone. The trouble is that European customers still tend to accept what is standard in Asia with a certain dose of skepticism. Sony Ericsson's designers have made some serious experiments with W550, which make me forecast that this model's commercial success might be somewhat backpedaled by the general conservativeness of the Europeans.

Comparison to Sony Ericsson D750

In the delivery box you will find two covers - an orange and a white one. I myself find the combination of silver body and white cover more attractive than the one with the orange cover. Nevertheless, it is doubtless that the latter is indispensable, for the orange has already become a kind of a label for all Walkman models of Sony Ericsson. The manufacturer has also prepared a dark red cover version, but it is not a part of the delivery package and has to be bought additionally.

No spring seems to be helpful when opening this phone - similar to the rotating Sony Ericsson S700

The rotating construction results into the phone being a bit thicker than other mobile models. The good news is that the thickness of 23 mm is compensated by the lower parameters of the other two dimensions. Unfortunately, the weight is not pleasing, either. The phone is 120 g, which is somewhat heavy.

Display = quality

Regarding the display, the differences between the W800 and the W550 models are minor. Both feature the same high qualities; they both are easy-to-read at direct daylight and are able to show 262K colors. I cannot complain even about the backlighting, for I did not see any differences in the intensity between the middle part of the display and its margins.

Display is brilliant, indeed

The main menu offers four basic graphic themes to choose from. Within two of the motives the icons start pulsing when selected, in the other two the icons are displayed in the form of a sliding animated menu bar. The overpasses into deeper menu levels are viewed as eye-taking animations. The two menu bar themes are probably quite energy-intensive, because at applying them the phone seems to be relatively slower than usual. The standard menu is fast though. It manages animation without delays. Unfortunately, the animation is not possible to deactivate for good.

Preinstalled graphic themes

The display surface reflects every single finger print or smudge. In this respect, a stylish clothe for cleaning the display's surface would have certainly been appreciated by the user.