# SE W995 Review by Naveen_Reloaded



## naveen_reloaded (Aug 20, 2009)

This is my another review., Prev i did the following reviews

*Sony Ericsson K850 Review by naveen_reloaded*


* PS3 Review By naveen_reloaded*



But before i begin my review , i just want to clear few things out for all.

Things you should have in mind before buying a mobile :

I think todays world just goes by the hype and none is ready to stop and think what they and buying and why. How many times you have bought something and found it lying simply there , or you bought something which you don’t know how to use it to full potential or don’t know how to use it at all ? 

*Here are the few things for now regarding mobile phone …*

1.) What is your need ?

2.)Do you know wht is wifi ? If so do you have access to it ?

3.) Do you use GPRS ? if so how often ? ( may be nowadays all the phones comes with gprs , but remember , do you know how much it will cost for working with GPRS ? If you dont know , you better stay off , as nearly all the ISP/NETWORK in India are greedy and will scratch all your property.

4.)What is the size of the phone you are looking for ? This is important as many don’t like bulky phones , and some dont like to have small screen. So decide which one to go for.

5.) If possible try the phone and buy. Its sometimes feel good to be showoff with latest gadget , but being a “Early buyer” is like double edged sword. One thing is you can end up having a crappy product which is untested , unreviewed product. On the other side , you will have the latest product and get all the hi-tech features and take advantage , for example in case of 3G and Wi-Fi and other technology.

6.) Always do a back check on the company , and how the service is . Because of recent stories about Motorola going into bankruptcy has put a great concern both in buyer and sellers mind. Many sellers are opting out of it , that’s what i heard.

Ok Lets come to the Review part
*Sony Ericsson W995​*
*newmobilephones.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/w995-silver-headphones-large.jpg​ 

I am not going to list all the features from ability to send SMS , can take photo stuff , 

*i am going to write about the features which i feel stands out .*

1.) 8MP camera in a Walkman Phone , first Walkman to feature it and SE`s commitment towards integrating Walkman and camera series.

2.)Clear Stereo and Clear Bass for the new Media Player , which i think is the best in the whole phone.

3.)Really big screen , 2.6″

4.)Facebook Integration into Message section ( In New firmware R1FA035)

5.)New conversation mode for Messaging

6.)Flash Lite 2.1 Version

7.)8GB M2 Card.

8.)Fastest UI in a SE phone so far

9.)Last but not the least , its the first Walkman Phone to feature a 3.5mm headphone jack

*Things i didn’t like much :*

1.)Too much Keys on the side

2.)Awkward placement of  W(”Walkman”) button

3.)Short USB cable

4.)No lens Protection

5.)Nearly useless stand on the back.

6.)Slightly difficult to type.

Lets get into the details shall we ?

*UI  -  The Best ever.*

I am actually switching from K850 to W995 , previously i had K800, K750,K700,T610 , and i must say that UI , the interface we work on , the part which we use for most of the part , what makes one say ” Ohh That Phone is slow” , ” Hey that phone is really fast “. The UI here in W995 is almost same speed as of K750 , fast , reliable and totally cool.

When i got the phone , one of my friend asked me whether the phone restarts often , this idea of restart is basically due to the crappy UI of K800 and K850 ( latter being the worst ) , and now there is wide spread idea that SE phone restart a lot , hang and such things. Actually the real reason for it is when SE introduced the controversial A2 , which was mostly experimental and unstable in K850 , and i have to say that it has come a long way and been through vigorous programming and optimization . For one who switched from the initial A2 to more optimized A2 will know very first that UI is Fast and stable. Why i want to stress on this is , so far W995 has not restarted once . and i have put into many rigorous condition like running multiple games/apps along with Media player . And so far , the UI is very stable.

*Update – A Curse :*

I will talk about the updates here itself , I have so far updated the phone nearly 3 times , and each time , i don’t know for what reason the phone is completely flashed , i mean the phone contents are removed , everything , from sms to address book to word suggestion .. everything. this is annoying since when someone is using the phone for 3-4 months and get into it with personal word suggestion words for messaging , with a simple update , they can loose all the personal word suggestion , and there is no to backup those words. other things like SMS , and all other things can be backed up using given Phone Manager.  What happened to SE , why are they deleting the whole Firmware and reinstalling from the scratch each time ? May be they don’t want old files / corrupted ones to ruin the fun , so they are clean installing , and not doping a upgrade which they used to do previously.
*
Camera – A K Series within W ..*

The 8MP , Autofocus camera is really a stand out in W series. It lacks a Flash which is the only let down , other than that , the camera features everything you see in the latest K series / C series . With Scenes , Macro Feature , Panorama ..etc. For those who want more from Camera can visit this link , where there is compilation of all Mods for W995.

here is few sample and comparison between my canon 7 Mp and W995 8MP
*
Media Player – The Best Walkman Ever ..*

This is the first time i feel that i am hearing a really Walkman , know the old cassette Walkman we used to hear ? , those are the best , the quality is simply awesome , coz the data there is raw and a good Walkman like Aiwa , Sony will give you the best experience. Why i am comparing w995 to old Cassette Walkman ? , actually the Quality of sound is best on those cassette player ( Provided you had/have a good Walkman player ) . I had a Costly Aiwa way back and it the best Walkman for me so far , i mean for mobile music listening.  After a long time , I was able to immerse myself with similar quality of sound with W995. The sound is superb , Loud enough , the bass Very clear at peak , No distortion at what ever the volume is . My song collection are mostly above 128 Kbps. and I have few with 320kbps. The music and quality in W995 is outstanding , mostly because of the clear bass and Clear Stereo features .

the media player is similar to one you find in PS3 , XMB type.  The media player automatically scan for all the supported files , irrespective of which folder you put in your memory card. this is actually cool , coz you don’t to specifically put in certain folder so that the phone reads. And another sweet thing about SE phones compared to lame Apple products is , SE phones doesn’t need any specific software to upload the songs to the phone.

*Connectivity and Other Features :*

It comes with Wi-Fi and 3G support. The Wi-Fi handling by the phone is really smooth and easy. It also supports DLNA , meaning you can now stream your favourite songs to other DLNA device like PS3 , this feature is really cool coz , i used to load all my music files to perndrive and play it through PS3 which sounds better on my big speakers. Now with 8GB card , all my songs are on my phone and whenever i want to hear them on big speakers  i stream them through PS3.

Other features include GPS , Global postioning system , which i great , but most of the time you are going to be within your city / state and chances of getting lost i every minimum. Atleast for me , its less used feature. May be could come in handy when i go on a vaccation to some different place. GPS apps like google map , Wayfinder , NearMe , Navigation , etc are bundled up for convience.

W995 has the latest java 8.4 , and really helps in for gaming and other cool functions.

It also packs in latest Browser which is really fast . Youtube player is integrated into the Media Player , so next time you are on a public wifi or college wifi , watch all those funny videos on your phone .

As i said above W995 supports Flash lite 2.1 , meaning you can now have beautiful flash themes. for mroe details , i recommend you guys to visit www.se-nse.net and www.esato.com/board , its worth registering on those sites , as they have great contents and tutorials about SE phones.


Gallery and *complete review here* :

*urssiva.com/2009/08/20/sony-ericsson-w995-best-of-w-and-c-series/


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## desiibond (Aug 20, 2009)

superb reviews. Thanks for taking the pain to write the review.

how is the battery backup when you surf net? 

how does it compare to mediaplayers like ipod touch and cowon D2?

how much did you pay for this?

any accessories available for this phone?

how is gaming?


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## naveen_reloaded (Aug 20, 2009)

desiibond said:


> superb reviews. Thanks for taking the pain to write the review.
> 
> how is the battery backup when you surf net?
> 
> ...




thanks for replying and thanks for appreciating the work .

the battery backlup is good when hearing to music , it does get drained faster on POOR network ( weak signal ). Other than that , battery is pretty much good . mainly because of the screen size it drains a little...

its way to better than ipod , i have compared it with my frineds ipod. the clear bass / clear stereo kicks ass...
I got it for 17K , in black market . actual price is 25k-27k , check univercel website

you get heaphone , usb , CD , M2 card - 8gb with card 

gaming is really good on that big screen. i played Deep Labs Galaxy on Fire 2 ( 3D ) it rocks....


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## rhitwick (Aug 20, 2009)

Hey good review...
Cheers!

But u missed (or I missed!) the price.


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## Tamoghno (Aug 20, 2009)

You forgot to mention a very important criteria : what other phones in this price can offer (n86, ultra touch etc). 

Anyway , i actually like ''too much buttons on side'' . Not having to switch to media player just to skip a song is big plus .


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## sujoyp (Aug 20, 2009)

Great review man...can u upload atleast 1 pic taken from w995


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## tech_cheetah (Aug 21, 2009)

I don't think this cell is worth the price. Compared to W705, which is 8k less, it just has one aspect better - 8mpx camera (and that too without a flash). And yes you can buy an 8GB card in 1k. Speed of UI in all walkman phones is almost same (have used W850, W580 and W705), and I don't understand how you evaluated it as 'Fastest'.
Sheer waste of money !!


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## amitabhishek (Aug 21, 2009)

Dude congrats on your new purchase!!! Like that chrome finish. How much dent on your wallet?  On web; prices are varying between 24k-30k. How good is the browser? Flash? Can you watch youtube?


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## sujoyp (Aug 21, 2009)

tech_cheetah said:


> and that too without a flash....
> Sheer waste of money !!



here is the photo comparison of w995 and n86......I dont think w995 performed too bad
*mobile.mail.ru/reviews/sony_ericsson/Nokia_N86-SE_W995-comp.html

Soo we can say that its a good music player and have a good 8mp cam too

BTW it have a led flash


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## dreamcatcher (Aug 21, 2009)

Its priced at 23k here. Comes with a 8gb card, a desk speaker, an awesome set of headphones,etc etc. 
The n86 is a smartphone. Has almost the same pic quality as the W995,inferior sound quality,heavy, looks pathetic, isnt as intuitive as SE phones,etc etc. 

N85 plusses:-

OLED screen
Smartphone
VGA video recording

Choose your pick. 


Btw, nice review.


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## dreamcatcher (Aug 21, 2009)

Ohh remove the VGA recording as a minus for the W995.C905 has been hacked to get VGA recording implemented. The W995 will follow suit. Peace guys.


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## sujoyp (Aug 21, 2009)

dreamcatcher said:


> Ohh remove the VGA recording as a minus for the W995.C905 has been hacked to get VGA recording implemented. The W995 will follow suit. Peace guys.



Really...it would be great...give us link


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## dreamcatcher (Aug 21, 2009)

*www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=178559&start=945


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## sujoyp (Aug 22, 2009)

thanks a lot...it seems driver hacking can do some miracles...


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## yogi7272 (Aug 22, 2009)

Nice review ..


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## naveen_reloaded (Aug 23, 2009)

@rhitwick


as i said in my second post , I got it for 17 K , the actual price is 24-25k , check univercel website

@Tamoghno 

actually i did the review coz , i got the phone , i will check if my friends are having other phones of same price and do a review , but i dont think they will give the phone for few days , i dont believe in " One time - One review " stuff ... you have to work with the phone or any thing in that matter to get into it and find the goods and bads.

@sujoyp

thnks . I am reallyt sorry for not posting pics taken from W995 . I am now on GPRS , i will be back on Broadband within a week , as the pics size are 2.5 MB or so , its pointless of even trying to upload in GPRS. I will surely update the review with pics. 

@amitabhishek :

Thnks bro . i have mentioned the price in this post... check above. the browser is really fast. and it autofits so that websoites fits well within the screen. as i said in my review it support the lastest FlashLite 2.1 , and youtube are pretty good with good connection , i watched youtube vids on my 512KBPS ( wifi ) and its ran without a hitch , on gprs i dont think it will be that smooth. youtube stuffs are for 3G connection . and on GPRS its waste of try and on our indian network , it wont be feasible too....

@dreamcatcher alias AMDman ... 

nice to see you bo ... wht is your phone now ? its been long time we spoke ? PM me bro..

ditched k850 at last ....

and as u said N85 , the review on other sites have specifically mentioned that N85 drains the battery much faster than W995 , even though it has OLED screen. 



To all :

if you guys want smart phone features like pdf reader , excel etc , everything now can be got in SE phoners also . there are many java apps to do 

i have used the following 

1.) Excell
2.) PDF reader
3.) WINRAR /WINZIP 
4.) IM , GTALK, GMAIL , 

i have heard that there is app for powerpoint too , but havent checked...


as dreamcatcher told , i have hacked my cam driver for better clarity and pimped my video recodring resolution to higher ...

there are also other mods .. check esato , and se-nse.net websites

@yogi7272 : thnks


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## yogi7272 (Aug 23, 2009)

sujoyp said:


> thanks a lot...it seems driver hacking can do some miracles...



That is vga@15 fps only ..


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## sujoyp (Aug 23, 2009)

overall there r soo many things...new flash themes...sound improvements...cam improvements and now video too became vga@15...not bad yaar


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## Vensanga (Aug 23, 2009)

Nice phone man but i have to say its not my type coz i don't like sliding phone..neway its really a good phone..i wonder will SE launches new phone similar to these phone but with a bar type not slide and flips etc..


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## Vensanga (Aug 23, 2009)

Nice phone man but i have to say its not my type coz i don't like sliding phone..neway its really a good phone..i wonder will SE launches new phone similar to these phone but with a bar type not slide and flips etc..


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## Tamoghno (Aug 23, 2009)

naveen_reloaded said:


> if you guys want smart phone features like pdf reader , excel etc , everything now can be got in SE phoners also . there are many java apps to do
> 
> i have used the following
> 
> ...



Java apps cannot be compared with native apps . And every phone can have those java apps . 


This phone is not bad itself , but 24k is bit too much considering the competition. Like vga@15fps is not bad itself , but come on , every nseries does vga30fps and samsung flagship offers hd. As for battery backup , i've not heard only great things about n86. If se price it @18-19k then it might be huge hit and capture the huge gap between n79 and 86.

Btw , can you answer few more questions ?
1. In which menus auto rotate works . Does it work in browser ?
2. Which video formats it support ? Flv , wmv ? Any mod for codecs ?
3. What is gprs lock time (with google maps)
4. Any sign of keypad scratches for sliding of phone .
5.scratches on cam lense ? Any other build issues ?


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## MasterMinds (Aug 24, 2009)

3. It must b gps lock time! The time taken to lock on gps signal(to get ur location etc.)


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## naveen_reloaded (Aug 24, 2009)

Tamoghno said:


> Java apps cannot be compared with native apps . And every phone can have those java apps .
> 
> 
> This phone is not bad itself , but 24k is bit too much considering the competition. Like vga@15fps is not bad itself , but come on , every nseries does vga30fps and samsung flagship offers hd. As for battery backup , i've not heard only great things about n86. If se price it @18-19k then it might be huge hit and capture the huge gap between n79 and 86.





you are right that native apss cant be compared , but all i am saying is , if one is desperate to have those apps , there is a possibilty now for other phones to have these apps. All i am saying is nearly all phones now can be smart phones to some extent. 

many of my friends have Nokia , all hi-end gadgets, but i have not seen them using those apps , simply coz many now have laptop , its now a trend to have a laptop , mobile , bike .... so if one is having laptop , they would prefer the office apps on laptop rather than phone. More over , the use of those in mobile is limited , or say least used. correct me if i am wrong. 

SE has always lacked in the video dept . for a long time. And i dont know why they havent fixed it yet. may be aino , satio can fill in the gaps. but belive me , VGA 30 FPS looks really good , compared to 24 FPS or lesser. the video are smooth.





> Btw , can you answer few more questions ?
> 1. In which menus auto rotate works . Does it work in browser ?
> 2. Which video formats it support ? Flv , wmv ? Any mod for codecs ?
> 3. What is gprs lock time (with google maps)
> ...


1.)auto rotate is lmited to media player alone.  If the wallpaper is falsh , it can take control of accelerometer , but i have not seen themes taking control of accelerometer.

2.)FLV is supported , WMV , i am not sure... there is no mods for codecs.

3.)i dont know wht it is .. sorry my friend.

4.) NO . This slider is smooth and there is adequate gap between the keys and the slidder under surface.

5.) the cam lens is slightly kept below the surface , so we can expect no scratches , but a lens cover would have been great. Build quality is really good , the phone feels solid , but at the same time , its very light , lighter than my K850.


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## dreamcatcher (Aug 26, 2009)

What?? It autorotates the browser too. The rotation works both for the browser and the media player. 

Siva, did you get the desktop speaker that comes bundled??


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## naveen_reloaded (Aug 26, 2009)

^^ o buddy , i got it from a black market as a seconds , few days used , so didnt get desktop speaker ...

wht phone are you now having dreamcatcher ?


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## dreamcatcher (Aug 26, 2009)

66Using the C905 since January. Waiting for the Satio.


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## naveen_reloaded (Aug 26, 2009)

satio .... wht about idou ? 

will change if conditions are good ( family )


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## naveen_reloaded (Sep 4, 2009)

*All W995 / DB3210 Modding Related Stuff Inside ! *


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## Eggy Brahma (Oct 19, 2009)

I'm planing to buy this phone. I need it mainly for music. The sound quality really matters to me. Is the sound quality of this phone better than ipods, specially ipod touch 2G. Please i need help.


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## desiibond (Oct 19, 2009)

if you already have ipod touch, no need to buy this phone.


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