Bundles of memory

On the side of the phone, there’s a fast-access camera button and a dedicated Walkman key to initiate the music player.

The phone’s M2 memory card slot has been hidden away for safe keeping under the rear panel rather than behind a plastic bung on the side (as used on the W880i).

It may be a hassle if you’re constantly switching cards, but realistically for most users it’ll be no big deal; you don’t have to take out the battery to swap cards, and the 2GB card supplied in-box will carry up to 1800 tracks before you have to start swapping for more tunes.

Great earphones supplied

One not-so-good design element remains the same though - the side connector slot for the charger, data lead and headphones. Using Sony Ericsson’s relatively chunky connector, it makes for a pocket-unfriendly arrangement for listening to tunes when the headphones are in place. A top or bottom of the phone socket would be far more practical.

As usual with Sony Ericsson Walkman mobiles, the stereo headset supplied with the Sony Ericsson W890i is of much higher quality than most bundled music mobile earphones., coming with a selection of rubber earbuds for a snug sound-isolating fit.

They’re also a two-part set, with an adapter for a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the cable that plugs into the phone. This means you can improve your music listening experience simply by plugging in better ‘phones.

This though isn’t as essential as on some lesser-equipped mobiles. The Walkman player on the Sony Ericsson W890i delivers a top class music performance, and the supplied earphones support it pretty well too.

Excellent music player

The player is capable of producing a very detailed performance, and you can adjust equaliser settings – and add Mega Bass, if you want to boost lower frequencies. Naturally, plugging in quality headphones will add much more to the quality level, but the in-box ear-gear is certainly well above average.

The loudspeaker, on the other hand, is not so good – it’s particularly tinny.

The impressive overall music player performance is complemented by a polished user interface that’s efficient, easy to use and graphically attractive.

You can sync your music from a PC using supplied Sony Ericsson’s PC Suite Media Manager software and the supplied USB cable, or copy files by dragging and dropping tracks with the phone in mass storage mode, or send files via Bluetooth.

Download music with ease

With HSDPA, getting tracks downloaded over the air is quick and easy – just a matter of a few seconds – either from a mobile network’s music service or via Sony Ericsson’s (currently quite limited) PlayNow and m-buzz music portals.

The Walkman Player 3.0 software lists tracks under artists, albums, playlists, genre, year, audiobooks, podcasts and SensMe – Sony Ericsson’s mood-and-tempo categorisation option.

SensMe allows you to select tracks for a playlist by choosing songs with a similar mood and tempo, defined by the user in Media Manager.

Simple interface

Album art is supported on the Sony Ericsson W890i, and the functional music controls on the D-pad are a breeze to work. The addition of the FM radio here is welcome too, as is Sony Ericsson’s excellent TrackID song identification application that samples tracks and gets detailed info back in seconds.

The general look and feel of the media folder is similar to the Walkman interface, so accessing videos, images albums as well as music seems similarly slick.

The 3.2-megapixel camera is an improvement on the W880i’s 2-megapixel snapper, but it’s far from Sony Ericsson’s best effort, lacking a flash and autofocus system. Sony Ericsson still reserves its best cameras for its Cyber-shot-branded phones.