As a mobile phone, the Sony Ericsson W580i is a testament not to discount just how important the ‘cool factor’ of a mobile phone could be. Never mind the extra features or goodies, and strip away all the inner software, the cool factor relates, quite simply, to how stylishly awesome a mobile phone is. In the case of Sony Ericsson’s W580i, this could not be more clear, as, there are many other mobile phones that offer much better features, and yet, few that really just look anywhere near as cool.

Features of a Sony Ericsson W580i

For the purposes of this review, it should be assumed that coolness is an actual feature. Why shouldn’t it be? After all, it is part of the phone, albeit the superfluous exterior, that most defines how cool or how stylish a phone is.

In terms of the W580i, it is really tough to decide where to begin. As a slidephone, it is definitely very accessible, with buttons that are easy to click on the keypad, and exterior buttons that offer direct access to the Walkman functions. Even in this simple slider, some of the urban style that is hallmarked by the W580i is apparent, with a hot orange colour backing on the slider itself.

Truly, the rest of the phone pretty much follows suit, all of it engineered to exude the urban style that it is targeted at. Essentially, it looks sporty yet hip, and has many gimmicks that further accentuate that. First of these is the ‘shake control’ feature, where simply shaking the phone can cause it to switch and shuffle tracks. Next is the pedometer, that is bound to be nice for anyone that likes a brisk walk or jog. After all, with mobile phones slowly incorporating absolutely everything, why not a pedometer?

In addition, there is the Walkman music player that never fails to impress, as well as a 2.0 megapixel camera, and support for a memory stick that can go up to 1GB. Particularly, this memory stick support may be crucial as, with only 12 MB internal memory, if any decent amounts of songs are to be stored on the mobile phone, more memory is a necessity.

A Cool Music Player Phone

Blatantly, the Sony Ericsson W580i is designed for those who aren’t too bothered as to whether or not their camera is a 5.0 megapixel high definition one, or simply a 2.0 megapixel one. Instead, the W580i focuses on mobile phone deals with customers that want that something different, something special, and something cool.

After all, as things stand the W580i pretty much has the market for urban style designs pretty much to itself, and certainly seems to be benefiting from having the W580i as a mobile phone to appeal to non-techies.

Perhaps at some point other mobile phones with just as interesting styles will come out, although it does stand to reason that the vast majority of styles should tend to remain in the elegant and professional type category. Still, for those who would feel like having a mobile phone worth showing off with its distinct style, then the Sony Ericsson W580i is best of the mobile phone deals out there in this regard.

By: Caroline Telford