Sony Ericsson has a successor to the mixed-received W880i, the W890i. Sony Ericsson, for the most part, has kept many of the design cues from the W880i: thin and attractive. However, this time, the W890i has a 3.2 megapixel camera and larger numeric buttons, which was a common complaint with the predecessor’s too tiny numeric pad. Overall, the W890i’s slim package, 3G support, and excellent Walkman player makes it worth considering.

Review after the break.

Specs:
* GSM 850/900/1800/1900; HSDPA 2100 (3.6 Mbps)
* 2-inch 240 x 320 pixels TFT display
* 3.2 megapixel camera
* 26MB internal memory
* M2 card slot (2GB included)
* Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
* Video recorder: QVGA @ 15fps
* Walkman music player: MP3, AAC
* Video playback: MPEG-4
* TrackID Music Recognition
* FM radio with RDS
* RSS reader
* USB
* Battery life: Standby - 360 hours; Talk time - 9 hours 30 minutes
* Price: £299.99 ($600 USD)

Good:
+ excellent metal and slim construction; it’s just elegant looking/feeling
+ much easier to type with the W890i’s larger buttons
+ RSS reader is convenient
+ Call quality is excellent
+ Walkman player is great
+ Internal speaker is good
+ Easy navigation though menus

Bad:
- 26MB of memory. Are you serious?
- Camera has no flash or auto focus; poor (blurry) image quality
- Video recording is limited to 15 fps
- Uses a separate “typical-Sony-proprietary” connector which doubles as the radio antenna and 3.5mm jack. Why not built-in?

If you have used the previous model, the W880i, then the Sony Ericsson W890i should be a satisfying upgrade. The larger buttons make it much easier to use, call quality is good, and the Walkman player sounds great. The UI in the W890i is intuitive to use as well. Plus, you can’t ignore the fact that the phone sports 3G. Downloading music and web surfing is a snap. Best of all, the W890i maintains it’s slim package, making it one of the most elegant phones on the market. As long as you don’t mind a mediocre camera and the insufficient internal storage space (buy an M2 card), give the Sony Ericsson W890i a shot.

The W890i is out in Europe for £299.99 ($600), but you can find one online for less than $500.

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