Display
The display shows up to 262 K colors at 240x320 pixel resolution (2 inches diagonal, TFT), which allows accommodating up to 8 text and 3 service lines for most applications; and when browsing web-pages, or handling e-mails or text messages, you can cram more lines into the display by decreasing the font size.
Similarly to other Sony Ericsson’s models, the S500i utilizes mirror layer that improves its readability while in the sun and allows its picture to stay crisp and visible. Similar displays have already been spotted among the company’s latest offerings, like the Sony Ericsson S500i and the Sony Ericsson W580i. The only thing we can fault it for is the smallish diagonal, while other specifications are quite decent.
Keypad
All buttons are shaped as tiny squares which do resemble those found in the Sony Ericsson K850i. To a certain extent, replication of the flagship’s keypad indicates the T650i’s status they are trying to clad it with. For instance, the Sony Ericsson K770i’s keypad is so much less sophisticated, and thus is more conventional.
The keys are lit in white, but that’s not all – there are various effects available as well, like fading, waves of light etc., which all look quite charming.
Ergonomics-wise, the keypad is not the thing we have any gripes with – it feels unusual at first, but then you get used to it and won’t experience any hardships. The navigation buttons boasts metal-like relief skin, and is also a breeze to handle.
Battery
The back cover sits firmly in its slot, however it is quite easy to pull open. Inside the battery compartment you will find a 930 mAh Li-Pol battery – the BST-38. The maker claims a battery life you up to 300 hours of standby and up to 7 hours of talk time. In conditions of Moscow networks the T650i stayed online for around three days, and we were not particularly heavy on its features (up to 1 hour of calls, 30 minutes of games, 20 minutes of web surfing). Should you start squeezing out of the phone more than that, get ready to recharge the T650i daily or once in two days. However, the less you talk the longer it stays up and running, actually up to 3-4 days, but that’s the least possible usage pattern. In Europe the battery life will be at least twice as good in all modes, all thanks to better coverage. Continuous music playback time - up to 16 hours.
Connectivity
On USB-connection you are forced to pick connection type – specifically whether you will be accessing data stored on the memory card or just keep managing the phone or activate Print mode. For the first mode we mentioned above the handset goes off and you gain access to the contents of both the memory card and the phone internal memory. Despite the maker claiming it to be USB 2.0, data transfer speed doesn’t exceed 500 Kb/s. If you just want your W580i to turn into a modem, then pick the second option, when you will have a chance to play around with various USB settings for going online.
Bluetooth. The handset comes with EDR-enabled Bluetooth 2.0, the menu enables you to turn on enhanced power saving mode. There is also A2DP support, which allows employing wireless headsets with the W580i. The list of supported profiles:
- A2DP
- Basic Imaging Profile
- Basic Printing Profile
- Dial-Up Networking Profile
- File Transfer Profile
- Generic Access Profile
- Generic Object Exchange Profile
- Handsfree Profile
- Headset Profile
- HID
- JSR-82 Java API
- Object Push Profile
- Personal Area Network Profile
- Serial Port Profile
- Service Discovery Application Profile
- Synchronization Profile
- SyncML OBEX binding
Memory, memory card
The handset comes with roughly 16 Mb of user-available memory, the package also includes a 256 Mb M2 memory card (no particular reason for throwing such a smallish card into the box). The T650i also supports hot-swap, meaning that you can change memory cards (up to 2 Gb) on the go.
Performance
The W580i puts up typical numbers for the company’s latest generation of devices and is ahead of most models available on the market. There are no limits on JAR-file size, HEAP size – from 512 Kb to 1.5 Mb.
Camera
The handset enjoys a 3,2 Mpix CMOS-matrix with autofocus, which proves to be different from that found in the Sony Ericsson K790i/K800i and snaps worse pictures in terms of quality. The T650i also employs the CyberShot camera interface that you know so well from the previous devices.
The Camera settings look as follows:
- Shutter sound. You can choose on of the three shutter sounds but not turn the sound off.
- White balance. A possibility to choose between an auto-mode, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight.
- Effects. Several effects may be applied to the photos, these are Negative, Solarize, Sepia, Black & White.
- Timer is activated for a certain time period for self shooting.
- Various shooting modes are in place. Night mode is meant for shooting in the dark. Noises raise on a photo, exposure time gets increased (you shouldn't move the device in order not to get a blurry photo).
- Shooting mode. Normal mode, that takes ordinary photos. Multishot-mode (Burst 4) allows taking four photos in a series. Landscape is a very interesting mode that allows taking rather fetching photos; the market hasn’t seen anything similar to date yet. The last mode is taking photos with frames, photo resolution is decreased automatically.
The screen serves as a viewfinder while in the shooting mode. The picture moves very smoothly, details don’t get dropped out. Numeric keys help in switching between various functions and shooting parameters quickly that significantly fastens work.
Video may be recorded in two resolutions (176x144, 128x96), file format is 3GP. Clip duration may be limited (up to 10 seconds) or unlimited. The quality of the clips is below all criticism; so far this has been the weakest spot of all Sony Ericsson-branded devices.
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