What You Get 

The story begins in a rather mundane manner for a seasoned hardware reviewer. I happened to need to update to a new cellphone plan, and a small regional provider here, Suncom, has an excellent unlimited calling plan for $60 a month. So, a quick trip to the Suncom store, and a bit of positive salesmanship by a really nice guy named Greg, and out I come with a very interesting new toy!  

Out of the box you will find numerous pieces. A typical AC wall charger. A USB data cable is welcome and is an increasingly more common addition. More on its uses later.

We also find a two piece audio adaptor, with thankfully removable/replaceable earbuds, and a wired hands free cable. As you can see from the end plugs of the USB data cable, and the hands free adaptor, Sony's connection interface is proprietary. A standard mini-5 USB connector (like the one found on Sony's digital cameras) and a standard hands free audio jack would have been welcome. 

To round out the rest of the package, you will find Sony's 73 page user's manual in English and Spanish, a 5 page Quick Guide foldout (also in both languages), some safety guidelines papers (don’t insert your cell phone into a bodily orifice!) and Sony Ericsson's PC Suite Software. We'll look more in depth into Sony's software bundle in a bit. After all, we haven’t taken a look at the phone yet.

The Walkman 300i is a compact and extremely light flip phone. Even though the phone is clad entirely in plastic, apart from the weight, the phone does feel quite solid and sturdy. Two basic color schemes (white and black) are available, so I hope you’re a monochrome sort of person.

 

 

 

 

On the front face, a monochrome orange-backlit LED display is available. A bit disappointing with so many other phones having a tiny color display here, but it does display adequate information. When the phone is in sleep mode, the backlight shuts off and the LED becomes a clock display. You'll also notice the camera lens. The camera is only VGA (640x480), though it also supports recording of 2 minute long video clips.

 

You will notice the top end of the phone has a rather large and protruding loop stand rather than an antenna stub. This serves two purposes. It's the antenna housing of course, but it also props the phone up when open, which is a welcome feature for speakerphone use as the speaker is on the back of the unit.

Along the side you will find a set of buttons for the Walkman functions, though they have dual purposes, depending on what you're doing. For playing audio files these three buttons control volume, play/stop, and browsing back and forth between audio files. It's a handy feature that gives you basic control over the Walkman aspects of the phone without having to flip it open.

On the other side, we find the phones IRDA data port, for IRDA syncing (should your laptop or desktop have an IRDA port) or for sending files between IRDA capable phones.

Once you open the unit, you're facing a very bright if small 128x160 screen, supporting 65,535 colors. A handy set of the usual icons/indicators goes across the top of the screen, indicating signal strength, whether or not you're in an EDGE or GPRS capable data network. Whether or not Bluetooth is enabled and communicating. Whether or not you have headphones or a hands-free unit installed. There is a missed call indicator, voice/text message available indicator, and the ever present battery gauge. At the bottom you see the usual time and date stamps, and access to the calls menu and the main menu.

The lower half of the unit has a slick appearance, perhaps too slick though. The shiny, smooth and "stacked" numerical keypad while not the most difficult, isn’t the easiest keypad to use that I've encountered either. The upper key layout is fairly standard Sony/Ericsson fare with four function buttons and a flat joystick. At the very bottom of the phone, in the left and right corners respectively are the Walkman® and power on/off switches. These are very tiny and basically flush with the unit, making them slightly hard to press. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how ham-handed you are with a cell phone.

Before we get too carried away with the phone itself, let's take a peek at the software bundle, Sony Ericsson's PC Suite.