The Sony Ericsson W715 is a Vodafone exclusive handset, though the W705 is almost identical and is available much more widely. The key difference between the two is that Voda’s option has GPS built in, but apart from that the variations are minimal. The GPS is used to good effect by Vodafone’s Find and Go navigation services, which you get free for three months.
This is a Walkman slider phone and is very neatly designed. The quality materials give a solid feel to the handset whose mix of silver, gold and brown colouring sounds a bit off but look surprisingly attractive.
The music control buttons on the front facia are overlayed onto the navigation pad, and you can also use Sony Ericsson’s wacky shake control. If you can be bothered, you can hold down a tiny Walkman key on the top edge of the phone, then shake it left and right to move between tracks, up and down to control volume.
This is a HSDPA handset with Wi-Fi, and Web browsing on the 2.5 inch 320 x 240 pixel screen is a reasonably rewarding experience. The screen flips as you turn the phone in your hand so you can easily make the most of the wide format for Web browsing.
The Sony Ericsson W715 weighs just 98g and its 95mm x 48mm x 14.3mm fit neatly in the pocket. Sadly Sony Ericsson’s proprietary headset connector sticks out of the left edge and has pocket-snagging potential. There is 120MB of internal memory, and a 4GB Memory Stick Micro slot adds more.
Verdict
The Sony Ericsson W715 is a beautifully designed slider with plenty of features. Shame about the protruding proprietary headset connector, though.
Best features
GPS with free trial of mapping software
Good hardware design
Very nice screen
Not so good
Silly (but easily ignored) shake control
Proprietary headset connector
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