Fight! The W960i meets the N81 and iPhone

[slitchfield]

As part of Ewan's music-focussed look at the Sony Ericsson W960i, he's pitched it in a free-for-all music fight with the Nokia N81 and Apple iPhone . All rocking 8GB of storage, which emerges as the music champion? It turns out that music playback quality isn't perhaps such a differentiator, after all...

Read on in the full article.

Your review is a garbage. You do not do any RMAA measurement or anything else your audio reiew like thing only depen on your ears. You dont make any solid statement which one is better. You can not even properly made a proper review of W960i. I think it better for you quit reviewing phones or start making better reviews like Mobile-review.....

[krisse]

Great article, it does seem like there's very little sound quality difference between music devices nowadays.

On the subject of headphones, when I bought a 5300 and tried using the official headphones it sounded very flat, which was disappointing for a music-oriented phone. However, with third party headphones using a 2.5mm/3.5mm adaptor it was a much richer and more impressive sound and louder too.

This seems to be the case on a lot of devices, when you switch to better headphones the sound quality improves dramatically. But how many people DO switch to better headphones? How many think they are compelled to use the ones that come in the box?

I think you guys enjoy pissing people off.

@krisse
contrary to the other two, the headphones that come with the iPhone are just fine.
No need to spend extra dough.

This comparison test was very unimpressive. Firstly it was very short. Second you mentioned the songs you used to test but didn't tell how each handset performed with the said tracks. You also didn't comment on the individual performance of the handsets or provide any details as to what kind of sound these devices produce. You didn't even rate their performance or gave any idea as to which you thought was the best and why.

Overall i'd say it was a disappointing test. I'd expected more from you guys.

[krisse]

contrary to the other two, the headphones that come with the iPhone are just fine.
No need to spend extra dough.

Oh yeah, I wasn't saying all manufacturers did this, I'd expect good headphones on a device with such a high price tag and a music-centric heritage.

It's just frustrating when so many people (including some reviewers) make up their mind about devices based on what the bundled headphones sound like. To be completely fair they should use the same headphones on all the devices they compare (which is what I try to do using a third party 3.5mm pair and an adaptor if required).

Why don't you make RMAA tests? Sorry but this review is useless.

[Dogmann]

Hi all

Sorry but i couldn't agree less with this statement how ever hard i tried

"Music based smart phones have audibly come of age – the decision between a dedicated player and a converged device has nothing to do with the quality."

I do whoever agree that supplied headphones are adequate at best and an upgrade here really pays dividends. But just as important is how the Music is encoded tiny Mp3's may allow you to squeeze as many Albums as possible but at what cost when it comes to Music files IMO smaller really isn't better as always quality is what counts not quantity.

Listening to Music that doesn't sound good is a horrible thing to do and not worth the effort, some Music smart phones do a reasonable job but are still not up to a dedicated player and seeing as you didn't test them against one i really fail to see how you can justify your opinion. It also would of been nice to have know at what quality the Music you tested was encoded at, i have tried 256kbps AAC exactly the same files on both a N95/N95 8GB and 5th Gen iPod the difference was so great i decided not to sell the iPod as whilst the smart phones did a good job they were just not any where near as good as the dedicated player. But then a dedicated player can't make and receive calls, surf the Web, send and receive E-Mails or many of the other things a smart phone can but it can certainly play Music better than them IMO.

Marc

[davidmaxwaterma]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

@krisse
contrary to the other two, the headphones that come with the iPhone are just fine.
No need to spend extra dough.

Countrary to the other two, with the iPhone one ends up having to pay extra for a 'just fine' pair of earphones only to throw them away because one has an excellent pair already.

With the other two, one only has to pay for and throw away a cheap pair.

Given a little more inclination I'd sit down and spend some time doing a proper audio analysis with the phones I've got (just got an N82 to add to my collection: 5 Symbian phones now). Initial impressions of my N82 are that the music sounds fairly good. The only major issue is that Symbian and Nokia do not have a clue how to start playing audio cleanly. There is almost always a short audio glitch whenever you press play and also when one track ends and another begins.

[Rafe]

We do appreciate that some people prefer technical reviews (e.g. with RMAA measurements), but we also think there is room for opinion pieces. Ewan is letting other people know what he thinks.

The human element can be just as worthy as a purely technical criteria.

That said we'll take all this on board and try and do better in future reviews, as ever your feedback is appreciated.

I agree that the review is a crap as there is no data to support. Though the review is purely a opinion.. I question the music knowledge of the reviewers.

[slitchfield]

Although I agree the comparison is on the short side, I'll stick up for Ewan here: he wasn't attempting to do a ridiculously detailed, statistical analysis of the sound coming out of all three devices. Geeky analysis of this kind is strictly for those people without a life. In this case, Ewan's got a life, a family and better things to do. He used his knowledge of how the tracks were supposed to sound, was surprised at how good they all sounded, with no real defects on any device (we couldn't have said that 2 years ago) and expressed his opinions in plain English.

And I agree. All modern smartphones have music that's good enough for my ears. I wouldn't recommend any of these devices for a classically pure audiophile, but for 99.9% of us they're fine for 99.9% of the time. Surely that's good enough and we can move on?

The issue with the W960 is the stupid deactivation of the music controls, of course - that's by far the dominant factor in any overall comparison!

I think the problem is that this review is about audio and not about a phone. Sound quality is really important and this is being expressed quite loudly! (like the pun??)

I would get a w960i staight away but for the lack of a 3.5mm socket. I don't think this review states clearly enough on how bad SE dongle thing is. If you put the phone in your pocket with the dongle it WILL come off at some point and then the music starts blarring out the speakers. I have NO idea how sony can dare to calls these 'walkman' devices - oh because they have some buttons!!! Yeh big deal all phones have buttons!! a headphone socket is more important. Total joke in my opinion.