Sony Ericsson W760 review: Walkman meets GPS

Calendar, tasks and notes all here of course

The Sony Ericsson W760 offers the traditional time-management features: File manager, Alarms, Applications, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Timer, Stopwatch, and Calculator.

The Calendar offers monthly, weekly and daily views. When you enter a birth date in the phonebook, the phone prompts adding it to the calendar. As far as alarms are concerned, there are five alarm slots available. Each one offers a lot of options - you can opt to repeat the alarm on chosen days of the week, as well as everyday. Text and a picture can be added to the alarm.

Calendar and Alarms

Tasks can be two types: simple Tasks and Phone calls. Notes are written similar to messages; T9 dictionary can be used here as well. A nice feature is the option to display notes on the Home screen - rather nice.

Tasks menu and Notes on the homescreen

The Voice recorder has no limit to recording length, making the free memory available the only restriction.

The Calculator is the regular Sony Ericsson application. It offers the basic functions, no bells and whistles.

The stopwatch and countdown timer are also the well known basic applications.

Voice recorder • Calculator

There are some additional applications too

AccuWeather Lite gives you up-to-date weather information for locations of interest to you. It downloads the data online, so data charges apply.

AccuWeather Lite - checking on weather in Monaco

The Java-based Converter fills in for the absence of a native application. It works with distance, volume, temperature, speed, and area. There's also a funny tip calculator, for those who insist on topping the bill with the exact percentage.

Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit

Rock Bobblehead is a totally useless application allowing you to play bobblehead with an Elvis Presley doll using the built-in accelerometer.

Playing Bobblehead is a really a lame pastime

And finally, World Clock 3D allows you to spin the globe searching for a time zone. You can zoom in and out as you please. Of course you can also search by a city name.

Spin the virtual Earth and find your time zone or search by city

3D Gaming is nice

The game section houses two games - the accelerometer-based Need for Speed Pro Street and the Rollercoaster Rush 3D.

"...The game section houses two games - the accelerometer-based Need for Speed Pro Street and the Rollercoaster Rush 3D. Both games have cool 3D interfaces and are well worth giving a try (or a spin for that matter!)..."

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Both games have cool 3D interfaces and are well worth giving a try (or a spin for that matter!). Interestingly enough, the NFS car can be controlled with both the D-pad and the built-in accelerometer (we can't wait to get that racing on the iPhone).

Need for Speed Pro Street

The Rollercoaster Rush 3D doesn't offer accelerometer-based gameplay but it's fun enough anyways. Your goal is to speed or slow down a rollercoaster train - the faster you go without derailing, the more points you earn.

Rollercoaster Rush 3D

Final words

Sony Ericsson W760 is a nice attempt at creating an all-purpose slider. It's got all the goodies many users are waiting for.

Although in dense urban environments our beta unit had a weakish GPS sensitivity, the amount of GPS applications is commendable - especially for a first try from Sony Ericsson.

The Shake Control and SensMe feature worked like a charm and the built-in accelerometer was precise as expected. The integration of YouTube in the Media Center is a welcome change too. The NetFront web browser is as capable and fast as in the web-centric Sony Ericsson K660.

All that said, it seems choosing between Sony Ericsson W760 and W910 would be a hard call. The award-winning W910 is more compact and refined, and has a larger screen. With the difference pretty much boiling down to GPS and camera megapixels, making up your mind is a matter of priorities really.