One useful function that all Nokia’s I’ve owned have is “Cell Info Display” which can usually be found in the phones “Display settings” (eg: in a Nokia 1600) or “Phone Settings” (eg: in a Nokia 3315)

If your network supports it, when “Cell Info Display” is enabled, it will display the name of the base station your mobile is currently connected to on the screen eg: when i’m walking around the city it says “Sydney CBD” and when i’m at home it displays the name of my suburb.

Note:
To display “p” press “*” three times within one second, To display “w” press “*” four times within one second, To display “+” press twice “*” within less than a second

Code Function
*3370# / #3370# Activate / Deactivate Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFR) – Your phone uses the best sound quality but talk time is reduced my approx. 5%
*#4720# / *#4720# Activate / Deactivate Half Rate Codec – Your phone uses a lower quality sound but you should gain approx 30% more Talk Time
*#7220# / *#7230# Enable / Disable PCCCPH support (faster GPRS)..

#pw+1234567890+1# Provider Lock Status. (use the “*” button to obtain the “p,w” and “+” symbols)
#pw+1234567890+2# Network Lock Status. (use the “*” button to obtain the “p,w” and “+” symbols)
#pw+1234567890+3# Country Lock Status. (use the “*” button to obtain the “p,w” and “+” symbols)
#pw+1234567890+4# SIM Card Lock Status. (use the “*” button to obtain the “p,w” and “+” symbols)
12345 This is the default security code

*#0000# Displays your phones software version, 1st Line : Software Version, 2nd Line : Software Release Date, 3rd Line : Compression Type
*#9999# Phones software version if *#0000# does not work
*#06# For checking the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI Number)

*#67705646# Removes operator logo on 3310 & 3330
*#73# Reset phone timers and game scores
*#746025625# Displays the SIM Clock status, if your phone supports this power saving feature “SIM Clock Stop Allowed”, it means you will get the best standby time possible
press and hold # Lets you switch between lines

*#7760# Manufacturers code
*#7780# Restore factory settings
*#8110# Software version for the nokia 8110
*#92702689# Displays – 1.Serial Number, 2.Date Made, 3.Purchase Date, 4.Date of last repair (0000 for no repairs), 5.Transfer User Data. To exit this mode you need to switch your phone off then on again

This means that it is a slider-type phone but with a hinge allowing it to bend so as to conform better to the user’s face while in use as a handset.The phone features a 2 Megapixel camera, a 16 million color QVGA display, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, a 3.6 Mbit/s HSDPA connection and 90 MB of internal memory. The internal memory is expandable to 32 GB using High Capacity MicroSD (Transflash) cards..

Confident and strong, this next-generation RAZR™ takes thin to the next level by packing it with a new, richer multimedia experience.  RAZR² V8 provides an unmatched music experience.  It comes complete with 512MB end user memory¹ or 2GB memory, USB 2.0 high speed for fast music file transfers², Windows Media Player® 11 synchronization for simple music management and a music touch screen on the external display for effortless control.

The touch-sensitive music controls, located on the large color external display, maintains a sleek look while consumers manage and play songs purchased from any Windows-based music store.  Users can also read and reply to texts³ via RAZR² V8’s external display, which is the largest in its class.  After flipping open the phone to start the music player, users can sit back, listen and enjoy without ever flipping open the phone again..

With quad band technology, travel the world a little lighter.⁴   Users can take advantage of the 2.0 megapixel camera, video capture and playback, and up to 2GB¹ of internal memory to capture every unforgettable moment in high resolution..

The RAZR² V8 is outfitted in extravagant materials tailored to sleek perfection.  A stainless steel frame helps ensure strength while vacuum metal housing, chemically hardened glass, spun metal and chrome create an amazing appearance..

Certain mobile phone features are dependent on the capabilities and settings of your service provider’s network.  Additionally, certain features may not be activated by your service provider, and/or their network settings may limit the feature’s functionality.  Always contact your service provider about feature availability and functionality.  All features, functionality and other product specifications are based upon the latest available information and are believed to be accurate; however such product specifications are subject to change without notice or obligation.

¹ Available user memory varies due to the configuration of the phone, which varies by service provider.
² The unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials is contrary to the provisions of the Copyright Laws of the United States and other countries. This device is intended solely for copying non-copyrighted materials, materials in which you own the copyright, or materials which you are authorized or legally permitted to copy. If you are uncertain about your right to copy any material, please contact your legal advisor.
³ Network and/or SIM card dependent feature, not available in all areas. Airtime, data charges, and/or additional charges may apply.

A touch of class

The large touchscreen, with stylus and handwriting recognition, will release you from the frustration of a tiny keyboard – using this phone is pure pleasure.

Putting you in touch with the world

A touchscreen and stylus is the perfect way to operate this 3G phone with massive, 4GB music storage and fast, full-colour, full-screen Internet.

RSS feeds 

Use your phone to view up-to-the-minute news and other content from selected websites and blogs. Just subscribe to the feed and let it come to you

The Bluetooth™ experience

Bluetooth™ wireless technology frees more than your hands – it lets your devices talk to each other without tangles, across ranges of up to 10 metres

GPRS

GPRS offers fast and effective mobile data transfer. When you use GPRS you’re charged only for data sent and received, and not for airtime

Discover what your phone can do

Put more into something, and you’ll get more out. Add useful, fun and powerful applications to your mobile phone to unleash its full potential for business, leisure and daily convenience. Several trial applications are pre-installed, and there are many more to download from the Sony Ericsson Application Shop

Handy applications

Get organised with the helpful suite of Handy applications. Handy Day won’t let you forget meetings, tasks and messages. Record business expenses as they occur with Handy Expense. And Handy Safe ensures that all your important information is securely accessed and managed from one place

WorldMate

Access critical travel information anywhere, anytime from your phone. World clocks, global weather forecasts, currency converters and real-time flight status updates take the stress out of travelling. Enjoy continuous service even if you switch phone or PDA mode

Wayfinder Navigator™

Transform your phone into a fully fledged GPS-based navigation and mapping system with Wayfinder Navigator™ and a GPS receiver. Explore up-to-date, moving maps and search easily among millions of locations such as restaurants, hotels, WLANs, airports and more

Audible

Make the most of your time by listening to audio programs while you’re on the move. Download spoken editions of books, periodicals and other audio to listen to via your phone. Audible can automatically download updated content every night, so you’re always up with the latest information

Deluxe Walkman® phone

Mobile phone and music player for audio connoisseurs. Great sound quality, advanced communication features, sleek style.

Instant satisfaction

EDGE makes everything move faster. Pictures, downloads, email and the Web. Why wait when you don’t have to

Capture the action

Video clips are ideal for those unexpected great moments that happen when you’re out there, enjoying life

Web wherever

Truly mobile Internet lets you enjoy browsing the Web and manage your email effectively with the convenience of your phone, wherever you are

The Bluetooth™ experience

Liberate yourself from cables and revel in unfettered freedom. Bluetooth™ wireless technology frees more than your hands – discover how easy it is to synchronise devices, share files and multitask when you’re not tripping over wires or constantly unplugging and reconnecting. Please check the functionality of your Bluetooth™ device to see which services it supports. To see which Bluetooth™ Headsets are compatible with your Sony Ericsson W810i

Listening is a pleasure

Pump up the volume with confidence when listening to your favourite song – your Bluetooth™ device will automatically mute the music for incoming calls. There’s no need to lunge for the volume control

Listening is a pleasure

Pump up the volume with confidence when listening to your favourite song – your Bluetooth™ device will automatically mute the music for incoming calls. There’s no need to lunge for the volume control

The versatile technology

In the spirit of co-operation, Sony Ericsson Bluetooth™ products are compatible with other brands such as Sony, TDK, Apple™ and Palm. Connect easily to a PC or PDA to browse the Web and sync files, and print wirelessly from a Bluetooth™-enabled printer.

When it comes to Sony Ericsson phones, US users are often out of luck. US carriers don’t offer many SE phones which means we have to pay very high prices for import models. But once in a while, AT&T picks up a new Sony Ericsson model and this time it’s the W580i. The new Sony Ericsson Walkman W580i comes with the usual set of strong music tools including Disc2Phone, TrackID, FM radio and much more; plus built-in Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support. In addition to strong music features and a good 2 megapixel camera, the W580i also comes with great gaming capabilities, a 2” bright display and a Memory Stick Micro M2 slot..

The Sony Ericsson W580i slider is a quad band GSM world phone that’s offered by AT&T in the US and has EDGE for data. Sony Ericsson also sells an unlock version in Sonystyle stores and online. There are some variations in the packaging and software bundles between the to units and we cover both versions in this review. The unlocked Sony Ericsson currently comes in two colors: Style White and Urban Grey and is priced at $299.99 unlocked. The AT&T version currently comes in Style White and Boulevard Black colors and is priced at $79.99 with 2-year contract..

Design and Ergonomics

Sony Ericsson Walkman phones have a bit of Euro chic and they’re never afraid of intense colors (like Sony Ericsson orange) or unique forms (like the W600i swivel design). The W580i however has a more modest slider design, though it does have a touch of style: the side of the phone is curved rather than straight. The slider form ensures that the 2” display, large d-pad and and slide-out number pad can fit into a small phone that’s shirt or jeans pocket-friendly.

Measuring in at 3.89 x 1.85 x 0.55 inches, the W580i feels just the right size in hand. Slide the display up to reveal the number pad (in stunning orange on the white and black models and gray on the Urban Gray model). All menu buttons and the number pad have backlighting which is bright enough to see in the dark (the white and black phones with orange keypad have white backlighting for the numbers and orange for the d-pad, while the gray phone with black keyboard has blue backlighting). The d-pad feel roomy when gaming and playing music. Like many Sony Ericsson phones, the W580i doesn’t have dedicated call send and call end buttons. Instead you use the left and right selection keys to make and end a call. A dedicated Walkman key launches the music player with one touch, and on the AT&T version, you will also get a dedicated key to launch AT&T’s MediaNet (web portal). For those of your who aren’t familiar with Sony Ericsson controls, use the Back Key on the left of the D-pad to go one step back (press once) and to quit out of an application you are currently in (press and hold). To turn T9 on and off, press and hold the * key.

The black AT&T and unlocked Urban Gray W580i versions.

 Side buttons are minimal: the Sony Ericsson Fast Port charging/headset port is on the right, the volume rocker is on the left, and the Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot is on top along with the power button. Though the design in modern minimalist and might be called understated, Sony Ericsson isn’t shy with colors: the back of the slider is brightly colored (orange in the White and Black versions and Blue in the Grey version) and the side LED light in green when the phone is slid open. The battery is located under a door on the back of the phone and you must remove the battery to access the SIM slot

The Sony Ericsson W580i messaging client handles SMS, MMS and email. The email client allows you to set up POP3/IMAP4 accounts much as you would on your desktop, and you can get attachments in your email messages. The AT&T version of the W580i comes with bookmarks for popular web-based email sites including Yahoo, AOL, MSN and more, and you can go directly to the mobile email login pages. The T9 input isn’t ideal for email, but it works in a pinch. For the web, the Sony Ericsson comes with a much improved Netfront browser that’s far superior to last generation Sony Ericsson phones offered by US carriers. The browser can display full HTML pages with all the tables, images and more intact. You can turn off the smart-fit view if a page you are loading doesn’t look right, and you can view web pages in landscape mode. It doesn’t have full support for Javascript menus and dHTML, but it does support cookies, bookmarks and has a RSS feed reader. The unlocked version automatically configured network settings for both MMS and the web on both AT&T and T-Mobile networks. The phone has good speed over EDGE on AT&T, and page loading times were fast by EDGE standards.

Multimedia, Gaming and Display

Sony Ericsson phones have always been heavy hitters in the entertainment department, and the W580i Walkman phone is no exception. The sound quality through the included stereo earbud headphones is superb and if you turn on the MegaBass boost feature in the Walkman player, the phone outputs full and powerful sound that booms. The W580i also has support for A2DP which allows the phone to play music via Bluetooth to stereo headphones. When we played tracks through the Plantronics Pulsar 590A and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth stereo headsets, the sound quality was excellent and volume was even louder with stronger bass than the wired headset. The Walkman music player supports playlists, and has shuffle, repeat, an equalizer, bass boost (Megabass), stereo widening and skins. Sony Ericsson added another gimmick to music playback: Shake Control. Press and hold the Walkman button and shake the phone to change tracks– a great features if you are jogging or biking. Like other Walkman phones, the W580i supports music files in the MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+) formats and you can rip music CDs using the included Disc2Phone software for Windows. The process is quite easy and we tested it on both Windows XP and Vista and it worked well with both. In addition to music playback, the Sony Ericsson also comes with an FM Radio that uses the included headset as an antenna. The built-in radio offers RDS support for station IDs and song info, has a favorite channel list and the Track ID service which identifies songs playing on the radio for you. On the AT&T version, there’s an icon for AT&T’s music store where you can shop for ringtones, listen to steaming radio and much more, but no music is for sale. 

Playing games on Sony Ercisson phone is always a joy. Like Nokia, Sony Ericsson spends ton of money and manpower to cultivate the game developer community. The W580i is another strong performer when it comes to gaming. Though the Sony Ericsson comes with a couple of games to start you out, their games portal currently doesn’t offer many titles to download for free or for purchase (the phone may be too new, and more games may yet appear). The AT&T version is better equipped for users to get a large number of game titles in one catalog, and several game demos are pre-installed, though no full versions were included. We tested many enjoyable games in various genres including action, puzzle, strategy and simulation, and the Sony Ericsson W580i worked well in playing all the titles with smooth performance and good controls. 

To store music, pictures, videos and game files, the Sony Ericsson has 12 MB internal memory and a Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot that supports up to 4GB cards. The AT&T white version of the W580i comes with a 256MB card in the box while the Sony Ericsson version comes with a 512MB card. The AT&T Black version doesn’t include any starter card.

The Sony Ericsson W580i has a 2” QVGA display that’s capable of displaying 262K colors. The screen can’t compete with the Sony Ericsson K850i’s gorgeous display, but it’s very decent, bright and color saturated. Pictures, videos and music visualizations look good and the screen is amazingly usable outdoors even in direct sunlight. With the newly added animated Flash themes, you can get some really cool themes, wallpapers and screen savers. You can set the screen brightness level, but not the backlight time-out, which is too short..

Camera

Sony Ericsson enthusiasts know that one thing they can always rely on is the built-in camera. The Sony Ericsson W810i showed US cell phone users what a good camera phone could do. Yes, there are plenty of import phones that do even better, but those offered by US carriers aren’t high-end imaging phones. Even among the impressive high-megapixel import phones on the market, Sony Ericsson W580i’s 2.0 megapixel camera doesn’t disappoint for the price. It’s a good performer in its class and takes very sharp photos with good color balance and saturation. Photos in well-lit outdoor shots are sharp with correct colors and reasonably full details. Some photos show slight over-sharpening but it’s by no means bad. Direct sun shots have white-out on reflective surfaces which is a problem for most digital cameras. Overcast outdoor shots look a bit hazy but still have reasonably good detail and sharpness, and have very good color balance. Photos taken indoors have a noticeable cool color cast and the noise level is high compared to outdoor shots (higher noise indoors is the norm). But there’s still enough good image data to edit a dimly lit shot and turn it into something decent..

The camera can take picture in 2 megapixel, 1 megapixel and VGA sizes and offers additional shooting modes such as panorama and burst. There camera app offers a variety of  white balance, color effects and other settings for still images. The camera can also take videos with audio. You can shoot videos for video messaging (MMS) or long videos to store on a card or on the phone. Video quality is good with audio in sync. It deals with low-light conditions fairly well, but you can see a bit of yellowish tint in indoor videos under incandescent light. Otherwise the clips are sharp and playback smoothly..

Bluetooth

The Sony Ericsson W580i has Bluetooth v2.0 and supports most common Bluetooth profiles including Headset, Hands-Free, A2DP, AVRCP, DUN (Dial Up Network), Object Push for vCard and vCal and FTP profiles. The phone also has an interesting Bluetooth remote control profile that lets the phone control desktop applications via Bluetooth.

When working with the Plantronics Pulsar 590A stereo headset, the W580i had excellent and powerful sound. Music sounded full on all channels and volume was very loud. The playback controls on the Pulsar 590A worked like a charm for forward/back and play/pause actions. When a call comes in while you are listening to music, the headset will fade the music out and alert you of the incoming call. When you end your call, the music will resume playing automatically. We weren’t surprised by the Pulsar’s good performance (it sounds great with most A2DP phones), but we were pleasantly surprised at how superb the Motorola S9 stereo headset sounded with the W580i. The Motorola S9 is prone to low background hiss and can sound a bit thin, but the sound quality with the Sony Ericsson W580 was absolutely amazing. The audio was full, bass was strong and volume was super loud. In-call voice quality was also very good.

While the Sony Ericsson works great with stereo Bluetooth headsets via A2DP, it didn’t do so well with mono headsets for hands free phone calls. We tested the Scala 700LX, the Plantronics Explorer 330 and the SouthWing SH440 Bluetooth headsets with the Sony Ericsson, none of them had good performance with the phone. We heard digital noise and distortion on both incoming and outgoing ends, and voice wasn’t very clear. The range isn’t that good either: the SouthWing managed about 7 feet while the Scala 700 LX and the Plantronics Explorer 330 got less than 5-foot range between the phone and the headset. Voice dialing through Bluetooth headsets worked well.

Battery Life

The Sony Ericsson W580i comes with a Sony Ericsson standard rechargeable Li-Polymer battery that’s 930mAh in capacity. The battery is user replaceable. The claimed talk time is 9 hours and the official standby time is over 15 days. Our tests showed that these numbers were a little too optimistic, especially in standby mode. We got about 5 ½ hours of talk time and standby time was about a week at the most in our tests. The claimed music playback time is 20 hours which is right on target compared to our battery test.

Software

In addition to the entertainment and phone applications, you also get PIM (personal information management) tools under the Organizer group. These applications include Calendar, Alarms, Tasks, stopwatch, calculator, Password Saver and notes. If you work out regularly you can use the fitness tool to monitor and record your workout progress and keep track of calorie burning and more. Like most Sony Ericsson phones, the W580i has a file manager (My Stuff on the AT&T version). You can access all your files and applications under this group.

For synchronizing with Windows PCs, the Sony Ericsson W580i offers PC Suite, a very capable syncing solution that will sync your PIM data and media files. The current Sony Ericsson PC suite version for the W580i is 2.10.38, and you can use the included USB cable for syncing. Other software bundled on the companion CD include Adobe Photoshop Album starter edition 3.0 and Disc2Phone. There is no Mac iSync plugin in the box.

Conclusion

The Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman phone continues its strong position in music and gaming, and it offers plenty of goodies in a small package. If you to listen music frequently on your phone, this is a great choice at an entry to mid-tier price range. Call quality is excellent and EDGE data speeds are quite good on AT&T. The 2 megapixel camera takes great photos and the M2 slot is very handy to store photos and music tracks. We wish that the phone had better battery life for calls and standby, and for those who buy directly from Sony Ericsson, we wish the Sony Ericsson portal had more content to offer. Bluetooth headset voice quality wasn’t that good in our tests, though A2DP stereo quality was excellent. We wish that like Nokia, Sony Ericsson would release Mac OS X iSync plugins for their phones at the time of phone release or shortly after.

Price: $79.99 online only price with 2-year contract and after mail-in rebate.  $299.99 from Sony Ericsson.