With the W910i, Sony Ericsson brings its Walkman-style mobile and the slider format together in a smartly designed, small format mobile that ticks a lot of boxes. Its mere 86g of weight makes it an easy sell for those with smaller pockets, for a start.

OK, my review sample was brown, which is not going to be to everybody's liking, and even the shiny bronze edges didn't endear it to me. But if you don't mind brown, then this phone has plenty going for it.

The fact that this is a quad-band mobile with 3G and HSDPA, has a front-facing camera for video calls, FM radio and the coveted Sony Ericsson Walkman status might be enough to draw some to it immediately. But what may seal the deal for you is the innovative ‘shake control'. Don't get too excited about this, though. It might sound like an eye-catching feature on paper, but in the real world it isn't such a wonder.

Basically, when playing music you can hold down the Walkman button on the top edge of the mobile and then shake the phone to move between tracks. A quick shake to the right takes you forward in a tracklist, while one to the left takes you back. Shake with a little vigour and you can shuffle a playlist.

There are three problems. The system didn't always seem to work effectively during testing; I felt like a complete idiot standing at a bus stop shaking my mobile around; and the Walkman button is impossible to get to when the slide is opened as it is on the underside of the top edge of the handset.

A better, though less shouted-about feature is the screen auto rotate. Holding the phone in its usual orientation results in a tall, portrait format screen. But when you want to, you can twist the phone round and the screen readjusts itself into wider, landscape format, something we've seen in digital cameras in the past. This can be useful on some occasions, though I have to say that during testing it was not always reliable. Probably you need to spend a bit of time getting the knack just right.

The phone comes with a 1GB Memory Stick Micro to boost the built-in 35MB of memory. If you are a gaming fan then the two unmarked buttons that sit above the screen and act as gaming controllers might be useful. When you aren't playing games these can be used to get to photos stored on the phone, and to access a rather clever photo slideshow application complete with mood-specific tunes.

Verdict
Colour aside, I rather like this mobile. The shake control feels a little like a chancy add-on which you will either like or loathe, but there are lots of good features and the slider format keeps the phone down to a pocketable size.

Company: Sony Ericsson

Contact: 08705 237237

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