W960i, -> Bad Phone ?, After reading mobile-reviews

Is w960i a bad phone or a good phone ? Well, we all knew for sure. Until NOW.
I'm not saying that it IS a bad phone, I love it from what I've seen!

Mobile-Reviews - Review ->

The model comes in one single color scheme – Vinyl Black, where the front fascia is composed of black glossy plastic, which is extremely prone to fingerprints and grease. Furthermore, it has been covered with a protective plastic screen, which surely doesn’t make for a less smudgy looks. Unlike the P1i the display found in the W960i is not recessed into the casing, on the contrary, it sits flush with the surroundings. The side plates employ white matte plastic – frankly speaking, the color mix is pretty much bog-standard. The rear is made of black soft-touch plastic, and feels velvety.

Judged on its materials alone, the W960i seems to be pretty decent, but looking at the way they are combined in here, we are not particularly pleased. Let’s put it this way - it looks prosy. Altogether it leaves an impression of a cheap phone, and it definitely doesn’t stand in one line with the previous offerings from Sony Ericsson for this price-bracket design-wise. It even somewhat reminded us of the Sony Ericsson T300i (released long ago, there was a story with plastic supplies for this phone) in terms of the plastic it utilizes.

The W960i’s plastic stylus makes this impression even stronger – in fact, it would do for, well, toy phones, but decidedly not for a top of the line model. The early editions of the handset featured styluses with even stronger toy feel to them, and while it is better now, it’s still made of plastic. Curiously, similar stylus had been found only in Sony Ericsson P800i, but they dumped it eventually. Why would they need to bring it in again, given all this negative feedback? I feel somewhat befuddled. Perhaps they have had several generations of managers and marketers changed, so now the experience of the past years is gone.

Looking for a better solution? The Nokia N95 8Gb might be the way to go. Although, it ships with a better camera and sits on the shelves with a heftier price tag. By the way, the Sony Ericsson W960i is roughly in one price-bracket with the Nokia N95 8 Gb and the Nokia N81 8 Gb, however Nokia’s solutions are all-round better performers.