It’s that time again. In a sweeping act of magnanimity, Uncle Sam has deigned to return some of the money that you paid into his compulsory interest-free loan program last year, and now, if you’re lucky, you get to spend a little of your own dough. Congratulations.
Nuncle, for all his high-minded altruism, has been a little slow on the payment this year, but that’s okay; he’s still got a few days before I send a couple associates over to start waling on those procrastinating patellas of his. I can afford to offer that extorting, sticky-fingered shitheel a little grace, because ol’ Cousin Cletus came through right quick with his payment.
State refunds don’t generally add up to as much as Federal refunds, but screw it; money’s money, and the good ol’ boys from Upyonder owed me enough to pay for this slick lil’ number right here. I was a bit wary of trusting the Sony-Ericsson amalgamation again, as I’m not a huge fan of their stuff, but I read some favorable impressions of the W580 and took a chance.
First off, I’m a sucker for anything that comes with extra stuff. The Nokia 6085 wooed me with irresistible phone swag the likes of which I haven’t seen in years, and the W580 nearly shadows it step-for-step; it included a data cable, a pretty decent pair of headphones, and a 256Mb Memory Stick Micro. Sony’s M2 stick-thing provides half as much storage as the 512Mb MicroSD card that came with the Nokia, but I’m not about to scoff at anything included in a retail phone box these days. Although it would be nice if Sony stopped trying to jam its proprietary (or semi-proprietary, as the M2 is a joint venture with SanDisk) storage formats down our resistant, TransFlash-using gullets, I’m not gonna complain.
My favorite feature of the W580 isn’t the intuitive music interface, or the competent 2.0 Megapixel camera, or even the deviously lickable screen, (and it’s certainly not the reception, which is adequately meh), but rather the color. I am, all things being equal, a pretty greasy bastard, so any phone that’s covered in slick, glossy black surfaces and little rubberized fingerprint-catching doohickeys basically makes me want to kick a dog. The W580’s silvery-white matte finish is perfect for those of us whose ears produce more oil than Satan, and who can’t stand to have their stuff continuously slathered in a fine layer of goo.
The earpiece on the W580 has a sweet spot with a narrow margin for error, so if you don’t position the thing just right against your ear, you lose about half the available volume. Had I not found the fix for this in relatively short order (and had I not, like the Supreme Dillhole of All I Survey®, immediately lost the receipt), I would have packed it up and returned it forthwith to its place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension. Luckily, sense prevailed and I moved the frikken’ thing around a bit while talking. Whoo. Ready diploma now me is.
Another of the W580’s nifty features is the ability to use any downloaded media file in any way you wish, whether as wallpaper or as a ring tone or message tone. Sounds simple, sure, but not all phones support this. In another rare bit of customization that’s rapidly going the way of common sense and good taste, it also allows changing the shortcuts mapped to the 4-way selector. Samsung? LG? Take notes. There’ll be a quiz.
Don’t bother with this bad boy if orange isn’t your thing. It’s everywhere; on the keys, the logos, the menus, you name it. That’s a stylistic preference, though, and doesn’t affect the quality of the end product in any practical way. In general, the W580 pulls in a good enough signal and offers a generous multimedia experience, and if you prefer the bar or slider form over clamshells, it’s hard to pinpoint a reasonable gripe here.
