My s500i

[qtmon]

EDIT: A better review of the s500i/w580

Bought a yellow s500i and so far its been an pleasant journey with the phone.
Let us look at it in a deeper sense of things.

MULTIMEDIA ( AUDIO ) ( Rating : 4 out of 5 )
With Walkman 2.0, all I see is additional navigation and cosmetic changes.
Nothing to brag about since the first edition of Walkman. Mega Bass is here
as usual to pump beats into ur ears. Its eye candy with visualizations included
with the walkman. However, so far there is only 3 visualizations and no, they
do not follow to the beat of your music. Quality of the music is amazing, with
stereo widening, you'll come close to actually listening to it live. On the sad
part, you don't get more advanced playback controls such as playback speed,
etc. Support for WMA and album art somehow makes up for that.

MULTIMEDIA ( VIDEO ) ( Rating : 2 out of 5 )
This is a big disappointment of the model. Fullscreen playback of MP4 files
and the ability to size down resolutions larger than 320x240 is great, but there
is no control over the playback of videos which renders watching videos over a
minute useless. Also note that the encoding of videos leaves a lot to be
desired as there are slight artifacts appearing randomly, jagged edges and lag.
Videos are a NO NO for this phone.

THEMES ( Rating : 4 out of 5 )
Support for Flash lite ver1.1 is good, but then again it should be a custom for
phones nowadays. Default themes are the best so far ranging from the time
sensitive themes like s500i's to the eye candy themes with walkman2 equalizers
on the standby screen from w580's. Nice? yes. Boring? soon.

CAMERA ( Rating 1 out of 5 )
Blur, watermark effects, high noise, under exposure. Need I say more?
NO, the night mode is useless. And NO, no zoom on 2mpix mode.
Owh yeah, no autofocus but it seems like this camera don't need it at all
with the medicore output quality. Sony did not even bother to include a
small mirror for self shots. :(

DESIGN & STYLE ( Rating : 3.5 out of 5 )
Slim slider phone. Quite the robust build, steady and firm on the hands.
Keypad lights aren't that bright and there are no effects there. Light effects
on the side of the phone are cool, but nothing you can set except for incoming
calls. Some themes will influence the color of the side light. D-pad key paint
will come off from usage. Screen size is kind of small for a 240x320 phone,
the upcoming w910 has perfect screen size :)

Owh, s500i green/black users might face broken keypads.

JAVA ( Rating : 4 out of 5 )
For 3D gaming, the performance is above average if the developers do not slack
on their optimization. Games that come to mind would be products from Fishlabs.
Bloover and BT info will keep you busy on trying to mess with other people's
phone, although those exploits have been fixed, its still fun if someone allows
access :)

Other worthy mentions would be Opera Mini 4, IM+ or Windows Live Messenger.
If you're planning to do administration with this phone, java programs for SSH
and remote desktop is available although methods of connection is limited since
we do not have WiFi.

MOVING ON
If you have a s500i, simply flash w580 main to it and voila! you have a walkman
phone. Transfer visualizations and walkman skins from the w580 extracted FS
to your FS and your walkman is fully setup to go. Get all the flash themes from
all SE 240x320 phones and slap it into your phone. :)

And try to mod the cam driver :)

[LukeSlater]

could you add some real photos of your phone ?

[RoGgI]

The placement of the volume buttons is simply standard, all the Nokia's have got the same one and it is an easy to reach spot.

I am quite satisfied with my s500i until now as well - no cracking keypad yet, the style is nice, the sound of the mp3s is ok. The thing which I dislike the most is the very low volume of incoming calls, it is hard to hear the dialogue partner if you are in louder surroundings.

[popcop]

Good review

agree.. nice to read

[Rick]

Good review, indeed!

My bro has one, and is very beautiful. He is so satisfied with the phone.
And the everchanging theme is outstanding!

[ingexcomp]

Do you intented your S500i into W580? How it looks?

[dj k510i]

The phone is good but camera suck...

[alexcasse]

this s500i does not have many functions. But it is very beautiful.

[qtmon]

Yeah flashed my s500i to a w580... works like a charm.
Uploaded all the flash themes ( from all 240x320 phones ).. all nice :)

The saddest thing so far is no WMA playback and of course, what I
find irritating is there is no way to control playback of videos.

As for low volume.. I guess you can fix that by using the w580/w880
or even Xaero Ma Loud's acoustics.

Yeah dj k510... the camera is just terrible, unless someone works on the
drivers. I've tried increasing the buffer, no noticable increase of quality
there.. so we'll see.

Now all thats left is.. will w910 firmware ( walkman3.0!! ) fit the s500i?
I have a feeling it will, by sacrificing the usage of camera, but then
again the camera is useless compared to other phones.
EDIT: Found that that its not possible after all...

[krokan]

any phothos ???