Afterthe damp squib that was the Sony Ericsson Zylo, the Swedish-Japanese firm ishoping to capture the hearts of music-loving mobile users with the Spiro.Cheaper and a great deal more cheerful, this pint-sized handset has the looksto impress. Predictably, however, corners have been cut to get it on storeshelves at such a reasonable price.
Sony Ericsson Spiro
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Spiro is available from £40 on pay as you go, withcontract prices starting at £10 a month for a 24-month term where the handset,naturally, comes free of charge.
You'llnever walk alone
Even hardcore Sony Ericsson fans will admit the Walkmanrange isn't the force it once was. A few years ago, when the very notion of aphone playing MP3s was the stuff of a madman's wildest dreams, the firm turnedout some desirable and feature-packed phones. But, with the introduction of theiPhone, the playing field has been drastically altered.
No company is more aware of this than Sony Ericsson, andin recent months, the manufacturer has looked to buttress its rapidlydiminishing market share by allying itself with Google's Android operatingsystem. That doesn't mean the iconic Walkman brand is dead and buried quiteyet. There's a sector of the market that can't afford to commit to expensivesmart phone contracts, and it's at this underappreciated audience that SonyEricsson is aiming their latest handset.
The Spiro is almost disarmingly modest, with a cutedesign and solid construction. The glossy front picks up finger marks a littletoo readily, but it does give the phone a sense of style. The matte batterycover provides a contrast, as well as preventing the device from slipping outof your palm during frantic use.
The alphanumeric keypad -- which is revealed by slidingthe phone open -- boasts large, tactile buttons and is a joy to use. The lowprofile of the keys sometimes leads to accidental presses, but on the whole,there's very little to moan about.
Elsewhere on the device, you'll find the standard SonyEricsson direction pad and button setup, designed with music playbackexplicitly in mind. The cluster of buttons can feel a little cramped at times,especially when you're navigating the phone's menu system. The volume keys --which represent the only other physical inputs on the phone -- are positionedon the right-hand side, almost exactly in the middle. This makes them awkwardto press when the Spiro is in its 'closed' state, as the required pressure cansometimes cause the phone to slip from your grasp.
Don'tgo changing
Unlike its Android-packing relations, the Xperia X10 andXperia X10 Mini, the Spiro uses Sony Ericsson's proprietary operating system.It's an evolution of the same interface the company has been using for nearly adecade, and will be instantly familiar to anyone who has previously cradled aSony Ericsson device in their palm. Everything is where it should be, andfinding your way around isn't problematic.
One of Sony Ericsson's mandates for this device -- alongwith its sister phone, the Walkman Zylo -- was to successfully fuse music withsocial networking. The Spiro comes pre-loaded with rudimentary Twitter andFacebook clients, neither of which manages to impress when compared to the appsavailable on iPhone and Android.
The same can be said of the phone's bothersome Webbrowser, which makes hitting the net a painful experience. It's not helped bythe aforementioned tiny screen and absence of Wi-Fi.
Musicon the move
Thankfully, Sony Ericsson's own Walkman 4.0 software ismore impressive. It connects to the (admittedly pricey) PlayNow repository,allowing you to download music, ringtones and games direct to the phone'sinternal memory. At this point, it's worth mentioning that the Spiro comes witha feeble 5MB of internal storage, so a microSD card is a must.
TrackID is another noteworthy tool in the Spiro'sarsenal. The software can identify a song just from listening to a few seconds,although you'll need to rely on an Edge or GPRS connection to harass Sony Ericsson's data servers with your request for musicalenlightenment -- the Spiro lacks 3G.
The wise inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack (somethingthat its costly sibling, the Zylo, couldn't even manage) means you can plug inyour expensive earpieces. This is highly recommended, as the included pairsimply doesn't do justice to the phone's impressive playback quality.
Ideally, we'd have liked to have seen a dedicated in-lineremote control, as was bundled with previous Walkman phones. Having to drag theSpiro out of your pocket every time you want to pump up the volume or select anew song becomes tiresome incredibly fast.
The Spiro's camera is possibly the weakest element of theentire package. The 2-megapixel shooter lacks a flash and struggles withclose-up images. It's fine for impromptu snaps to send to friends via MMS, butanything beyond that is probably pushing it.
Conclusion
With such a modest specification, it's clear the SonyEricsson Spiro isn't intended as a front-line device -- that rank is morelikely to go to the Zylo, launched at the same time. With a pay as you goretail price of around £40, the Spiro is aimed at the lower end of themarket, and this makes it easier to excuse its shortcomings. Despite the dismalcamera and small amount of internal storage, the Sony Ericsson Spiroremains a likeable device, thanks largely to its impressive build quality anddecent media-playback credentials.
Edited by Emma Bayly