Sony Ericsson W902: Style dictator, headphone hater

Sony Ericsson W902

(Credit: Sony Ericsson)

There are two key features a portable music player needs: first, the ability to play music, and second, somewhere on the device to put headphones. Sony Ericsson's new top-of-the-line Walkman music phone, the W902, only gets one out of two right.

You read correctly: it's another premium music device with no headphone socket. Instead, you'll need to use an adapter cable to connect your decent earphones to Sony Ericsson's ridiculous proprietary connector. This gives you hands-free talking capabilities, but it also gives you meters of cabling flapping around needlessly. And who wants to remember to take two cables everywhere?

Aside from this sheer idiocy, the quad-band W902 looks stunning. It has a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED photo light, a 2.2-inch, 240x320-pixel screen, stereo Bluetooth, 25MB of internal memory that's expandable to 8GB, and it weighs a light 2.53 ounces.

There's every reason to be excited about this phone, and we can't help but think it'll be a brilliant upgrade from the W880i if you can get it.

The W902 will be out toward the end of the year. Until then, absorb the glossy bonus photos from CNET UK.

[superboxmonkey]

what's idiotic is that you're whining about a problem easily solved by taking advantage of the device's support for stereo Bluetooth.

[loose_screw]

No, Sony has a history of using proprietary technology (ATRAC, memory stick) so this too will fail. Bluetooth headsets are still pretty uncommon and expensive right now, so a 3.5mm headset jack would make a lot more sense.

[ctxrover]

Funny how all Sony MP3 players support MP3, and their new DSLR only takes CompactFlash memory.

[superboxmonkey]

Lots of companies use proprietary jacks so it's a little unfair to pick on Sony for doing it. And to say stereo Bluetooth headsets are uncommon and expensive is also idiotic. The LG Bluetooth Stereo Headset HBS-200 that CNET gave an 8.0 sells for $30.

[loose_screw]

3.5mm headset jacks are pretty much standard on most new music phones now, so it's not unfair to pick on Sony for doing it. The LG bluetooth heatset look like crap. Is it too much to expect Sony to include a 3.5mm jack so that users can use their own preferred headphones without resorting to an adapter? Sheesh.

[SouPawasaki]

If it only had a 3.5m jack connection, how would you answer phone calls when listening to music? You would have to unplug the headset so the microphone on the phone would activate.

If you're not happy with wires just buy a stereo headset, that's why you have that feature on the phone.

-Soup

[loose_screw]

There are 3.5mm headsets that include a microphone (for use with phones) such as the V-moda Vibe duo.

[DarknessRakiri]

Seriously, this problem isn't even that big. I owned a W300i and now own a W580i and this is not much of a problem. The adapter works fine, you can still use your own headphones, so what's the problem?

[ctxrover]

The proprietary cable is necessary, since the cord also includes the FM antenna. Besides, you can always plug in your favorite headphones at the end, where the send/end switch is.

[ikjadoon]

Definitely ridiculous. If anything, complain about the lack of a DSP (digital sound processor) that some other phones have, but not about the ear phones...

~Ibrahim~

[Sew902]

If you want to see this phone in action:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ELDPmUKH34Q