Sony Ericsson's W200i just scrapes in as a sufficient, low-cost way to stay connected while enjoying your favourite kind of music.

How times have changed. Just over two years ago, a mobile phone like Sony Ericsson's W200i would have been billed as a top-of-the-line product.  

Today, this tri-band handset is only considered an entry-level offering. The W200i comes with just about all the standard features we expect in phones including a 1,000 entries phonebook as well as SMS, MMS and e-mail messaging facilities. 

There are volume control buttons on its right side and on its left, being a music phone, the W200i sports an easily identifiable Walkman button that launches its built-in music player. 

At a glance, it looks and feels like most newer mid-range Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. 

But, switching it on the first time, I immediately noticed what puts it firmly back in its humble entry-level position: A 65,000-colours, 128 x 160pixels TFT screen. 

Measuring 1.8in, it has a reasonable amount of screen space but, personally, I feel that a 65,000-colours screen just doesn't cut it anymore. 

If it's something that doesn't bother you then all is well but to me, everything on-screen looked dated and, well, just not easy on the eye. 

Built-in apps 

The W200i comes with a VGA camera capable of 4x digital zoom. Come on, say it with me again: Entry-level! 

The only reason I'm not ranting on about the miserable camera (by today's multi-megapixel standards) is because it has an equally miserable screen so no matter how bad (or good) the picture or video you shot is, it's not going to make much of a difference. 

It also comes with a picture editor that lets you add one or two details to the still photos on the phone but I have a feeling you're going to get precious little joy from it. 

Its pre-installed VideoDJ software holds some promise, though. It lets you mix and match video as well as still pictures into one seamless video file and it even lets you add nifty transition effects.  

MusicDJ, which also comes pre-installed, lets you make your own tunes to use as ringtones or to simply annoy the heck out of everyone around you so there could be some degree of fun to be had there as well. 

THE BASICS: The W200i has the usual complement of keys and buttons as well as a joystick right down the middle of its face.

Other preinstalled applications include FaceWarp, Music Mate and an RSS news reader, the latter of which is probably the most useful if you're into online news feeds.  

Music Mate is handy for beginner guitarists and lets you tune your six-string, practice keeping to beats and even shows how to hold commonly played chords. 

FaceWarp, on the other hand, is just a cutesy app that lets you morph pictures and if I needed to free up memory space on the phone, this would be the first to go. 

Apart from its multimedia features, the W200i also comes with other tools such as an organiser with a calendaring function. 

It's also a GPRS-capable phone and comes with a built-in web browser. 

The browser wasn't particularly great though and I found that it often couldn't open anything apart from really simple webpages so the phone is probably more useful as a modem and can be connected using a USB data cable. 

You can also choose to hook up the W200i to a PC and have it connect in data transfer mode which makes it appear as a USB mass storage device. 

However, you're going to have to be content with wires.  

While it comes with infrared connectivity, Sony Ericsson decided to omit Bluetooth so you're stuck with data cables and wired headphones as well as car kits. 

Music 

The W200i, which is available in two colours ¡V Rhythm Black and Pulse White ¡V and comes bundled with a pair of stereo earphones. 

Also thrown in is a 128MB Memory Stick Micro (M2) card to complement its 27MB built-in memory, which, in total, I found rather miserly of Sony Ericsson. 

In my view, music phones these days should come with no less than 512MB of storage (and even that is on the conservative side) especially considering the prices of storage cards are dropping. 

The built-in music player itself was decent and worked well. 

If you get tired of listening to your music collection, you can always opt to listen to the W200i's built-in FM radio which allows you to store up to 20 stations to memory. 

The phone also lets you set the radio as your alarm tone so you get to wake up to lengthy advert breaks interspersed with seemingly endless chatter ... um, I mean, your favourite morning radio show. 

However, the catch here is that the radio only works when you plug in the bundled earphones which act as an antenna.  

Since the charger also uses the same connector, it has to be one or the other for those of you who, like me, have a habit of charging the phone while you sleep. 

Here's something else to keep in mind: I found that the sound from its speaker gets quite muffled when the phone is placed facing up on a table so if you're a heavy sleeper who relies on your phone to wake up in the morning, remember to place it facedown before dozing off. 

Battery life 

Sony Ericsson said the W200i offers up to seven hours of talk time and 360 hours on standby. 

To be sure, I put it through its paces with calls, some game time, SMSes, MMSes and all sorts of other battery sapping combinations of the above and I must say that it stood up to the test and probably would have met the mark its creators claim. 

I liked the fact that the W200i is quite light, weighing in at only 85g. 

Its 101 x 44 x 18mm dimensions make it a pretty snug fit in smaller hands. 

But all in all, the Sony Ericsson W200i is a very basic phone which really isn't anything to shout about. 

However, if you can get over that fact and you're not looking for anything too fancy, you'll find that the W200i is a simple, stable phone that gets the job done.  

It works, no doubts about that, and what it can do, it does quite well. 

Pros: Good for basic telephony and messaging; lightweight and comfortable to wield; decent battery life. 

Cons: No Bluetooth; poor screen and built-in camera; bundled storage space quite low.