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AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Model number: W580i | SKU: 8581126

Listen to music and keep in touch with loved ones on the go with this cell phone that features a built-in Walkman 2.0 media player and text and multimedia messaging capability. The built-in digital camera lets you snap crisp digital photos for picture messaging. Price this phone with a plan from AT&T.

Average Customer Rating:

3.6 out of 5

10 of 14 (71%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Customer Reviews for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Review 1 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

1.0 5

crapiest phone ever 12/03/2008
By Anonymous Reviewer from nashville,tn

Value for Price

1.0 5

Features

3.0 5

Ease of Use

2.0 5

Battery life

1.0 5

What's great about it: it works
What's not so great: battery dies too quick,goes online in carry case

"the phone itself is ok as far as calling with it but if you have a case and put phone in it while it is locked, somehow it unlocks itself and will call someone or worse, it will go online. and if you are not signed up for some web plan then be prepared to PAY. and don't even think about dropping it or it could break very easily."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 2 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

1.0 5

BAD BAD BAD PHONE 11/28/2008
By kileba14 from PA

What's great about it: the "gadgets" in the phone are excellent
What's not so great: poor sound quality, cheaply made phone

"My husband and I both purchased one of these phones in March. It is now November, and not only have I had to get a replacement phone TWICE, but I am now in a position where I had to buy a new phone with a no commitment price in order to have something that worked because all of the defects I have encountered with these phones are not covered by warranty! If you want an excellent camera, an mp3 player, easy-to-use features, then this is an excellent phone. However, if you want to ACTUALLY MAKE CALLS, perhaps you should try something else. The sound quality is very poor, the speakerphone capability works fine on your end but your caller will have a HORRIBLE time hearing you, the "cover" on the top slider on my replacement phones have worked themselves loose every time, etc... Again, all of the features of this phone are great. Things are easy to use, and it's pretty straightforward. For kids who text, these buttons WILL BREAK. For anyone who just wants to call people and be done with it, this is NOT the phone for you."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 3 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Top 250 Contributor

Customer Rating

3.0 5

black seems buggy, get white! 10/03/2008
By JCforMEhowboutU

Value for Price

3.0 5

Features

4.0 5

Ease of Use

3.0 5

Battery life

5.0 5

What's great about it: cool phone
What's not so great: dies quick!

"went through 3 black versions of this, either had screen problems, would freeze or light on the outer buttons wouldn't turn off. decided for the heck of it to switch to the white and NOTHING has gone wrong for over a year!!! amazed, there must be a difference. get the w580i, just not this black one!!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 4 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Top 500 Contributor

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Another great Sony Ericsson. 10/01/2008
By diztortion from Pattison, Texas

Value for Price

5.0 5

Features

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Battery life

4.0 5

What's great about it: TONS of features, lots of accessories, amazing phone period.
What's not so great: Fear of scratching it or dropping it.

"Sony makes the best everything, including their line of Ericsson cell phones. I upgraded to this phone not too long ago and it has been the best phone I've ever used. If you're on AT&T, forget the iPhone and get yourself a Sony Ericsson. They're so much better and have no problems."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 5 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

3.0 5

Room for improvement 09/24/2008
By w580i from Park City, UT

Value for Price

5.0 5

Features

3.0 5

Ease of Use

2.0 5

Battery life

3.0 5

What's great about it: free from best buy, lots of cool features
What's not so great: battery door and slider don't fit well, looses track of the memory card so you have to reboot, no search, etc.

"Overall a very nice phone with a good screen. I won't list the pros here since you can read about them elsewhere.

Speaker phone is not loud enough and you have to wait to connect to turn on the speaker--you have to turn it on in a menu after connecting.

Reception is only slightly better than my previous phone. Various dead spots in my house.

No end button

Takes a lot of practice to avoid hitting the wrong button. I've called several more people than usual by accident while trying to edit contacts in phone.

Battery door doesn't fit well, slider doesn't fit well, looses track of the memory card so you have to reboot, no search function to locate a song by title, supports 8G chip but doesn't report free memory correctly, no dedicated speaker phone button.

Can puts tons of stuff on 8G chip but phone doesn't organize large amounts of data very well. Documentation says only up to 4G chips but 8G chips work.

AT&T replaces useful features with buttons that access AT&T stuff on the web to buy. There is no "Activity Menu" on AT&T branded w580i phones.

No way to search for a particular song by title. You can search by author but not from the currently playing screen.

No way to play a directory of MP3s unless they're in a playlist. Organizer lets you find the directory of songs and play them but you don't get the walkman interface and if you leave the organizer then the music stops. You can't minimize the organizer and keep the songs playing.
Creating playlist in phone is horrible if you have lots of MP3s. iTunes is way better.

No way to sort songs in playlist.

Can't create playlist in Sony Ericsson Media Manager.
Sony Ericsson PC Suit crashes a lot and won't let you edit many properties like the ringtone for various callers. Can't create caller groups, where you assign one ringtone to your family, one to businesses, etc. Both PC apps are written in Java and the font is too small so you'll need reading glasses.

Neither app resizes images while maintaining the folder structure on your PC.

Copying 1200 MP3s to the phone took 10 hours using Windows Media Player, or a couple of hours just dragging the files to the removable drive in Windows Explorer. The same library takes only 5 minutes in iPod.

Video quality is not as good as iPod Nano even though w580i screen is better and bigger."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 6 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

brains but now brawn 08/27/2008
By jared13y

What's great about it: just about everything software wise
What's not so great: not durable

"I got the phone and absolutly loved it. mp3's, vid. dj, song dj, pic dj, nice headphones, the memsticks were cheap for the quality. About a month and a half later, i was having a lazy day, phone was in my pocket the whole day, screen towards my leg, my pants were fairly tight. When i was going to bed, i took my phone out of my pocket and the screen was broken in half. the bottom half was messed up and the top half was fine except for some plasma leaking.
I still use it for the music and calling, just nothing visual on it."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 7 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

2.0 5

not indistructable 08/15/2008
By sppfireman from Lousville, Ky

What's great about it: sleek and good weight
What's not so great: very week stucture

"When I went to a training at the F.D. it was in my pocket and when I went to use it the screen was fuzzy. I took the battery out and let it sit overnight. When I put the battery back in the screen is still messedup and it flashes on and off. Over all this phone is not strong enough for someone that does phyiscal work."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 8 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Best phone ever!!!!!!!!!! 08/09/2008
By robert23sdgstdwd

What's great about it: Awsome 2 mega pixel camera, long videos, walkman
What's not so great: needs memory stick for music, only comes with 12MBs

"This phone is stylish and easy to use. the camera takes amazing pics. u can do pretty much anything to videos and pics with video dj and photo dj."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 9 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Cool and Awsome phone 08/07/2008
By Awsomephone10000 from Pasadena, CA

What's great about it: Nice Style, Loud Sounds, Easy to use
What's not so great: Doesn't come with (M2) Memory Chip, Keys Crack

"Everything on this phone is awsome just it doesnt come with a memory chip for x-tra space and this still didn't happen to me (only have it for 2 days) but they say the keys will crack but besides that this phones great. Great Sound, Great Picture Quality, and overall its pretty good. I would Recomened this. All My cousins have the same phone but in diffrent colors sieroulsy. I joined me cousins phone club. lol"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 10 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Great phone 07/31/2008
By showmeduo from Joplin, MO

What's great about it: Really enjoy MP3 features
What's not so great: Not sure calendering features are as robust as I would like to have

"I had been shopping for an IPOD, when I upgraded to this phone. Was able to get a great phone with MP3 features."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 11 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Read this review! 06/26/2008
By Atomcpunk from Chicago

What's great about it: indestructable!
What's not so great: No "clear" button...that I've found yet.

"I'll make this quick....This little phone stayed in the pocket of my bathing suit for over 1/2hr while I soaked in a hottub. When I realized what I had done, I took the phone apart, dried it with a hot blow-dryer and tried to turn it on. Nothing. I came back 4hrs later and fired this little sucker up like it was brand new. All my photos were still there and looking great. My ringtone. Everything. Kudos to Sony. Great phone. I still cant believe it. Now its only been an hour, perhaps tomorrow it wont work again, but Im pretty impressed. Take it for what its worth. Normally when a phone gets wet, its finished."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 12 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Not bad, but one big flaw! 06/13/2008
By Poofy03 from Rochester, MN

What's great about it: Great design, easy to use, great mp3 feature.
What's not so great: Buttons crack in half!

"Used my phone for 2 weeks and it worked perfectly. Suddenly i noticed my number 3 and the pound button where both craked in half. Still functional but very disapointing look. Great phone non the less."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 13 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Amazing Phone. Unlocked Version Suggested. 04/26/2008
By Wolfey from Apopka, FL

What's great about it: Sleek design. Unique light effect. Feature-rich. Easy to use. Probably the most modifyable phone available.
What's not so great: Desired features disabled with AT&T lock. Cannot zoom in normal camera mode. Indoor shots slightly greenish.

"This is probably the best phone I've ever owned. From the moment I opened the box and saw the included USB cable and headset (you can use any headphones you want with the connector), I was impressed. It's sturdy and difficult to scratch. Its design is streamlined and unique. The light effects feature makes it one of the most enviable phones around. You can use a video as a ringtone, and you have a built-in FM radio as well as Walkman 2.0 software to play all your music. On top of that, this phone is the Honda Civic of the mobile telecommunications world. It's probably one of the most customizable phones on the market. If you look on the internet, you will find millions of themes created by W580i users that can be freely downloaded and uploaded to your phone via the USB cable. If you know how, you can even make your own theme and upload it. There's even a way to upload skins for Walkman 2.0 and change the light effects. The manufacturer's site also offers more themes, including a few dynamic ones that make the light effects change color with the wallpaper.
However, there are cons. The camera could be better. The W580i's camera, although it features some fun templates and modes (e.g. black and white, sepia, negative, also a panorama mode), does not allow you to zoom while in normal mode. Indoor shots appear to have a slightly greenish tint to them, especially with fluorescent lighting, unless Night Shot mode is enabled. Otherwise, pictures come out crisp and nice.
The lock that AT&T puts on all its phones (all mobile phone companies do it to make sure that only their sim cards will work with the phone) is probably the biggest drawback. It's probably an insult to this phone. You are unable to use a song you put on your phone as a ringtone. You must create a ringtone of your own (less than ___ kb) and upload it to your phone, find a ringtone on the internet, or buy a ringtone from AT&T. Flash menus are disabled. Fun and useful tidbits that came with the unlocked W580i are gone. For instance, those themes I mentioned that make the light effects change color with the wallpaper are supposed to come with the phone, but the lock replaces them with two bright orange/white/black, horribly ugly themes called Dandelion and Walkman. The original themes, like Spinnin, Splat, and Strobe, can be easily recovered on the internet, however, and you can always upload your own themes.
The lock DOES disable some desirable features, but do not in any way allow it to hinder your enjoyment of this phone. There are still many, many, many features to enjoy that are there in full. If you have or purchase a locked phone, there are various ways to unlock it (as long as your contract with your provider does not prohibit it). For AT&T, however, you usually need to have purchased the phone without a contract, and in this case it's better to simply buy the already-unlocked version of the phone, right from bestbuy.com.
All in all, this phone is amazing, and, despite the cons, I most definitely recommend it to anyone who wants an awesome phone with the most bang for the buck."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 14 for AT&T Sony Ericsson W580i Cell Phone - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

good phone 04/21/2008
By tac6 from Texas

What's great about it: slider phone
What's not so great: buttons and internet automatic connections

"We have two of these phones. Great size and slider phone. Good size screen and lite up functions.
Cons: Have had issues with button coming loose on one phone twice, so we carry insurance on the phone. Also had many dollars of charges to my phone account because of accidentally hitting internet feature. You have to keep the phone in locked featured whenever not using it. We had to have the internet completely disable in order to keep using phone. Actually set it to a non working account. If we want to use it then you do in and enable the feature each time!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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