Sony Ericsson F305 - Review

So... after months of hard-work and persuasion, I finally compelled my brother-in -law to buy me a new phone. In these many months that I spent trying to persuade him to buy me a new cell, I was constantly researching various phones on the sites of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and even Samsung. I even visited a number of shops to shortlist a few handsets. One of the most important requirements I had was a clamshell phone, other than of course MP3, Camera and Bluetooth. So after an extensive research, I narrowed down three handsets.

1. Sony Ericsson's W380i - The main reason I liked this phone was simply because it is a clamshell phone! :-) But I read a lot of bad reviews about this one and even many shopkeepers told me not to go for this one. So it was finally eliminated from my list.
   
2. Sony Ericsson's W350i - Again... the flap was the biggest selling point for me. Though the guy in the shop told me that the flap is often too delicate and breaks, I was still ready to go for this one.
   
3. Samsung J700 - The only reason I liked this phone was because it had everything I wanted, minus the flap and looked decent enough. But I was never too keen on Samsung. And I especially wanted to go for a Sony because of its awesome sound quality.
   

So with these three in mind I went out to buy a new phone. While I was busy checking out W350i, my sister and brother-in-law were looking at some other phone as they were not very happy with Sony W350i. And that other phone was Sony's F305. I was impressed the moment I saw the phone. After carefully analyzing the phone, I finally decided on this one, made my brother-in-law buy it right away and came out of the shop all happy. :-)

Features:

• Dual Speaker: My main intention of getting a new phone was to listen to music. So the guy in the shop suggested this phone as it has dual speakers. The quality of the speakers is simply amazing. So listening to songs on loud speaker whenever I am home has become my favorite past time. I am completely satisfied with the dual speakers and so I would give it 9/10
• Motion Gaming: The USP of this phone is the motion gaming. It has a built-in motion sensor. It takes mobile gaming to a whole new level. Its fun to swing your arm as if you are actually bowling. However if you are not very keen on motion gaming, the phone also has a number of other games where you don't need to swing your cell phone, so you have a choice. I have always been a big fan of games, be it on computer or cellphone. But it was never the main thing I was looking for in my cell. It was like an added bonus none the less. 8.5/10
• 2 MP Camera: The phone has a 2 MP camera. It also supports video recording. However, there's no flash in the camera. It supports digital zoom of upto 2.5x however you can only use this feature if you reduce the picture quality to VGA. All in all, as far as the camera goes, I would say 6.5/10
  
• FM Radio: The phone also has a built-in FM Radio. A standard feature in almost all the phones nowadays. But the one good thing is you can store 20 different FM Channels. But nothing negative about it so I would give it 8/10
• Screen Resolution: It has a 2-inch large TFT display with resolution of 176x220 pixels. Maybe it is made for 3D games. or something like that. I don't really know as I am not too aware about the technicalities that go behind it. However when you view camera pictures on the screen you can somewhat see pixels. But when you transfer those pictures to a PC, they look just fine. So (maybe due to lack of technical knowledge) I have assumed that the screen resolution is not that great. 5.5/10
• Size and weight: The dimensions of the phone are 96 x 47 x 14.6 mm which doesn't make it very sleek. It isn't as light as you would like it to be with a weight of 97.5 grams. But still, no complaints! :-) 7/10
• Battery: This is my first Sony Ericsson phone so I am not sure how well they fare in this particular area. But the battery Life isn't as good as my earlier phones. I would suggest a 7/10
  

All-in-all, I am more than satisfied with my 2-month long experience with the phone and I am glad that I decided to go for this one instead of the W350i. And as far as the overall rating of the phone goes, I would say 8.5/10. I could have given it 9/10 but I had to reduce 0.5 for not having a flap ;-).