The Sony Ericsson F305, which is designed to be a gaming phone is the first and (so far) the only phone in the F-Series (where 'F' stands for 'Fun'). The phone flaunts an attractive design and comes with a long list of built-in games along with dedicated gaming keys. The design and the gaming aspect are sure to attract a lot of youngsters. Well then, let us get on with the review and find out if it is worth your money.

Bundle

Sony Ericsson F305

Battery

Charger

Stereo Headset

512 MB Memory Card

Extra Rear Cover

Lanyard

Software CD

User's Guide

Design & Construction

The Sony Ericsson F305 measures 96 x 47 x 14.6 mm and weighs 97.5 gm. The phone employs the slider form-factor. On the front side of the phone, at the top, is the call speaker which is flanked on both sides by the two gaming keys (the keys are marked X and O, a la the PlayStation controller). Below the keys is the 2.0" 176 x 220 pixel display.

The display on the phone is low resolution for a phone in this price bracket. Below the display are the soft keys, the call/end keys, clear key, shortcut key for the Games folder, with the five-way navigation keys taking centre stage. Sliding the phone reveals the alphanumeric keypad.

On the right side of the phone are the volume control keys and the camera shutter keys. On the left side is the Fast-Port . On the top side of the phone are the memory card slot and the lanyard eyelet. The memory card slot is thankfully on the outside and as often seen in Sony Ericsson phones the card slot is below the battery cover. The F305 accepts Memory Stick Micro cards up to 8 GB in capacity. On the bottom of the phone there is just the microphone pinhole.

The rear side of the phone has the two megapixel camera lens. The camera lacks auto-focus, flash or even a self portrait mirror and is exposed since there is no lens cover either. There are also two stereo speakers at the back; the one below the camera lens is the Left channel while the other is the Right channel. Between the speakers is the battery cover. The F305 also comes with another battery cover in the package which has a different design printed on it than the default one. The front cover of the phone is also removable, however there is no spare cover provided.

There is no denying the fact that the F305 is an attractive phone and whoever set their eyes on it agrees with this. We received the white colored version for review which bowled over the women with its looks but the guys said they would rather have the black colored version as it looked more masculine.

The build quality of the phone is really good and the phone feels very nice to hold in ones palm. It isn't the slimmest slider around but it isn't unduly thick either. The weight of the phone is also relatively low which further makes it a pleasure to use. The slider mechanism is one of the slickest that I have seen and the phone slides effortlessly. It also feels well built with no unnecessary wobble. The only thing that spoils the near perfect build is the rear cover that creaks a bit and isn't as securely fit as it should be.

Keypad

The F305 is targeted at the younger generation whose mobile usage includes a lot of texting. Plus the F305 also happens to be a gaming focused handset. So having a finger-friendly keypad is of paramount importance and I feel happy to report that Sony Ericsson has thought of this and gifted the F305 with a wonderful keypad. Starting with the navigation keys, the D-Pad on the phone is amply large and is an absolute joy to use with its tactile response. The other keys are spaced apart from each other and are comfortable to use. A thing to notice is that the F305 lacks the Activity Menu key found on most Sony Ericsson phones which is a major drawback, but more on that later.

The alphanumeric keys are similarly very comfortable. They are soft and easy to use and you can easily type at a brisk rate on this (SMS junkies, rejoice!). One minor hassle is the edge of the slider, which is a bit close to the upper row of keys, but it isn't a serious a problem. The gaming keys on the top, as well as the camera and volume keys work fine too. All the keys are illuminated in a soft white light that makes it a pleasure to look at in the dark.

Display

The Sony Ericsson F305 is endowed with a 2.0" 176 x 220 pixel TFT LCD display. The display is very bright and has good colors. It remains visible even under direct sunlight. The problem however is the resolution. At this price range, we expect a QVGA resolution display considering other phones in this class have it as well. After being used to seeing QVGA displays, the low resolution display on the F305 just doesn't feel right and I hope QVGA becomes the norm this year and completely replaces everything else in the low-end.

User Interface

The Sony Ericsson F305 runs on the A200 platform. However, it is a stripped-down version of what we see on Sony Ericsson's higher end models. First of all there is no Activity Menu. The Activity Menu acted as a shortcut for many of the phone's function. Most importantly there is no way to run and manage multiple Java applications simultaneously, which is a serious drawback.

There are also some changes as well. The web browser has been downgraded from the usual Access NetFront to OpenWave which isn't nearly as good and usable only for mobile optimized sites. The F305 also lacks Sony Ericsson's PhotoDJ, MusicDJ and VideoDJ (which isn't much of a big deal though as they weren't really very popular). Also, since there is no dedicated power key you cannot switch Profiles quickly without going in to the Settings Menu. There have also been some changes to the design and font because of which you can see less number of lines on-screen at a time hampering usability.

Apart from this the UI is mostly the same as other Sony Ericsson non-Smartphone's, which is easy to use. The speed of the UI is pretty fast, which makes the phone a pleasure to use. However, scrolling down track lists in the music player can be frustratingly slow. Fortunately, this lethargy is not seen anywhere else in the menu.

Connectivity

The Sony Ericsson F305 is a GSM 850/900/1800/1900 Quad Band handset supporting GPRS and EDGE Class 10. The F305 lacks support for the 3G bands which is present in some of the phones in this price range. It also incorporates Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support and USB 2.0 connectivity.

Call quality is commendable and so is network reception. The call speaker is quite loud and can be heard even in crowded areas. Same goes for the loudspeakers which have terrific volume levels and unless you are in some rock concert there is no way you cannot hear the F305 ringing.

The messaging on F305 is equally good. The great keypad helps in typing out messages pleasurable. The message editor has undergone some changes and you now have the option to change the font size and other editing options such us Bold, Italic, Underline, etc. Unfortunately F305 lacks support for smiles and Copy-Paste text as found in other Sony Ericsson phones.

Web browsing on the phone isn't quite up to the mark. The main reason for this is the aforementioned OpenWave browser which cannot handle web pages the way NetFront does. The display resolution also plays spoilsport and you cannot see much of the page on the small screen anyway. Clearly web browsing has been given very less importance in the F305 and is more of an addition to the feature list rather than an important feature.

Multimedia

The music player in the F305 resembles the Walkman player; however it has been downgraded to some extent. The music player supports large number of formats including MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA and WAV. Music can be sorted according to Album, Artist, Tracks, etc. and you have the option of creating your own playlists as well. If a track has album art assigned to it then it gets displayed on the Now Playing screen. The player also has five-band equalizer and stereo widening setting.

While testing the sound quality with the supplied white headset (HPM-62) it was apparent that the headset was not up to the mark and had poor sound quality and volume. So I promptly replaced them with a pair of HPM-75 and experienced a huge improvement in sound. The sound quality of the F305 is pretty good. The bass and the max volume weren't as good as they should be but still overall the result was quite acceptable for a non-music phone.

But the real fun starts when you use the stereo speakers to play your tunes. The Sony Ericsson F305 has hands down one of the best pair of loudspeakers that I have heard in a mobile phone. Great quality and plenty of volume they turn the phone in to a portable jukebox. Only flaw is its positioning. The speakers get muffled when you put them on a flat surface and hence the phone needs to be kept upside down while playing music.

The F305 also has an FM Radio. The radio application supports RDS and can save up to 20 presets. The sound can be played from the loudspeaker but you still need to have the headset connected as it acts as the aerial for the radio. Sadly there is no way to record radio broadcasts. The reception quality of the F305 radio was surprisingly good. Most phones struggle to receive signals indoors but the F305 managed wonderfully.

Gaming on the F305 is all what the phone is about. The phone has an incredible number of games built-in to the phone. There are 11 games pre-installed and there are installation files on the supplied memory card for 50 more games! The games are all in Java format. The controls of the phones work really well and it is comfortable to hold the phone in landscape mode. The phone also uses the built-in accelerometer for controlling some games such as the pre-installed Bowling game where you move the phone in a bowling action to release the ball.

Problem is that the games themselves are pretty average (with some being downright boring). The graphics are pretty mediocre and the low-resolution display is to blame here. They are good for passing your time, like waiting for a bus or while traveling but as a serious gaming device the F305 doesn't fare very well.

The F305 has a 2 Megapixel camera with CMOS sensor. However, it lacks auto-focus, a flash or even a lens cover. The camera quality itself is average. The images lack detail however but the colors look natural.

Images are opened from the File Manager. The images are displayed only as lists and there is no option for a grid view as in other Sony Ericsson phones. The images don't look very good on the phone's display. Plus there is no option to zoom in to them. The only good thing is that it opens pretty fast, even high resolution one. You can also have them display in a slide show.

The videos can be opened from the Video Player in the Entertainment menu (or from the File Manager). The player can only open videos in QCIF resolution and not even in QVGA resolution, which is a major setback. There is no full screen view option either.

Battery life

The Sony Ericsson F305 is powered by a 930 mAh battery. The phone's battery lasted for a couple of days of usage on a full charge, with some music, gaming and a few calls per day. However, the battery will go down faster with higher gaming or music sessions. The powerful loudspeakers in particular consume a lot of battery power.

Verdict

The Sony Ericsson F305 is available for a street price of Rs. 8,000. It is targeted at youngsters and has been designed with their needs in mind. Considering that the phone works very well as it has almost everything a youngster would want. Great looks, comfortable keypad to type out messages, good quality music playback with some of the best loudspeakers to share your tunes with your friends and some games to entertain you when you are bored. F305 isn't really full-fledged gaming phone per se but as a complete entertainment device. If only it had a better display and camera. But at this price the phone still makes a lot of sense even if it isn't necessarily great value for money.

Test unit sourced from Weber Shandwick