| Brad Allen 2007-12-18, 4:33 am |
| I found the Walkman W810i's menu very intuitive and fast to use.
I just looked at the menu for the Walkman W960i in the manual, and it
looks horrible. I got both manuals and looked, and confirmed that the
810's menu is far more organized and intuitive. 960's is a mess,
jumbled, crammed, misnamed, clunky, and obtrusive, like most other
phones in the market.
W810i (approximate, from manual, and similar if not equal to the one
my roommate has which I already know is very organized and intuitive):
1 - PlayNow(TM) 2 - Internet services 3 - Entertainment
1 Online services
2 Games
3 VideoDJ
4 PhotoDJ
5 MusicDJ
6 Remote control
7 Record sound
8 Demo tour
4 - Camera 5 - Messaging 6 - WALKMAN
1 Write new
2 Inbox
3 My friends
4 Email
5 Call voicemail
6 Drafts
7 Outbox
8 Sent messages
9 Saved messages
0 Templates
Settings
7 - File manager 8 - Contacts 9 - Radio
1 Pictures 1 Options
2 Videos 2 Speed dial
3 Sounds 3 My business card
4 Themes 4 Groups
5 Web pages 5 SIM contacts
6 Games 6 Special numbers
7 Applications 7 Advanced
8 Other 8 New contact
* - Calls 0 - Settings # - Organizer
All (lots) 1 Alarms
Answered 2 Calendar
Dialed 3 Tasks
Missed 4 Notes
5 Calculator
6 Synchronization
7 Timer
8 Stopwatch
9 Light
0 Applications
Code memo
File Manager is top level, and since it contains a lot of files, that
is very important. Underneath are all the types of files. No
messiness. Sounds contains all sounds, including ringtones
(subfolder) and music in whatever folders you want. It is organized
in sensible manners thusly.
Organizer is top level, since it is very important. Alarms is first
on the list, since you need to set it many times per day. Calendar is
second, since you need to refer to it a few times a day. Tasks is
third, because you refer to it about once a day. Notes, which is
important to take notes often, and Calculator, which is used often to
calculate shopping and engineering issues, is also quick to get to.
Light is at 9 -- convenient to remember.
Messaging is top level. First in the list is what you always want to
do when you access top level messaging: write one. What's second most
likely? Re-reading one you got, which is #2. Etc., etc., etc.
The name of Internet? Internet. Simple. No messing. What about the
camera? It's named camera. Walkman is pretty easy to find: it's top
level, too, and is named WALKMAN.
Do I need to change settings? That's under settings, top level. All
the settings are intelligently organized in good menus. Settings
submenus are: General, Sounds & alerts, Display, Calls, and
Connectivity. What's the first under connectivity? Bluetooth, then
Infrared, then USB, then Sync, etc.. Calls: what do you want to set
for calls? First choice? Obvious: Divert calls (call forwarding &c).
Display? What's that you want to set for your display? First choice:
Wallpaper. What about sound? What's your first choice for what sound
settings you want? Ring volume. Next choice? #2 is Ringtone. They
even have #3 silent mode, #4 increasing ring, #5 vibrating alert, etc.
They have a profile system that is #1 in General. All obvious and
intuitive, and fast to get to.
Contacts is top level, since it's vitally important. Since there's
a button for contacts assigned to the face, I guess they left that
one out, but I think it's on my roommate's. All the important things
you'd want in the special menu item are there. Speed dial editing is #2.
Now, let's compare that very decent menu layout to that of the W960i:
Multimedia Web Entertainment
Camera FM radio
More applications Video
RSS feeds Online media
PlayNow MusicDJ
Picture gallery Soundd recorder
Vijay Singh Pro Golf 3D
QuadraPop
Demo
Phone Messaging WALKMAN
Phone Call voice mail
Call log Create new message
Speed contacts Inbox
Video phone Outbox
Drafts
Sent
SIM
Organizer Contacts Tools
Calendar Control panel
Notes File manager
Tasks Exchange ActiveSync
Quickoffice Online services
Pdf+ Connections mgr
Business card scanner Remote sync
Calculator
Converter
Stopwatch
Time
Timer
Ok, in order:
Multimedia: What does that mean? What doesn't it mean?
Camera: no longer top menu. They don't want us using camera.
More applications: more than what?
RSS feeds: why so prominent?
Picture gallery: ok, but where are the other files, like sound,
video, text, etc.? Very disorganized, and very badly named.
Web: What kind of web? What happened to the aptly named Internet?
Entertainment: So, multimedia isn't entertainment? What's not
entertainment and what is, and what's multimedia and what isn't?
Video: that's not multimedia? It has to be entertainment?
Online media: that's not web? That would be better under Internet.
Actually, it's multimedia at its highest.
Phone: Yes, it's a phone. What a useless main menu item. What is
it referring to?
Phone: You just said that. Phone Phone? What's that?!
Call log: That seems like it ought to be on the top menu, since it
is an essential part of the phone.
Speed contacts: not very speedy if it's burried 2 deep and 3 down.
Video phone: What does this have to do with calling? Isn't this
either a setting, which goes into settings, a multimedia, since it
is multimedia, a messaging, since you can send video messages, or
an in-call option? Absolutely senseless unmeaningful menu item.
Messaging: The only item that actually makes sense.
Call voice mail: This is item #1. The #1 thing you want to do is
create new message, so why was it moved to #2? That's absurd.
At least it should be easy to go MENU-5-2 in the keypad.
Anyway, who uses voicemail? Voicemails are clunky and stupid,
so no one uses them. (In the old days, they were fast and user
oriented, but these days they suck, so no one I know uses them at
all.)
Create new message: see above. Also, the older name, "write new",
made more sense than "create new", but that's just a minor thing,
but it still is obvious they weren't thinking as well about this
phone as the last one (w810i).
The rest of the messaging options seem ok: inbox, outbox, drafts,
sent, sim (whatever that is, and it's last since it's weird).
It's missing Email (for MSN, AOL, Yahoo, etc.), Saved messages,
Templates, and Settings.
WALKMAN: at least they left that the same.
Organizer: this is top level, as it should be.
Calendar: this is important, but where is the more important Alarms?
There is no alarms menu. Where are alarms??
Quickoffice: what does this mean that isn't someplace else?
Pdf+: isn't PDF a multimedia?
Business card scanner: that should be in Contacts.
Tools: What the hell is a tool? The phone phone is a tool. Once
again, horrible name.
Control panel: the whole phone is a control panel. Horrible name!
Doesn't mean anything! Stupid idiots!
File manager: this is one of the most important functions of the phone,
but it is not top level. It is hardly a tool; it is a multimedia, right?
Totally insane.
Exchange ActiveSync:
Online services: this is Internet, so why isn't it in Internet?
Why isn't it in messaging?
Connections mgr: what the hell is that?
Remote sync: so this is communications.
Calculator: one of the most important tasks, which is usually in
Organizer, is hidden really low in the Tools menu. The people
this phone is targeted to must either be robots or IQs of 34 or so
since they never need to do any math.
Converter: to convert what?!
Stopwatch: ok.
Time: what does this do?
Timer: ok.
If you plain flat disagree with me, then you're schizophrenic or
retarded, and I don't care about your opinion anyway. If you have
discussion or some good improvements or corrections to what I've said,
I'd like to know. But most of all, I want to know why they are doing
this crap. I was about to commit to the Walkman line when I saw the
obvious menu layouts of my roommate's W810i phone, but then they did
this crap with the W960i. They're crazy. I have to just forget about
phones again, and make AT&T repair their old crappy crap and find ways
to make them pay for their mistakes rather than ask me to pay for it,
until I can find a good replacement for the W810i, so at least I can
migrate up to the W810i, but that looks like years away now, now that
the W960i sucks so much.
Brad
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