Design and Looks
The R300 is a conservative looking bar phone but with controls present everywhere- at the front, sides and back. Looking at the phone you know it means business. And busy it is- the R300 is a dedicated radio phone like no other. It has a large loudspeaker at the back that is built exclusively to augment the radio feature. But more on this later, the front of the phone features the TFT display that produces the bare minimum colours- 65000 over 128 x 160 pixels. It's nothing impressive but it is also the best in the range.
Below the screen are the D-pad controls and the alphanumeric keypad. The keys on the D-pad are small and hard to work. The alphanumeric keypad sports individual keys which is a nice touch and makes texting easier. On the flip-side the buttons are hard to press but once users get used to it, they will appreciate the great finger-feedback it offers. Behind the phone is a large loudspeaker and three radio preset buttons in addition to a VGA camera. The loudspeaker looks stylish and performs well producing some of the loudest sounds we have heard on a handset. The phone is robust and the front is coated with steel accents.
The phone's radio feature has enhanced options including TrackID and hardware preset buttons. There is also an internal antenna so users do not have to connect their headsets all the time if they wish to listen to the radio through the loudspeaker. Users may also use the radio broadcast recording feature to record tracks off the air to use as Mp3 ringtones. Naturally, there is also RDS support. The phone also packs in an Mp3 player, but since it has only 8MB of available memory, users can store a maximum three songs at any given time.
The phone's 0.3MP VGA camera comes as a surprise since 1.3MP is now the lowest mega-pixels count available on any phone that has launched since 2008. This poor camera can only capture pictures at a maximum resolution of 640 x 480. The image shows signs of poor optics and bad image processing as the pictures are noisy, dull and feature bad colour representation. Sony Ericsson should have just excluded the camera from the features list and this would have made the phone even inexpensive.
To sum up, the phone is a great budget model with all the necessary features. It is also a one-of-a-kind radio phone which performs well. Kudos to Sony Ericsson.
Features
- One-of-a-kind radio phone with compact dimensions and weight
- Dedicated radio loudspeaker and radio preset buttons at the back
- Studs at the sides to help prop the phone up
- Dedicated radio launch button
- Radio feature with RDS and radio broadcast
