Motorola Rokr E8 vs Sony Ericsson W890i: Music, mano a mano

You're probably familiar with the Sony Ericsson W880i, which is a pretty good phone but suffers from a rather awkward-to-use keypad. This is the W880i's successor and thankfully Sony Ericsson has addressed the problem -- it's much easier to use.

It's a very different kind of phone to the Rokr E8. For starters, there's a forward-facing camera for 3G video calling. The E8 doesn't offer one because it doesn't have 3G -- it does have EDGE though.

While the E8 offers a flat keypad and touch-sensitive keys, the W890i is all mechanical, but you do get a variety of hard keys that give you access to different functions.

One feature lacking on the W890i is an easy way to scroll through contacts, tracks and other long lists. On the E8 you can use the scroll wheel, whereas the W890i relies on a nav key, which you have to press up and down.

Although it's difficult to tell from a photographs, the W890i is slightly smaller than the E8, coming in at 47mm wide, 104mm tall and 10mm deep. The E8 measures 53mm wide, 115mm tall and 10.6mm deep.