Why is the W995 only rated 8.3?

When I saw this phone I was like wow! Then I dashed to the Editor's Top Rated and saw it was only rated 8.3. I thought this would be the phone to surpass K800i as it's still the top Sony Ericsson mobile phone. I thought the C905 will even beat it.

I'm confused and would really like an answer, Flora Graham reviewed it so it'll be nice if I could get a reply from her. I also spotted that it only had the Editor's rating , so I think if it gets some User ratings that might improve it's rating.

Finally, I heard that the W995 was too expensive. With all those amazing features I thought the price for a debranded version was pretty reasonable. I'm no expert but the 'We don't likes' for this phone aren't very convincing, they seem like incredibly minor problems so I still dazed at to why it got that rating.

Thank you Cnet for your mobile knowledge, you helped me pick out a great phone that I love (K800i) and I'm not changing it soon as it's still the top Sony Ericsson phone. I like that brand. Thank you again

K800i is only top rated relative with how good it was at the time. Were it to be reviewed now it would probably only achieve something like a 7.5.

C905 was crippled with many problems in the UI, so much so that Sony Ericsson have actually discontinued the handset.

If you take a look in the review some of it's "killer" features are a bit of a let-down. The stereo speakers, for example, are poor quality in contrast to their size compared to other mobile phones. As it's a walkman phone you'd expect the speaker quality to be very good.

Another issue is with its camera. As it's not a Cybershot model it feels like Sony Ericsson have deliberately made the camera sluggish, and the lack of Xenon flash (a staple on high-end Cybershot models) means camera quality could be better, and you may not benefit from the 8 megapixels the phone offers.

Internet browsing on the device is pretty sluggish too, even though the phone supports HSDPA. If you want a better experience you'd have to get Opera Mini. SE's closed OS makes it hard to get applications on it, too, which is becoming a very important area in the mobile world.

You shouldn't let the score influence you too much though. Why not try it out in a store, then you can directly compare it with your K800i. There's no substitute to actually trying out the phone before you buy it, then you can gauge what it will be like to live with for the duration of your contract.

Weetanhops, once again, providing stellar answers. Reviews are always to be treated as a snapshot of the time in which it was reviewed.

Regarding scores, a score is great for providing an informed judgement at a glance, but the review itself is where the answers lie. Generally speaking three main areas are considered when scoring: design, features and performance. A phone may get top marks for features, but if it's physically flawed and as a result performs badly, the negative scores for design and performance will pull the overall score down.

To further clarify, we always aim to identify the main selling point or feature of a product (so, on a camera phone, that would be how good its camera features are), and allow it some wiggle room if it performs its main task flawlessly. Conversely, the time to be really worried is when, for example, a music phone doesn't have a standard headphone socket -- how could we offer top marks for a phone competing with an MP3 player, when it fails to offer one of the fundamental features an MP3 player requires?

Of course, this can all cause an apparently well-specced phone to receive a lower overall score than you might expect. And for this reason, it's always best to read over the full text of the review to understand why.

Hope this helps. If not, I'll drag Flora into this thread tomorrow!

Thanks so much for your question, Bluerang1 -- Nate and weetanhops have given great answers, but let me chime in too to address the W995 specifically.

I rated this phone's performance as excellent, thanks to the great music quality, impressive stereo speakers, and the good MediaGo software. But it wasn't perfect; because the camera is a bit slow, for example.

Where it lost points was in the design -- although I still think it's very good. The dedicated music player buttons are very small, and I preferred them on the front, rather than the side. And the phone falls over if you use the external speakers, which are meant to be used as a stand.

It lost a couple more points because some of the built-in features didn't work very well -- the iPlayer app and the RSS/podcast manager, for example. These worked really well in previous Walkman phones that I've tested, like the W705, so I know how good they can be.

I have to be fair and dock points where I think it's due, but I liked this phone a lot -- which I think is clear if you read the review. 8.3 is still rated "excellent", and that's a very high rating. It's one of my highest-rated phones this year and I would definitely recommend this handset.

I hope this helps!

Consequently, my friend has just upgraded to this handset from an N95. He wanted the C905 initially, and this is where I got the information about the handset being discontinued.

I'll post back on here when he's got the phone and I'll ask him for his thoughts (I suppose the next step after a review is some real-world testing!)

Thank you all so much and thank you Flor afor replying. I now understand the reviews properly. I'm still sticking with my K800i though, for a while, or longer, need money. LOL.

Thank you again.