Rating  - Run from the Walkman
Bought this phone when it was BRAND NEW...Never will I do that again. It was bad news from the start. Within 12 hours of receiving the phone, it died. It was immediately replaced by Amazon. Since last September, mine has been replaced an additional THREE MORE TIMES. My husband's has also been replaced twice.
The problems that have plagued us with this phone include (but are not limited to) the phone freezing between on/off, number keys cracking, navigational keys completely falling off, phone speakers barely audible, lost signals, not connecting to the network, having to reboot the phone to get it to work, failed calls, and dropped calls.
RUN AWAY! DO NOT BUY!
Rating  - Solid phone for everyday uses
I am not a phone fanatic in terms of features. I wanted something simple to replace the free Nokia that came with my AT&T/Cingular plan. This Sony was offered to me for $15 (after the mail-in rebate) and I decided to go for it.
For my uses (making and receiving calls, sending simple text messages), this phone works quite well. Call quality is clear and sharp and the phone rarely drops a call. Voices sound natural and not muffled or digitized-sounding which is nice. The screen is big and easy to read with super-sharp resolution.
I find myself liking some of the phones other features, such as the FM radio. Now I can listen to the NPR at work without having to buy a separate radio. The provided headphones also function as an antenna, and reception is good on all the major stations, though the phone doesn't pick up weaker stations as well as my car radio. I also like the "tasks" feature which serves as a mini-scheduler for me and reminds me of things I need to do.
I don't use the MP3 or camera features on this phone, though it seems quite capable and sophisticated at these tasks. It's also got internet capability. You'll need to buy a separate memory card if you want to store songs/ringtones/photos onto the phone.
The phone seems fairly sturdy. I've had it for over four months now and the screen is not scratched at all (despite being in my pocket every day). I've dropped it a couple of times and the phone still works fine, though after the last drop, the speaker seems to rattle against the phone frame, which I'm sure can be fixed. The slider seems solid and not flimsy at all.
There are a few drawbacks to this phone, though. The buttons are super-small and hard to use. Also, the battery panel is difficult to take on and off without breaking it. Every once in a while (maybe once every two months or so), the phone freezes up and the only way to fix it is to take the battery out and put it back in. I'm also not impressed with the T9 dictionary for texts, which seems to be missing many critical English words (like "appetizer", among others). The good thing is that you can add words to the dictionary easily. I also don't like how phone numbers aren't "formatted" American-style with dashes (XXX-XXX-XXXX) in the address book, when you receive a call or when you type a number on the screen. Instead, you just get a 10-digit string of numbers, with no spaces or dashes, which makes it difficult to read and recognize numbers easily in the small chunks that we're used to. Battery life is also not as long as I'd like, though it's not terrible by any means. With my old Nokia, I'd charge the phone maybe once a week at most, whereas with this Sony I have to charge it once every three days. I use the phone for on average 1000 minutes a month, or 30 minutes a day, along with listening to the radio two or three hours a week.
To conclude: if you're looking for a phone with good call quality that's not too expensive but also has some nice extra features, this is a good bet.
Rating - FLIMSY
Everything is cheap plastic with this phone. You could make a sturdier phone from a PEZ dispenser. I'm an agile fingered pianist with a sensitive touch, but nevertheless all of my keys have split in half. And, the menu keys have lost their sensitivity. Also, the sticker/emblem on back has popped off. All of this started just a few days after warranty (which is almost immediately).
Rating - Good solid phone; lots of features
I've owned this phone for nearly a year. My wife's started crashing on her, but AT&T replaced it under the warranty. Except for that, this phone has been great. It's quite easy to use, syncs to my Mac nicely, and has a nice screen. The battery life is fine for my uses (charge every 3-4 days, but I don't talk much). It will run java applications and whatnot. However, and this is sad, the best feature is that you can disable the stupid press-to-connect-to-the-internet button only by manually setting up about three different dummy internet profiles. If you don't do this, you'll accidentally start the web browser all the time because AT&T in their supreme greed force you to have a dedicated button for that (expensive) feature. So once you can disable it, it's a great little phone.
Rating - Tried six different phones -all bad!
My wife and I both had 580i phones. AT&T customer service replaced both phones twice. That's six phones over a six month period. Audio was very difficult to hear. Unclear sound on two of the phones. Marginal sound quality on the others. Two phones would not take a recharge properly. Factory chargers would bring up " must use an Ericcson battery" when I was using the supplied AC charger. This happened on two of the phones. Battery could not be recharged. We are Mac people. The phones would not function with a Macintosh. The music function is is a PC only deal. All of our MP3 files were useless and could not be downloaded. We loved the size, the look, the slider, and the supposed functionality. It sometimes easily called accidentally from our pocket. The calling lock was not satisfactory. Finally all of the phones were stolen by an intruder. What a relief! AT&Ts customer service for this phone vascillated between terrible and great. Once they "forgot" to send us a replacement phone. Several support people hung-up on us - and never called back. They sent a phone to the wrong address. Others were wonderful- overnighting ASAP and treated us great! AT&T lacks oversight. Would only give us the same phones back. I am an executive with a company that includes Sony and AT&T as clients - otherwise I would leave my full name.
Never, never order a 580i. Beautiful but...
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