Price Range: $642.00 to $982.95

Touch’n'play Walkman® phone

Teh sleek W960i Walkman® phone impresses with its touch display and 8GB momory. You can have all the music you want - literally at your fingertips.

Sony Ericsson W960 is aptly the big gun in the Sony Ericsson portfolio of music-centered handsets. Gifted with the scorching 8GB of storage space and a large touchscreen TFT display, a 3-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities, the W960 easily stands out in the Walkman crowd. Powered by the Symbian OS and UIQ user interface, it delivers one-of-a-kind Walkman experience with rich fullscreen visualizations and advanced track filtering. All this is enough to have us drooling over the specs sheet, eager to get our hands on this smarty Walkman and see what it’s made of.

The Sony Ericsson W960i has a glossy black finish and weighs 119g which feels solid when held but still sleek and cool looking. The 3.2 mega pixel camera has LED flash and auto focus and delivers clear looking pictures though not quite good when compared with Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot line of phones. If you’re a fan of Ericsson’s Walkman series, then the Sony Ericsson W960i won’t disappoint. It delivers clear music plus with the additions of an RDS FM radio station, you can quickly browse any FM radio station if you get tired of listening to your playlists. Battery life is also quite good and I got around 18 hours of playback before I have to recharge.

Sony Ericsson has announced the new W960 Walkman handset in a barrage of handset announcements from Berlin today. Packing the Symbian/UIQ smartphone UI combination, the Sony Ericsson W960 is the evolution and coming of age of the manufacturer’s Walkman range.
Listen up The Sony Ericsson W960i Walkman® phone really is the centrepiece of your music listening life, which is why both a stereo portable handsfree and a Stereo Bluetooth™ headset for music streaming are included with the phone. When you want more, the new Street-style Portable Handsfree HPM-83 adds urban style to the W960. Its flexible neckband gives a secure fit and wraps behind the head, so as not to get in the way if you¡¦re running or at the gym. If you want to share your music library with friends, the Bluetooth™ Music Receiver MBR-100 plugs into your home stereo and lets you stream tracks directly from the phone to your stereo¡¦s speakers. Why keep it to yourself?

Camera
* Auto focus
* Camera - 3.2-megapixel
* Digital zoom - 3x
* Photo light
* Video record

Music
* Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
* MegaBass™
* Music tones
* Music tones - MP3, AAC
* PlayNow™
* TrackID™
* Walkman® player

Messaging
* Email:
* MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
* Predictive text input
* SMS long (Text Messaging)
* Sound recorder

Connectivity
* Bluetooth™ technology
* Modem
* Synchronisation PC
* USB mass storage
* USB support
* WLAN

Price Range: $582.00 - $621.00

Engage and play

Music and games - the slim slider W910i Walkman® phone is your playful companion to the world of mobile entertainment.

The Sony Ericsson W910i is a superslim slide phone, measuring just 12.5mm thick (slimmer than the Samsung D900.) It’s a lovely looking phone with a tapered bottom edge and a superslim profile. The W910i wears its Walkman credentials on its sleeve, with music controls featured prominently when the slide is closed. Fortunately SE have given the W910i am easy-to-use circular navigational key, not the dreaded joystick that appears on some of their models.

Sony Ericsson W910 comes in a nice compact black-and-orange box with all the necessary gear to get you started - charger, USB data cable, stereo headset, 1GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) (in our case, you may get yours with 2GB card), plus the usual papers and installation CDs. A tiny piece of hardware will make your face broaden into a grin. For the first time, a compact Sony Ericsson USB 2.0 M2 card reader with a status LED and a strap is included in the retail box. We ran a quick test on it comparing performance to a regular card reader on USB 2.0. The standard reader transferred 113 tracks totaling 492 MB in 4:30 min, while the Sony Ericsson USB 2.0 M2 card reader executed the task in almost the same time - 4:20 min. So, you get the same transfer rate and the compact dimensions are an added gain.

Camera
* Camera - 2-megapixel
* Digital zoom - 2.5x
* Picture blogging
* Video record

Music
* Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
* MegaBass™
* Music tones
* Music tones - MP3, AAC
* PlayNow™
* SensMe™
* Shake control
* TrackID™
* Walkman® player

Messaging
* Email:
* MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
* Predictive text input
* SMS long (Text Messaging)
* Sound recorder

Connectivity
* Bluetooth™ technology
* Modem
* Synchronisation PC
* USB mass storage
* USB support

Price Range: 265.96 to $281.33

Thin elegance, full-fledged Walkman®

Thin as a CD case and dressed up for grand openings. And this beauty has brains too- on the W890i inside, you find a Walkman® player, turgo 3G and a 3.2 megapixel camera.

The W890’s HSDPA capabilities allow you to download music at speeds up to four times faster than with regular 3G devices. Plus, it makes viewing pages on the internet quicker and easier too. The phone is fully compatible with Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow?mobile entertainment experience. This provides you with instant access to the latest content ?whether it’s the full-length music tracks, the hottest mobile games, ringtones or wallpapers ?downloadable either direct to your phone or via your PC. Need to provide the music for a party on the spur of the moment? No problem. As well as its own internal stereo speakers, the W890 is fully compatible with a range of the latest Sony Ericsson music accessories, including the Portable Bluetooth?Speaker MBS-100 and the Stereo Bluetooth?Headset HBH-DS220./p>

The user of the W890i will have to be a true music lover, as the Sony Ericsson W890i is packed full of many easy to use music features which are waiting to be enjoyed. The phone has a built in FM radio which can be activated by the user simply plugging in the headphones. The radio comes complete with a RDS feature which allows the user to see the name of the station they are tuned into & the radio station can even provide information on the song which is being played by the radio station. The built in Walkman® music player comes with easy to access music controls which provides the user with a real feel music player in their hand. The user can enjoy listening to their music using a Bluetooth® stereo A2DP wireless connection between their headset & phone. The phone comes with a SensMe™ music feature which allows the user to create playlists based on type & mood of music.

Camera
* Camera - 3.2 megapixel
* Digital zoom - 3.2x
* Video record

Music
* Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
* Media Player
* MegaBass™
* Music tones - MP3, AAC
* PlayNow™
* TrackID™
* Walkman® player

Messaging
* Email:
* MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
* Predictive text input
* SMS long (Text Messaging)
* Sound recorder

Connectivity
* Bluetooth™ technology
* Modem
* Synchronisation PC
* USB mass storage
* USB support

Price Range: $399.00 to $799.00

Slim Walkman®. Fat sound.

Funnel your favorite music into the ultra slim W880i Walkman phone. Store up to 900 tracks - enough to give your musical taste buds whatever they fancy.

TrackID is also available on the W880i and is one of the coolest features we’ve seen on a phone. This allows you to record a few seconds of any song you wish, through the external microphone. The recording is then sent to a music database and if the song is recognised, the title, album and artist name are sent back to you. It then allows you to download the full track if it is available.

You may mind more the fact that Sony Ericsson has chosen to use absolutely tiny keys, and while in some cases the system works well, the number keys are the smallest we’ve ever seen. At just a millimetre tall and 6 millimetres wide we found them to be simply too small to grapple with for fast texting. The fact that their orange colouring stands very proud of their black background means these keys look nice, but it does nothing for usability.

The music player is the feature that’s at the heart of the W880i, and as you’d expect it’s a really excellent player that can match an iPod in music quality. The music player can be accessed by a single click, and you can play, rewind, fast forward, equalise, shuffle tracks and create playlists. Sony’s MegaBass™ feature gives added woomph when playing music from the built-in loudspeaker, but for the best quality audio you need to listen via a pair of good headphones. A set of good quality headphones are included in the sales package, and the phone is also compatible with Bluetooth stereo headphones. There are some extra gadgets included in the music department. TrackID™ lets you identify a song (name, artist and album) from a few seconds recording, e.g. a song that you hear on the radio or in a club. The PlayNow™ download service lets you buy and download MP3 ringtones from your phone. The phone is supplied with a 1 Gbyte memory card, so there’s lots of room for storing music tracks - almost 250 tracks.

Camera
* Camera - 2-megapixel
* Digital zoom - 2.5x
* Picture blogging
* Video record

Music
* Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
* Media Player
* MegaBass™
* Music tones
* PlayNow™
* TrackID™

Messaging
* Email:
* MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
* Predictive text input
* SMS long (Text Messaging)
* Sound recorder

Connectivity
* Bluetooth™ technology
* Modem
* PictBridge
* Synchronisation PC
* USB mass storage
* USB support

Price Range: $329.00 - $335.00

Mobile music sensation

Feel the vibe come alive, whatever your taste in music. Storage for a thousand songs. Fast Web connection to download more.

Managing music is very easy with the CD of PC software supplied. The W850i supports USB mass storage, which means that files can be easily and quickly transferred with a drag and drop operation (USB cable supplied). You can also download music directly to your phone with the Walkman software, and the 3G connection makes this very fast. The W850i also introduces a novel feature called TrackID™. If you hear a song on the radio that you don’t know, you can use TrackID to find the name, artist and album for you - impressive!

The screen measures 2 Inches & provides a clear 262k colour display with a 240 x 320 pixel screen resolution. The screen works as a colourful viewfinder for the camera & video features incorporated in the phone. The user can view their chosen picture wallpapers & animated wallpapers on the screen. The phone comes with a easy to access menu system with useful icon displays. The user can express their personal taste & style with the style up™ covers that are available for the W850i.

Speaking of cameras, 2 megapixels are almost standard on phones these days, and the W850i is no exception. Clearly determined to separate the CyberShot and Walkman brands, Sony have steered clear of a 3.2 megapixel camera on their latest offering. This is no particular disadvantage though because Sony still have the superior experience in camera phones thanks to the fact that Sony were designing cameras long before they bought out Ericsson and started designing phones. Only Nokia have managed to come close to the camera quality offered by a Sony Ericsson phone through their partnership with Carl Zeiss, however can’t offer any of the usability that Sony can. So top marks again.

Camera
* Camera - 2-megapixel
* Digital zoom - 2.5x
* Photo light
* Picture blogging
* Video record

Music
* Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
* Media Player
* MegaBass™
* Music tones
* PlayNow™
* TrackID™

Messaging
* Email:
* MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
* Predictive text input
* SMS long (Text Messaging)
* Sound recorder

Connectivity
* Bluetooth™ technology
* Infrared port
* Modem
* Synchronisation PC
* USB mass storage
* USB support