Sony Ericsson have announced the new Sony Ericsson W660i, the latest in a growing line of Walkman music phones from the company.

The W660i shares the sleek good looks of recent Sony Ericsson phones, with the navigation buttons and dedicated Walkman music button featuring prominently above the keypad.

More details and pictures of the Sony Ericsson W660i Walkman phone after the jump.

The W660i is candy-bar phone and features a 2 megapixel camera, 3G, 512MB of memory (expandable to 1GB), FM radio, Bluetooth audio streaming and, er…well, that’s it really!

The W660i does have a few things going for it, though. It looks great, with a really imposing sleek black presence, and is only 14.5mm thick, so it’s more than able to compete with the latest designer phones from companies such as LG and Motorola. Coming from Sony Ericsson, though, you can bet that the quality of its gadgets, such as its MP3 player and camera, will be a cut above its rival.

Better still, the use of 3G means web browsing (it comes both with a web browser and RSS newsfeed reader) and downloading will be quick and painless, and although no prices have been released yet, this should be an affordable mid-range phone with high quality features.

Announcing the W660i today, just one day before the opening of CeBIT 2007, is a bit odd though, as the electronics manufacturers generally like to make big announcements at the major events, not just before. However, the W660i clearly isn’t a top of the range mobile phone, so the chances are Sony Ericsson has something else up its sleeves for tomorrow’s big show. Perhaps the new 5 megapixel Sony Ericsson K850i Cybershot phone?

Sony Ericsson W660i in detail

From the press release:

Sony Ericsson today announces the W660i a Walkman phone which places an emphasis on style and feel. With a tactile finish that just begs to be touched, it’s a classic-design 3G phone available in two distinctive colours, Record Black and Rose Red. Also introduced is a compact new music accessory, the Snap-on Speakers MPS-75, which let you play the tracks stored on your Walkman® phone out loud.

“The W660 has a finish that stands out among its peers” explains Steve Walker, Head of Product Marketing at Sony Ericsson. “Although the W660 places the emphasis firmly on design, it is also a full member of our Walkman® phone family, able to store several hundred full-length songs. That’s important because our research indicates users are listening to more music than ever before – an average of 4.4 hours a day, according to the latest Sony Ericsson Music Monitor.”

Like several of the latest Walkman phones, the W660 features TrackID. If you ever need to identify a piece of music that you don’t recognise, simply record a few seconds of the track, either via the microphone or by tagging a clip straight from the phone’s FM Radio, and TrackID will send the clip to the Gracenote Mobile MusicID database. This quickly identifies the track, the artist and album and relays the information back to your Walkman® phone.

The W660 Walkman phone can store up to 470 full-length songs (in eAAC+ format) on the 512MB Memory Stick Micro (M2) supplied. As your collection grows you can expand the memory as you need and, by way of example, a 1GB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2) will hold up to 1,000 tracks.

As well as high speed music download and web surfing, the W660 can deliver RSS feeds straight to the phone’s desktop to keep you up-to-date on the latest news and gossip. It also packs a 2.0 megapixel camera and Picture Blogging capability, allowing you to capture that picture and upload it instantly to your personal blog site – all at 3G speed.

Sony Ericsson W660i release date

The Sony Ericsson W660i release date is Q2 2007, so not too long to wait for those of you looking for a decent and reasonably-priced 3G music phone.

Sony Ericsson W660i Specifications

The W660i’s specifications are as follows:

Music

• Walkman player 2.0 with support for
• Album Art
• 512MB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2) PlayNow
• TrackID
• Disc2Phone
• Bluetooth Audio streaming
• FM radio support
• Up to 25 hours music listening

Design

• Slim stick form factor (14.5mm)
• Premium design and material
• Embellished/raised finish on camera side
• Flash theme
• Size: 102 x 46 x 14.5 mm
• Weight: 93 grams

Imaging

• 2.0 megapixel camera
• Digital zoom 2.5x
• 2.0 inch 262k colour TFT display
• Video Telephony
• Video recording / playback
• Picture blogging

Connectivity

• Networks: UMTS 2100 and GPRS 900/1800/1900
• Full HTML Web browsing
• RSS feeds
• Bluetooth™ 2.0
• USB 2.0
• Java MIDP 2.0

Talk time

• Talk time GSM: Up to 6 hours
• Talk time (3G): Up to 2.5 hours
• Standby time: Up to 360 hours