Sony Ericsson have also announced the Sony Ericsson W960i Walkman phone amongst their plethora of announcements today.

The W960i is a top-of-the-line Walkman phone, and comes with 8GB of Memory Stick storage (enough for around 8,000 tunes), plus Wi-Fi.

Curiously, though, it doesn't come with HSDPA, unlike it's cheaper sibling the W910. Not sure why Sony Ericsson feel the need to give a phone Wi-Fi, but then cripple its mobile download data transfer rate (although it does come with 3G).

In addition to music, the W960 also comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera and a 2.6" colour screen, as well as video playback a 30fps. As such, the W960 is a good all-round multimedia performer.

Full details and pictures of the Sony Ericsson W960 after the jump.

Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman phone

The Sony Ericsson W960 is being pitched as a competitor to Apple's iPhone. Not sure how well it'll do when compared to Apple's hugely-anticipated music phone, but if there's one brand that's capable of putting up a fight, it's Sony Ericsson with its legendary Walkman range.

The first thing you notice about the W960 is that it's a great looker. It differs from Sony Ericsson's recent phones, which have a central silver button just beneath the screen, with two other buttons either side of it. Although this older design (as seen on the W880i and S500i) still looks good, it's good to see a different style from Sony Ericsson. The W960, although looking more classic in its appearance, is much more sophisticated in its appearance - it's a phone that likes it means business (well, music business anyway!)

Another thing of note is the dedicated music buttons above the main keypad, with play, stop, fast forward and rewind being prominently placed. There's no confusing the main purpose of this phone.

Sony Ericsson W960 music features

And of course, the main purpose of the W960 is music - lots of it! With an 8GB Memory Stick card coming as standard, there's enough storage space for up to 8,000 tunes. To help you sort through them all, there's the excellent Walkman 3.0 application,as well as the Media Manager programme for organizing and transferring tunes between PC and phone via USB (at up to 1GB in less than 3 minutes, apparently).

One thing that is impressive is that the W960 can play music non-stop for up to 27 hours, which, given the size of mobile phone batteries, is near miraculous!

The W960 also comes with TrackID, like many other Walkman phones, which tells you the name of a song and its artist from just a few seconds of a song. Unlike in existing Walkman's though, the TrackID feature of the W960 will give you loads more info on the song - detailed background info on the artist, for example.

That said, this doesn't seem to be offering that much more than in traditional Walkman phones.

Sony Ericsson W960 camera and video camera

Underlining its position as a top-end Sony Ericsson phone, the W960 comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Although not branded as a CyberShot phone, it should still give excellent quality, as Sony Ericsson's camera on its phones tend to be the best in class. The use of auto-focus is also a welcome addition.

The W960 also comes with the ability to shoot and playback video at 30 frames per second, which is DVD-quality. It'll be interesting to see how well the W960's video compares with that of Nokia's N-Series phones, such as the N93 and N95, which also shoot at the same frame-rate.

Sony Ericsson W960 touchscreen

One feature that deserves more attention is the W960's touchscreen. Clearly aimed at positioning the W960 against the iPhone, the touchscreen can be used with a finger or a stylus, and can be used to navigate through your 8,000 tunes, as well as browse through your video and cover art collection.

No idea how well this function works yet, and whether it's as good as the iPhone, or just a gimmick to help counter the iPhone.

Web browsing

Another indicator that Sony Ericsson are pitching the W960 firmly against the iPhone is their focus on the web browsing capabilities of the W960. Apple famously referred to their iPhone as an Internet device, as the on-board Safari browser can be used in an extremely intuitive way through the iPhone's magical multi-touch user interface, and some innovative use of accelerometers which orient the browser according to the orientation of the phone. Unfortunately, Apple then chose to hobble the iPhone's Internet browsing abilities by providing it with Wi-Fi but no 3G.

With the W960, not only have Sony Ericsson included Wi-Fi, they've gone one better than Apple and included 3G as well. Unfortunately (and somewhat oddly), they've left out HSDPA, which they've reserved for the W910i.

Sony Ericsson W960 Release date

The Sony Ericsson W960 Release date is scheduled for release in Quarter 4 2007, and will be available in Vinyl Black (not sure how that differs from the W910's Noble Black, but apparently it does!)

Sony Ericsson W960 Specifications

The full features of the W960 are as follows:

• Walkman® Touch player
• Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)
• Mega Bass™
• Music tones (MP3/AAC)
• PlayNow™
• TrackID™
• RSS feeds
• Polyphonic ringtones
• FM radio with RDS
• 3.2 megapixel Camera
• 3x Digital zoom
• Picture blogging
• Video blogging
• Video recording
• WLAN
• Opera Web browser
• Speakerphone
• Vibrating alert
• Video calling
• Email
• Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync®
• Document editors
• Document readers
• Handwriting recognition
• Symbian Operating System
• Touchscreen
• Bluetooth™ technology
• Picture messaging (MMS)
• Predictive text input
• Sound recorder
• Text messaging (SMS)
• Navigation key
• Picture wallpaper
• Wallpaper animation
• 3D games
• Java
• Video streaming
• Video viewing
• Alarm clock
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Flight mode
• Notes
• Stopwatch

Summary

The Sony Ericsson W960 is certainly a great looking music phone with some extremely impressive features. However, I can't help but think that some of those features are simply there to add to the features list as a way of saying the iPhone customer "look, I can do those things as well!"

For example, the touchscreen - the iPhone has one, and so the W960 has one. If it's functionality is poor, then it's definitely there to up the feature count at the expense of other features they could have added (or a reduced price).

Equally, the lack of HSDPA. Given that the W910 has HSDPA, which is a lesser phone, you'd have thought Sony Ericsson would also have included it in their top of the range Walkman phone. It would seem that 3G is enough, though, as the iPhone only has EDGE and not 3G. Consequently, the W960 is able to claim that it beats the iPhone while not providing as much of a feature as it could have.

Nicklas Sivander, Product Manager for the W960 Walkman® phone, Sony Ericsson, has this to say: “You couldn’t ask for a better music mix of high performance media player and intuitive phone. The touchscreen is complemented by a regular keyboard and the phone itself is amplified by the Media Manager programme and the many music accessories. The days of taking an MP3 player, a camera and a phone with you when you leave the house are definitely over.”

Which, of course, is exactly what Apple coulld have said about its iPhone. There's no getting away from it, the W960 is gunning for Apple big time!

But perhaps I'm being a bit too picky. Until we've see then the W960 in the flesh and seen how well its features work, I'll reserve judgment. For the moment, then, the W960 is a great looking well featured music phone that looks like it's going to take the fight straight to Apple. Let's just hope it has a sporting chance!