Sony Ericsson W950i

The Sony Ericsson W950i Walkman phone is the latest and most feature packed Walkman phone announced to date. The W950i release date is Q3 2006, and the mobile phone signifcantly improves on last year’s mobile music phones, both from Sony Ericsson and other mobile phone manufacturers. For example, whereas last year’s models boasted at most 1GB of onboard memory, the W950i comes with a whopping 4GB of flash memory (which shows how rapidly flash memory technology is improving). Better still, the W950i is based on the Symbian v9.1 and UIQ 3.0 platform, as used in the Sony Ericsson P990 smartphone, making the W950i a smartphone in its own right, but one dedicated to music rather than business.

More than a music phone, though, the W950i comes with broadband-fast email and Web browsing plus a suite of high performance entertainment applications add to its capabilities, making it one of the most highly specified phones in the Sony Ericsson portfolio. It’s also one of the best looking, with its keypad flush with the surface, and orange backlighting that brings the music keys to life.

Sony Ericsson W950i’s music features

The music player within the W950 has the functionality and sound quality of an equivalent standalone device. Its 4GB storage can take up to 4,000 songs and the sound quality, delivered on high quality headphones, makes listening to music a real pleasure. A new graphic-rich interface on the Walkman® player makes it easy to navigate around the music library by song, artist or playlist and now it’s possible to search visually by browsing through album covers using the stylus and touch screen. The W950i has all the benefits of a combined phone and music player, enabling multitasking between listening to music, SMS texting, emailing and browsing the Internet (see – told you it was a smartphone!).

Getting music into the W950i is fast and simple and can be done in a number of ways. The supplied Disc2Phone music management software is an intuitive package that handles transfer to the phone of music stored in the user’s PC. UMTS capability also makes the W950i ready for fast direct-to-phone transfers from available operators’ download services.

Sony Ericsson W950i multimedia features

Beyond music, the W950i is a complete mobile entertainment centre that delivers great speed and exceptional quality sound and vision. Users can now enjoy the complete spectrum of mobile multimedia applications, from web browsing, push email and video streaming to 3D gaming and store-and-share of media files. Besides music, 4GB is enough storage for a wealth of photos, video’s or email attachments in the phone.

Stereo sound through wireless headphones is now possible as the W950i supports Bluetooth streaming in stereo. The Bluetooth Stereo Headset HBH-DS970 also announced today and available as an accessory delivers high quality stereo sound through stylish, comfortable headphones. Better still, the W950i also supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile, which means you can connect to other supporting devices (such as Parrot’s recently announced Bluetooth loudspeakers) and stream your music directly to them for even better sound quality.

The Sony Ericsson W950 is a Dual Mode UMTS Walkman phone starts shipping during Q3 2006. Regional variations are:

• W950i – Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) – GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia Pacific,Middle East, Africa
• W950c – Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) – GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland China (launch for mainland China dependent on availability of 3G services.)