Sony Ericsson today announced the W850 WALKMAN®, its first ever GSM/UMTS slider phone. It combines a 2-megapixel horizontally-operated camera with the latest Walkman® player 2.0, which makes it easy to download music directly to the phone.
The W850 has a ‘heartbeat illumination’ feature that lights up the control keys in rhythm with the music playing, but it’s not all about looks says Sony. It offers fast music downloads and is configured for music download services and accepts many popular music file formats including e-AAC+, which reduces download time and space needed for music files. Also, the phone is supplied with a 1GB memory stick PRO Duo, which is enough for around 1,000 songs in e-AAC+ and around 200 songs in MP3. This can be increased to 4GB as an option.
The Walkman® player 2.0 simplifies navigation through music playlists and there’s also a music recognition feature powered by Gracenote Mobile MusicID, called TrackID™. This new service allows you to record a few seconds of a song, and then with one click send that clip to the Gracenote® worldwide music database which will identify the track and send back the song’s title and artist information.
There is a wide range of accessories available for the W850, such as stereo Bluetooth™ headsets, which allows wireless listening to stereo-quality music sound. Music Desk stand speakers also provide a further boost to sound.
The W850 also offers fast internet access and web browsing, which means it is totally possible to do many of the things done in front of a PC, such as blogging.
Currently, only a W850i variant is planned, which is a UMTS 2100 and Tri-band (GPRS 900/1800/1900) Walkman phone for Europe, Middle East, Africa. It starts shipping during the third quarter of 2006.
