A major addition to Sony Ericsson's family of Walkman phones was announced today. The W950 is an ultra-slim, ultra-stylish, UMTS-enabled device with 4GB of onboard storage complete with touch screen for simple navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or music albums.
More than a music phone, 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.
"Bringing the Walkman brand to Sony Ericsson phones was one of our outstanding achievements in 2005 and we have now sold more than 3 million Walkman phones," said Miles Flint, President, Sony Ericsson, "W950 is our sixth Walkman phone to be introduced since that announcement and listening to music on mobile phones is now an established and growing consumer behaviour. This announcement also demonstrates the flexibility of the Symbian v9.1 and UIQ 3.0 platform to create a consumer focused offering as well as business and the W950 is now our third Symbian based handset to be introduced in 2006."
The W950's design is thin, sleek and compact form, finished in Mystic Purple, fingerprint-proof matt with orange accents. Strengthened by the keypad being flush with the surface, orange backlighting brings the music keys to life.
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 W950 has all the benefits of a combined phone and music player, enabling multitasking between listening to music, SMS texting, emailing and browsing the Internet.
Getting music into the W950 can be done in a number of ways. The supplied Disc2Phone music management software handles transfers to the phone from music stored in the user's PC. UMTS capability also makes the W950 ready for fast direct-to-phone transfers from available operators' download services.
Users can 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 W950 support 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.
The W950 is the 3rd Sony Ericsson phone based on the new Symbian v9.1 and UIQ 3.0 platform, benefiting from a growing multitude of third party applications. All of these applications are available to download from the Sony Ericsson Application Shop, an online catalogue that is stocked directly by third party developers.
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.)
W950 - Features at a glance:
Music - Walkman player
- Supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, E-AAC+, WAV and m4a
- 4 GB flash memory
- Up to 4.000 songs can be stored when downloading songs from operator networks in E-AAC+ file format
- Touchscreen with album art support
- Polyphonic ringtones, 40 voices
- Graphical equalizer and Mega Bass
- Disc2Phone music management software
- Stereo headphones in the box
- FM radio with RDS
- MusicDJ
- Speakerphone
- Streaming Audio/Video
- Bluetooth stereo streaming support
- Java MIDP 2.0
- 2D and 3D gaming
- Music play time - 10 hours
Messaging - Bright QVGA TFT 2.6" Display
- 262K Color display
- Video playback, 30fps
- SMS, MMS and e-mail
- Handwriting Recognition
- Touch screen
- Word completion and Auto correction
Connectivity - Opera 8.0 Internet browser
- RSS Feeds
- Bluetooth 1.2
- Infrared port
- USB 2.0 Mass storage, High speed (480 Mbps)
- USB cable in the box
- Modem
- WAP 2.0 XHTML/HTML
- Dual Mode UMTS 2100 - GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900
Business - Full HTML browser Opera 8
- External antenna connector
- USB charging
- PC synchronization
- Flight mode
- Size: 106 x 54 x 15 mm
- Weight 112 grams
- Talk time: up to 2.5/7.5 hours (UMTS/GSM)
- Standby time: up to 250/340 hours (UMTS/GSM)
This one is my favorite of the new bunch. I think SE has done the best job integrating the music phone (great UI, and no crappy song limit). Long live the Walkman Phone!
3. Posted by Pogo
Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:28 pm
too bad this one is going everywhere BUT the U.S. Doh!
4. Posted by Bushy Turtle
Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:49 am
Where's the camera? Geez. I thought it was mandatory nowadays? Probably so people can bring a phone to work (I know a bunch of companies have a "No Cameraphone" policy).
5. Posted by alishan
Wed May 17, 2006 7:55 am
I luv SE phonez and would like to buy it.
Currently using SE k300I
6. Posted by chrisase
Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:54 pm
can we get unlocked phone, or will the super cool technology be unuseable?
7. Posted by peryus88
Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:39 pm
Yet another cool looking SE phone that doesn't have 850Mhz...SE, you're killing me, man.
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