Phones: Sony Eriscsson W995 Walkman Phone – Review – 79

You know, it’s been 30 years since Sony first stormed the market with its portable Walkman. Boy, was that cassette player sexy. Fast-forward three decades and it now comes in a whole new format, which is how the Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman-branded phone came to land in the Tone office.

The W995 is no pin-up. If anything, it looks a bit dated with its standard issue oblong build and lack of a touchscreen. To be fair, this is somewhat offset by its nifty kickstand, which allows the user to prop the phone up without holding it – handy for watching videos and listening to music.

Speaking of music, this is where the W995 really shines. It has all the goods of an excellent music player: great built-in stereo speakers, a radio, 8GB of memory, dedicated control buttons, a 3.5mm jack and a decent pair of bundled earphones. It does a fantastic job in this capacity; it sounds great and can project enough volume to fill a room. Also worth a mention is Sony Ericsson’s Media Go software, which has an excellent library system much like iTunes and can convert video files to MPEG-4s. This PC software comes packaged with the handset.

As for its other multimedia capabilities, the W995 is equipped with a video player but the phone’s screen size needs to be bigger for proper viewing. There’s also an 8.1 megapixel camera on board. It does an okay job but really only takes a decent photo under optimal light conditions.

Battery life is superb and lasted us nearly four days with heavy use. That’s quite unusual for a media-centric phone like this one.

The W995 is compatible with Telecom’s XT Network, and connectivity options are good, with HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS hardware, and it’s these features that presumably hike up the rather hefty price tag. n

JESKA INNES

Network: Telecom XT
Contact: www.telecom.co.nz

This review is from Tone issue 79.