Phoneman


The Sony Ericsson W800i.

A friend at The Salt Mines just got herself a spiffy new Sony Ericsson W800i, more popularly known as The Walkman Phone. I got to see it (after grabbing it from her with grasping hands like claws) and it’s pretty neat.

The gadget can’t be any larger than the older, classic T610 but darn, it’s got tons of goodies and functions up the wazoo- a great camera (2 megapixels make for great shots) with video and of course the much-touted musical functions. Unfortunately, while the phone is supposed to play great through earphones, sound through the phone itself isn’t too loud (‘cept when there are rings or text tones… pretty cool) for music. I expect though that, like an I-pod, it would suffice as a pretty decent music source if you plug it into a good sound system. And with about 15 or so hours of playtime, that’s a lot of music to enjoy.

Anyway, the reviews have said that the W800’s good enough as a music player against real, stand-alone mp3 players, and that I can believe. It’s compact, gives you a really nice camera, videocam, gaming device (though the two pre-loaded titles are pretty blah) and music jukebox. And the 512mb Memory Stick (included) is pretty cool.
Still, I’m not budging a centimeter from my lovely O2 Mini (hehe). The screen’s far too small, there’s no OS for me to run my apps and Betaplayer videos, and no phone Java game beats 32-bit Playstation 1 games. HOHO. As for music, I have Windows Media Player and ultra-small WMAs. It was nice to see the new device, and feel a bit of the giddiness of something new. But, well… it’s beneath me.

To anyone else not into smartphones though, the Walkman phone’s highly recommended. Run, don’t walk… to your nearest store for your own.