Sony Ericsson launches W910 and W960 Walkman phones

Is there an iPhone killer in there somewhere?

14 June 2007 19:28 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

As part of a wider launch of five exciting new phones, Sony Ericsson have launched two new Walkman phones.

The W910 is an HSDPA-enabled Walkman phone that has the very innovative feature of letting you skip or shuffle music tracks by shaking the handset.

With the Shake control you can skip your music forward one track if it’s flicked one way and back if it’s flicked another. Shake the W910 back and forth and it shuffles your playlist.

The Shake functionality extends beyond music - it also adds a new dimension to mobile gaming. If you don't want to use the dedicated gaming buttons, just steer the W910 from left to right to make your move.

In another innovation, the phone lets you select your music to suit your mood with the new SensMe feature.

Using SensMe, you can search your collection and create playlists based on tempo and style rather than on artist or album.

The unique dot matrix visual shows each of your tracks along a horizontal and vertical axis according to their attributes.

So you can circle a group of tracks that match your mood to create a playlist, or simply select individual tunes as you wish.

The Sony Ericsson W910 Walkman phone will be available in either Hearty Red or Noble Black from Q4 2007.

The W960 Walkman phone is a slim UMTS model that has the ability to store up to 700 albums/8000 songs thanks to the phone's 8GB of memory and boasts PC-to-phone transfer of 1GB in less than 3 minutes.

You can navigate the W960 and browse media files with the touch of a finger (or stylus). Just press the touch controls to find your way to whatever type of entertainment you need.

If you want to watch video, the phone supports video playback at 30 frames per second, which is the same as TV quality.

You get not one but two headsets supplied in the box (one of these the new Stereo Bluetooth Headset HBH-DS220 for music streaming) and a music listening time of up to 27 hours.

The W960 also offers a 2.6-inch display and a 3.2 megapixel camera and connectivity is taken care of note just via the 3G network but also Wi-Fi.

The Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman phone is will be available in Vinyl Black from Q4 2007.

"Market enthusiasm for the Walkman phone range has far outshone even our own expectations", says Miles Flint, Sony Ericsson President.

"With lifetime global sales standing at over 26.5 million Walkman phones and users really understanding the benefits of ‘music on your mobile’, the time is right to release the next album!"

"This means Walkman phones that make it quicker and easier to transfer or download music, plus innovative ways of searching through all of those tracks. It’s also about thinking beyond music, to games, videos and the Web."