A few news
sites in the Middle East
tipped us off
earlier, but now we've got it straight from Sony Ericsson that the W950i Walkman is indeed for real and is indeed
sporting 4GB of sweet sweet flash memory. We're not so sure about this whole "Mystic Purple" color
scheme they've got going, but there's a lot else to love, including UMTS, tri-band GSM, a rather large QVGA screen, and
a 0.6-inch thickness. The Symbian OS phone also has Opera 8, Macromedia Flash Lite, video playback support, and a
built-in FM radio to augment the standard Walkman MP3/AAC capability. We'll have to try the smooth keypad before we
pass final judgement, but while sexy looking, it doesn't seem like it'll make one-handed texting any easier.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted Feb 13th 2006 6:45PM
its all i ever wanted in a fone... until the next rendition is released?!?
Only downside to this is that it isnt cdma
Can you do video conferencing with this phone? It has 3G capability but I don't see any camera at the front...
Apparently, the screen is also a touchscreen..hmmm...
From what I've heard, it uses a touch-screen, so if anything, that could include a whole touch keyboard for your texting needs.
"Can you do video conferencing with this phone?"
Check the specs at the VERY bottom: there is no estimate for video call time.
The link you gave is crap. UK site give better information on the phone...
Oh man and I was realy starting to love my w800i, I am going to feel really guilty lusting after another phone..
Also, looking at the details it doesn't look like this thing will take memory sticks. What am I supposed to do with all my 2GB memory sticks?
I think you guys mean MP3/ATRAC, not MP3/AAC.
Yeah, they've pictures of the stylus over on mobileburn. You can (just about) see the orange edge of it at the top left of the photo. I'd buy this in a second if it had a camera. But it doesn't.
This...looks sexy. Unfortunately it seems they dropped the 2MP camera on the W800i...such a shame.
It's UIQ 3.0...isn't it? So at least touch screen would make sense...
No WiFi? Shame.
No Quad-band? Pity North American friends.
What are you talking about, that color scheme is freaking awesome
No Quad Band, No Camera, No WiFi, No Mem Slot, otherwise the perfect phone. Nothing to give up the k750 for.
Give up K750i for K610i
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=php1_10389&zone=pp&lm=pp1&pid=10389
6. "I think you guys mean MP3/ATRAC, not MP3/AAC."
All walkman phones can play AAA tracks.
All you guys dissapointed cuz of no cam ....there's talk of another model with a camera is on its way so chin up
Having four gigs of flash memory on me at all times is a pretty tempting concept. I don't always have my MP3 player on me, but I don't even get up to go to the bathroom at night without my cell phone.
No 850 MHz, sigh...
Having four inches of erection on me at all times is a pretty tempting concept. I don't always have my girl on me, but I don't even go to bed at night without my hand.
anyone else thinks this looks like the m600
different keyboard, but still no camera
wow this could have been the one with the m600 keyboard and camera and quadband
And the camera. Hows' the camera?
Anyone know what bitrates of AAC this phone will be able to play? I was thinking about getting a Moto, but the ones that play AAC will only play 128, I have been unable to find out what bitrates the SE phones will play.
If it has tactile response on the keys, I'll be wanting one.
Not having a camera is a plus for me. I don't use them and I don't like paying for them.
Does anybody know if it supports A2DP? That would make it truly killer.
So wait, you got this news from the Middle freakin' East? They were the first ones to report on this? wow........just........wow
Nice. My Treo 650 can also do it too :) Thanks Shadowmite.
Sweet! I hope this one costs $800+!!!
aw man i wanted the w900i to come to the US :( i alrady got the w600i but this one is nice.. i would buy if i had the money
yes it supports a2dp, to use preferrably with the also unveiled today Sony Ericsson Stereo Bluetooth Headset HBH-DS970:
http://www.clubsonyericsson.com/en/14/02/2006/sony-ericsson-finally-introduces-a-bluetooth-stereo-headset-the-hbh-ds970-2/
i sent a member of my forum to the official presentation and he says the tactile keyboard is awesome. read more:
http://www.clubsonyericsson.com/en/14/02/2006/sony-ericsson-unveils-walkman-version-of-m600-with-4gb-memory-the-w950/
live photos and videos soon.
engadget crew, links get html-messy in this comment system.
http://www.clubsonyericsson.com/en/14/02/2006/sony-ericsson-finally-introduces-a-bluetooth-stereo-headset-the-hbh-ds970-2/
http://www.clubsonyericsson.com/en/14/02/2006/sony-ericsson-unveils-walkman-version-of-m600-with-4gb-memory-the-w950/
Oh my god... A 4 gig phone! Wow I can't believe Sony Ericsson has announced one.... now I have to decide whether to get a W900 or this.
Well, it's a very nice phone, but with one big disadvantage: Why the hell no Wlan.
In times of Skype an SIP, Wlan together with an Smartphone OS like Symbian would bee so sweet on a mobile ;-)
Not to mention sony DRM that watches where you call and only lets you call a local sony store most of the time. The phone doesn't allow you to listen to anything else but Sony's music, and it will break your stereo and cripple that cd drive in you PC. And all this in the good name of sony protecting it's products. DRM all the way, baby.
I am glad it has no keyboard. I am getting tired of companies trying to stick a QWERTY keyboard on everything. It has handwriting recognition out of the box-with no new alphabet to learn. If you want to go past 3 sentences in your sms buy a bluetooth keyboard or........USE THE PHONE! I have the SE910 and the P800 before it and ALL my TREO friends are still envious of the ease with which I shoot off messages.
Awesome specs, especially if it indeed would have a touchscreen. Seems like it'll be an expensive phone.
whithout camera?
Let us all start praying that this great mobile will NOT depend on the GOD-AWFUL Connect software!
Sony can kill-off the iPod popularity with easy but... only if they can get their software sorted!
If not, they better make it mass-storage complient or make it Media Player 10 compatible.
I very much like the "music browsing by cover" menu system. Very sexy.
Currently, Apple is the only company that managed to create an mp3-player that THE USER actually wants. The creative Zen is nice, and so is Samsung's YUP, but organizing your songs and navigating the player is no fun at all. However, I do think that Microsoft can create (copy?) a Media Player with a similar functionality as iTunes.
But PLEASE: NO CONNECT SOFTWARE!
But in any case spare us the "Only Sony" solutions!
Been at the 3GSM world conference, and I played with this phone.
The screen and looks are great!
The keyboard is flat, but you have to press each button and then the keyboard surface just drops a bit and you hear a click. It's definitelly not an optical keyboard, but mechanical.
It also has scrollwheel at the side, ....
Sony also announced the W950i Walkman will require special eardrum implant that is availble only from sony and will allow you to listen to this sony device.
Excellent, will buy this or a htc muse(if the rumors become reality). I don´t mind the lack of a camera, during my 1½ years with my current smartphone the camera has been used once or twice.
Wow... this is the phone I've been waiting for... I have had a Razer V3 since they came out and actually I'm not a fan. I had buyers remorse after about 1 week...
It's a pretty good phone, (although battery talk time blows, unsurprisingly since it's so damn tiny) I just personally don't like how it feels when I'm talking on it and it's features. (Why even bother with a camera so freakin ghetto)
It's kind of funny because when I got the phone it was supposedly new and cool to the geek crowd, but no one else really knew about it so very few people ever said anything. (Which isn't the reason I got it anyways, mainly I wanted small and quad band)
Now, after the last holiday season with the V3 advertising blitz, people ask me about it all the freakin time, which for me is another negative. Now that the V3s are everywhere people are always like "Wow, is that a..." to which I'm like "Yeah.. but I hate it."
I'll gladly trade the camera in my cellie for mp3 capability instead, which I would actually use. (And which my work wouldn't frown upon, unlike the camera.) So will this play unDRMed MP3s fine then? (I'm guessing yes but with these posters talking about Sony DRM, are they talking specifically about this phone or more generally about the rootkit debacle?)
What is it in French?
Le Roi es mort, vive le Roi! (Something like that..)
W950 runs on Symbian v.91 OS and UIQ 3.0 platform.
Just a some Key features:
Screen:
* 262.144 color TFT
* 240?20 pixel
Sound:
* Polyphonic Sounds 40 voices
Networks:
* GSM 900
* GSM 1800
* GSM 1900
* Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz)
Sizes:
* 106 x 54 x 15 mm (4.1 x 2.1 x .6 inches)
Weight:
* 112 gr (4 oz)
more pictures here: http://cellphonesclub.com/wp/2006/02/16/sony-ericsson-w950i-walkman/
is the phone only available in black? the color sucks!
i like the orange color of sony ericsson w600i better, http://www.cellphonestalk.com/cellphonereviews/sonyericsson/w600i/screen.html
I love the looks of this one. Gimme Gimme Gimme!
Just wish they had included a time- and priceestimate...
http://www.smartsoftware.org
http://www.i-q.com
I love the music capability and lack of camera - been looking for that.
I carry a Sanyo HD1 camera in my pocket all the time. Great 5MP stills and 720p HD video. I don't WANT my phone to have a lens..
Aah, *finally* a decent cell without a camera.
They finally get it, if I want a camera
I'll buy a decent camera for that function
instead of having these small crappy lenses everywhere.
Now this cellphone would be the perfect sidekick to a Bluetooth-enabled camera (if any brand actually had one) storing and viewing pictures on the phone.
Anyone know if USB/Firewire to Bluetooth adapters exist?
A w950i it is for me, anyway.
has anyone tried out the SonicStage CP? I downloaded it and it works wonderfully easy. I mean, I was afraid, but I loaded onto my laptop, searched for my old music, imported it all and there it was in my library. I also read that this phone will work with .oma files (i.e. sonicstage). That pretty much seals the deal for me...stunning...and sad to replace my w810 (wife is waiting to get her hands on it)...
my precious!! does this device support mac?
YES I LOVE THIS PHONE BUT THERE IS SOMETHINGI LOOK FORWARD TO SEE IN THIS PHONE,PLEASE LET THE NEW EDITIONS COME UP WITH A CAMERA,IT MAKES IT MORE PERFECT AND BETTER,HOPE THE CAMERA WAS NOT FORGOTTEN?WAS IT RESERVED FOR OTHER MODELS?
Really getting fed up with sony and sony erricsson wish they would aggree on the codecs.. only just changed all my library to ATRAC....
whats the dealio with the updated version that includes a camera?? when is that coming out and what is it called? Will it also have wi-fi? we like wi-fi :)
Everything appears great. But no Cam???? What a pity. When will Sony learn from its mistake?
I would definitely purchase this set simply because of its great sound and 4GB memory.But can anyone please inform me about its price and how much mega-pixel camera it contains.
Well, I can't tell you when the phone will be out on orange, but I can say that it's already out on 02, and I can also say.. DO NOT GET ONE!! That's my opinion anyway.
Last week I went into town and got a W950i on contract with 02 and I had to make a down-payment of £100. That no being the problem though!
The SE W950i is, to put it simply, bad design gone wrong! After just the first day of bringing the phone home, I experienced my first problem- bluetooth wouldn't work. So I took it back to the shop and because it was only a day old, rather then sending it off to be fixed, they just took the faulty one back and replaced it with a brand new one over the till.
Day number two of purchasing the new phone; A SECOND PROBLEM OCCURED!! Can you beleive it, 2 problems with 2 phones in 2 days... Not good. This time the problem being the pre-installed software wouldn't work. i.e. none of the games would load up, you'd click on it and launch it, then the phone would freeze and you'd have to take the battery out and put it back in, this would also happen when you clicked on the demo or tried to watch a video!
Well anyway, yet again I took the phone back to the shop and had them exchange for the second time, that's 3 phones in 3 days!
All has been well now, had the phone for about 5 days now and everything seemed in perfect working order this time (finally) untill this evening that is...Bluetooth (again) was working fine for the past 5 days and tonight my sister tried to send me a picture via bluetooth, we established a connection, I received the file okay and was able to view it, BUT, when I clicked on the option "save" the phone started saving the picture and then a message came up that stated... "file saving failed" I've tried with 2 different phones and various other photos and I am having the same problem, the phone will no longer save files that has been sent via bluetooth!!!
SO, my overall review on the phone, as you can imagine, is very negative. Now I'm lumbered with a 12 month contract which otherwise i wouldn't have opted for. The only reason I took out a contract was to get my hands on that phone, I would of settled for another handset on pay as you go otherise. And a phone that is USELESS!! I shall be making my THIRD visit back to the phone store within the next couple of day's, but this time I won't settle for another device. i want a FULL refund of the £100 I paid and another handset!
Sorry if this seemed like some anecdotal life story, I've been rambling on a bit too much now, but I hoped this helped you mak a decision before being headset on this phone!
Just a little word on the 4GB memory, it's flash memory so it's not as bulky as the Nokia N91 which uses a hard drive, that's the pro, a much lighter phone. The downside is that being a flash memory, it takes longer for the phone to load up songs you have stored etc. and the fact that it doesn't have a memory card slot means that if the phone was ever to crash, you have no back up utility and therefore you would lose everything you have installed or put there!!
Final word.. If you do decide to purchase the W950i, hit me up if you have any queries concerning how to use the phone itself.
Even though it comes with a user manual *lol* as all phones, it doesn't give no mention what-so-ever as to how to use the album art functionality. the only thing it "apparently" tells you is to use third party software for this feature as the Disc2Phone software will only transfer the audio file and not album artwork, which is pretty stupid if you ask me. Why don't the lazy beggers at SE just upgrade the Disc2Phone software to utilise this feature of the phone. Why give a phone a functionality and tell you to go elsewhere to use it!
The easiest way I found to attach album artwork is via i-tunes, but don't always use the "get album artwork" option within i-tunes as this sometimes attaches album artwork with a picture larger than 500x500 and the phone will not display anything larger than this! Once you have put your songs in your i-tunes library get the album artwork off the internet, google image for example, when using google image it tells you what size the picture is underneath the picture. Just right click and copy the picture and go back to your i-tunes library and when you double click on a song, in the bottom left corner paste the image in the blank box. NOTE: If you are putting a whole album onto your phone, you'll have to attach the artwork to every song. Once you have finished doing this, just drag and drop the music files from i-tunes into the Disc2Phone window!!
Right, this is wayyyyyyyyyy too long now! I'll stop chatting shite..
I currently have the original Razr, hardly use the poor camera, but liked the style and size, forget the rest as its average. I have just seen the new 950i and decided instantly I want one. Although slightly bigger and heavier than the razr it just feels better to handle, classy, sofisticated and bang up to date. The touch screen is a bonus feature as is the walkman + Radio, TV, Email etc. Wether I will use all of the above remains to be seen butI know cameras are now off my list of priorities.
My overall impression was wow. If you're like me and rarely use the camera, you will love this phone!
I always beleive in Sony. I love hear Sony's Sound Systems, I love to see Sony's Televisions. And also love to use Sony's mobile phones. This new W950I walkman phone is that kind of phones which we dreamed about. Everybody want to use this kind of phone and also like to listen this kind of sound facilities in thier own mobiles. Regarding to this phone I have to say one thing--
"Thanks Sony Corp. for giving us the opprotunities to use this kind of mobile phone"
it doesnt need to make one handed texting better it has handwriting recongnition
I think it looks lovely