Sony Ericsson Walkman - W980

Hi folks, this time, we take a look at a classy, stylish, music phone - the W980 from Sony Ericsson. The quad band handset, operating at 800/900/1800/1900 GSM frequencies, weighs around 100 gms, and measures 92 X 46 X 16.9mm, making it compact and pocket-friendly. Speedy downloads are enabled by its support for HSDPA. It has a whopping 8GB of internal memory which can house approximately 2000 average quality songs, providing you about 20 hours of music playback, but sadly, lacks an expansion slot for a microSD card or additional memory.

I particularly liked the mirrory, glassy look, and, with touch sensitive, basic music-management buttons embedded in its flap, this is clearly an innovative design from the manufaturers. It enables you to browse and select music, without having to access its menus. More importantly, an adjacent lock switch prevents the music player from skipping tracks, accidentally, when residing in your leather pouch or pocket. It is compatible with MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA and protected WMA.

The phone has a 240 X 320 pixels internal display with 256K colors, while the second external display mentioned above, has a resolution of 176 X 176 pixels. A distinct-looking feature, is the circular keys on the keypad, which have been neatly arranged, though the spacing between them could prove a disadvantage in terms of slowing down your speed of texting.

A 3.2 megapixel camera is situated at the back of the phone, which is activated using the centre navigation key on the front. However, this key is too high, and might cause a finger to accidently stray over the lens while, taking a snap. Also, the camera is pretty basic considering its lack of autofocus or flash, which is pretty disappointing.

As has been the norm with Sony Ericsson phones, there is no 3.5mm headphone socket, meaning you'll have to make do with an adapter. However, it has an integrated FM transmitter, which can stream music to your car stereo, for instance. This feature is not generally found in music phones, or in any mp3 player. The music quality is very good, with Sony Ericsson sprucing up its equalizer modes, which claims to reduce sound leakage between the left and right channels, while the Clear Bass technology clips and sharpens the bass range to minimize distortion.

All in all, an impressive music phone, though it scores some negative points with the camera and memory options. Expectations are high on the W902, which is due to release some time later this year. Lets see, how that one comes along.