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Talk and walk, man

It seems mere moments ago that we were all in a flutter over the lovely W800. Already, Sony-Ericsson has added another string to its musical phone bow in the shape of the W550. Very fine it looks, too

Sony knows the Walkman brand is strong, so it’s not messing about when it comes to introducing new music mobiles. The brand-spanking W550 is, as you’d expect, very nice to look at, and has an impressive spec to boot. 

Music duties are handled by its MP3/AAC player, which feeds on 256MB of internal memory and outputs via the supplied headphones or the built-in stereo speakers. There’s a phone-disabling flight mode, which will allow up to 30 hours’ playback and a little privacy. The camera is a fairly standard 1.3MP affair with 4x digital zoom, and the screen is a crisp 1.8in 262k colour LCD.

Interestingly, S-E’s included a full web browser, though as it has no 3G capabilities it’s going to be pretty slow. Still, a nice idea.

Another noteworthy feature is the W550’s games. The W550 will come pre-loaded with a Bluetooth multiplayer version of Gauntlet, as well as Worms Forts: Under Siege 3D and Extreme Air Snowboarding. S-E calls it a ‘credible games console’. We’ll hold on to our PSPs for now just in case.

Last but not least, it makes tri-band phone calls. You know, those things that allow you to speak to people far away from you. No, not that – that’s shouting.

No word on pricing, but there’s sure to be when it becomes available in November.

Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home