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.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
