Sony Ericsson's successful Walkman phone range takes another step forward today with the announcement of the UMTS enabled W850. As Sony Ericsson's first GSM/UMTS slider, the W850 has been uniquely combined with a full horizontal mode camera experience and the latest Walkman player 2.0 for easy music download. 
Available in Precious Black or Golden White, the W850 has an attention grabbing 'heartbeat illumination' feature to light-up the control keys in rhythm with the music. Visually appealing to use, the W850 also offers fast music downloads direct to the handset.
The W850 is configured for operator over the air (OTA) music download services and accepts many popular music file formats including eAAC+, which reduces download time and space needed for tracks. Memory isn't an issue either with a 1 GB memory stick PRO Duo supplied which is enough for around 1,000 songs in eAAC+.
The Walkman player 2.0 simplifies navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs, or music albums. There's also a TrackID feature powered by Gracenote Mobile MusicID, a new service to can record a few seconds of a song, either via the microphone or the in built FM radio. With one click, the clip is sent to the Gracenote worldwide music database which will identify the track and relay the information back to the phone.
Sony Ericsson has also evolved the Walkman music player. The user interface is more intuitive and makes it easy to search and play tracks as well as download them. New graphics capabilities make the experience more visual and provide music metadata and album art. And the download service is integrated, so there's no need to come out of the music player and into the web browser to visit online music stores.
There is also a high performance 2.0-megapixel camera that makes it fun to capture favorite moments and share them with friends. Fast internet access and web browsing also make it easy to use the W850 to create and maintain blogsites, so users can keep friends posted from wherever they are.
The Sony Ericsson W850i is a UMTS 2100 and tri-band GPRS 900/1800/1900 Walkman phone for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. It is commercially available in Precious Black or Golden White and starts shipping during Q3 2006.
Sony Ericsson W850 Specs
Imaging and Messaging
- 2.0-inch QVGA TFT 262K-colors
- 2.0-megapixel camera
- Landscape imaging
- 4x digital zoom
- LED light
- Video recording/playback
- Push email
- Macromedia Flash
- Video telephony
Music
- 1 GB MS PRO Duo enough for approximately 1000 tracks in eAAC+
- Walkman Player 2.0 (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, m4a playback)
- Up to 30 hours music playing time
- Full-length music download OTA
- Music/video streaming
- TrackID
- Speed search music
- Music playback with illumination
- RDS FM Stereo Radio
- Audio out via system connector
- A+B buttons
- Java 3D gaming
- OMA DRM v2.0
Connectivity
- UMTS 2100
- USB 2.0 Mass storage
- Full Access Net front HTML browser
- RSS feeds
- Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP)
- Landscape browsing
- Expandable MS PRO Duo slot
- PC Synchronization
- Flight mode
- FOTA
