Sony Ericsson W660i first impressions

Having successfully re-invented the Walkman as a mobile music brand Sony Ericsson is fast covering all the bases with a spread of handsets across all prices and markets. The Sony Ericsson W660i hits the line up as a well-featured 3G candy bar design Walkman phone, sitting below the ultra-slim W880i in the range but adopting much of that handset's functionality.

The Sony Ericsson W660i's design is classic Sony Ericsson candy bar, echoing much of the design elements of previous models, such as the W810i. With the W660i, though, Sony Ericsson has tweaked up its style appeal with a subtle version in "record black" (with a touch of gold trim), and one for the ladies in "rose red", featuring floral patterns moulded into the rear casing.

The Sony Ericsson W660i may not have the immediate slim-and-sleek wow factor that the W880i enjoys, but it does have a similar features run down – and delivers them at a more affordable price. The W660i measures 14.5mm thin and weighs 93grams, so it's still eminently pocketable. It's easier to use than the W880i, with larger keys offering speed texters an easier ride, and the key layout has been generally tweaked to up the user-friendliness.

The Walkman music player functionality is top of the bill for the W660i, but it also boasts a decent spread of other features. A 2-megapixel camera is pretty standard for mid-priced handsets, and the W660i sadly doesn't embellish its shooter with a flash or autofocus. The camera can be fired up with a quick access button the side and is easy to operate, but camera controls are quite basic ad images are not the best quality we've seen from a 2-megapixel shooter. Still, there is a picture blogging function that allows users to send images online to the Blogger blog site quickly and easily. And video recording is available too.

The W660i's 3G connectivity means you get the option of video calling. A secondary camera sits discreetly above the phone's display, enabling face to face calling. The display itself is similar to that deployed on the W810i – a 176x220 pixel 262,144-colour TFT – rather than the larger more detailed 240x320 pixel type sported by the W880i.

Alongside video calling, its 3G capability allows fast downloads and streaming of audio, video and other content, as well as opening up the W660i for fast internet surfing. The phone has an NetFront Web Browser that gives access to full web sites, and support for RSS is included too.

The user interface of the W660i is familiar Sony Ericsson, with an easy to follow icon-based graphical main menu taking you into a variety of application and settings options. These can be negotiated using a central joypad and softkeys. Four shortcuts to most used apps can be configured to get fast access from the control pad.

The W660i's music credentials are the major selling point, of course. The W660i has a tiny gold Walkman-logoed fast access key arranged between control keys on the left. This takes you directly into Sony Ericsson's latest Walkman player 2.0 music software.

The Walkman player supports MP3, AAC, AAC , eAAC , WMA and AMR audio files, and its user interface is lovely to behold. The screen presents a large, clear series of options for choosing tracks – by artist, album, tracks and playlists – and you can easily follow where you are. The central joypad transforms into the music player's control pad, and acquires a glowing (but subtle) orange backlight.

The Walkman 2.0 player supports album cover art too, should you wish to add it, and Sony Ericsson's supplies PC Disc2Phone music management software for ripping CDs and sideloading tracks. Alternatively, you can drop and drag music files to the phone via its supplied USB cable.

As usual with Walkman phones, the W660i is supplied with a hefty memory card in-box – a 512MB Memory Stick Micro (M2) card is included to boost the 16MB of native phone storage. Sony Ericsson throws in decent set of headphones too, with a connector midway allowing users to switch to their own headphones, with a standard 3.5mm jack socket.

Sound quality is richly pleasing through the surprisingly good supplied headphones, and even better through higher quality Sennheiser earphones we tried. There's a speakerphone function too that can be used with sound tweaks to create a wider stereo sound. While better than most mobiles, it still has the usual tinny phone-speaker edge to the sound.

Music features are boosted by an onboard FM radio, while the W660i includes Sony Ericsson's clever TrackID application that can identify the names of tracks from snippets of tunes, using the Gracenote database over the mobile internet.

A host of other features include email and instant messenger support, extensive organiser functionality, and voice recorder. PC suite synchronisation software is supplied by Sony Ericsson for PC users. 3D Java games are included too, with VideoDJ, PhotoDJ and MusicDJ mixer apps adding to the fun factor. Stereo Bluetooth is included alongside the USB connectivity.

With the W660i Sony Ericsson is reinforcing its 3G Walkman phone lineup with an elegant phone offering a highly attractive and well-featured set of applications. It may not be groundbreaking or ultra-slim but it delivers a compelling, excellent value package. And it sounds great too.