Sony Ericsson W995 review

With the announcement of the upcoming Aino and Satio handsets, it would seem that Sony Ericsson is moving away from making handsets under the Cybershot and Walkman banners. It is possible then that the W995 could be one of the last Walkman-branded phones we get to see. Does that mean we should cherish it though?

Well, we should perhaps start by assessing whether it’s any good as a media player. Long-suffering Sony Ericsson users will be relieved to know that the W995 does indeed feature a 3.5mm jack on the top of the device, letting you use your own headphones without having to get involved with any pesky proprietary jack converters. Hallelujah indeed.

The earphones that the phone comes with have to be used with the proprietary connector on the phone’s side though, since the 3.5mm wire attached to the buds themselves is very short. There’s a Sony Ericsson connector bundled in the box though. The headphones are much better than those generally bundled with phones or MP3 players. Using an IEM design, they don’t offer much in the way of sound isolation, but they do have bags of bass.

Holding the device horizontally, the front directional pad is comfortable to use with your right thumb for surfing around the W995’s music player interface, while play/pause and fast-forward and rewind buttons sit happily on the side of the phone. Although there’s no line remote with the W995, these are easily accessible while the phone is in your pocket.

Although hardly a hi-fi solution compared with the device’s otherwise great music capabilities, there’s also an MS410 speaker bundled along with the W995. Without its own power source, this speaker doesn’t really amplify the sound from the phone’s own speakers, but does give more full-bodied open sound- even if you’re unlikely to hear it in all but the quietest environments.

Using Sony Ericsson’s own operating system, the W995’s interface will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s used a Sony Ericsson phone released in the last handful of years. However, as a feature phone with some smartphone-like features, the lack of innovation on this front is no real issue.

Outside of its true MP3 player-replacing music capabilities, the W995 stands out from its stablemates because of its 8.1-megapixel camera and inclusion of Wi-Fi.

The former doesn’t compare to the best LG and Samsung devices we tested in our cameraphone head-to-head, with a fair amount of purple fringing in evidence and a preview window that wasn’t particularly fast to update. So, it’s not quite up to Cybershot standards, but then this is a Walkman-branded phone. Still, an 8.1-megapixel spec does lead to certain expectations about how good the photos you’ll be able to produce will be, and they’re disappointing unfulfilled in the W995. Also, the lack of any slide-over lens protection is questionable. Our test photos ended up around the 2MB mark, meaning that you’ll be able to hold several thousand on the supplied 8GB M2 card.

Design-wise, the W995 seems to have no other real potholes. It’s a sturdy phone that looks that bit more sophisticated than its slide-out predecessors, the W595 and C905. There’s a silver kick stand that flips out from the back of the device, by the backplate release catch, that’s the only element with a slight feel of gimmickery.

Although it does the job of lifting the W995 to a slight angle for video viewing, it doesn’t feel hugely sturdy and is something we imagine could end up the snapped-off victim of an unfortunate fall

The 2.6-inch screen is arguably not quite large enough for watching long videos or movies, but it's certainly bright and clear enough for more casual viewing. It comes with the BBC iPlayer application installed too, for free streaming of BBC content, but in its Beta form it would only let us stream over WiFi, making it of limited use for real on-the-go video watching.

The W995 gets a lot of things right within its Walkman remit. There’s a 3.5mm jack, plenty of included storage for your tunes and a decent pair of bundled buds to boot. However, the fact that the megapixel count on its camera is bound to grab attention and yet doesn’t really result in particularly good pictures is disappointing, even if this phone doesn’t boast Cybershot credentials.