Sony Ericsson W710i

Expected Q2 2006
20th May 2006

The Sony Ericsson W710i is a "Walkman" version of the Z710i clamshell - it's an unusual hybrid of a music phone and a sports phone, creating a handset that's quite distinctive and different from others on the market.

It's a quad-band GSM phone with GPRS and EDGE aimed at worldwide markets - the W710i model will be available throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Americas. There will also be a W710c model for mainland China. This makes the W710i one of only a few Walkman handsets that are available in the North American market.

Inside, there's a 176x220 pixel display in 262,000 colours, with a 128x128 pixel orange-hued monochrome display on the outside. There's also a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and expandable memory on Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards, and the Sony Ericsson W710i also has an FM radio.

512Mb of memory is included in the box, and this is expandable up to 1Gb. There's a 3.5mm socket for attaching headphones, but surprisingly the W710i doesn't come with stereo Bluetooth support. The W710i also comes with the familiar Walkman music player, an email client, web browser, RSS reader and email client.

There are several features that set the W710i (and Z710i) apart, and these are mostly aimed at people who like sports. The W710i comes with a pedometer, sports armband and easy-to-use external controls so that the W710i can be easily controlled when exercising. The W710i will also be compatible with an FM transmitter in some markets (the Sony Ericsson FM Music Transmitter MMR-60). This can broadcast music tracks from the phone to an FM radio up to 10 metres away (this function will not be available in all countries due to legal restrictions)

The Sony Ericsson W710i does appear to have been slightly ruggedised compared with the vanilla Z710i version - the outside of the W710i appears to have a rubber edge to protect the handset and cover the media control keys. It doesn't seem to be as rugged as the Nokia 5500 though.

The battery life on the W710i is impressive - Sony Ericsson claim that the device has up to 10 hours talktime with 14 days standby time. The handset weighs a reasonable 101 grams and measures 88x48x25mm - so it's not the lightest phone on the market, but still about average for its class. There are two colours variations: "Perfomance Graphite" and "Hatha Violet". Sony Ericsson say that the W710i will be available during Q3 2006.

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