Sony Ericsson W508
Discontinued 8th January
2009
The Sony Ericsson W508 is the 29th "Walkman"
branded phone to hit the market, and in most ways it
is indistinguishable from last year's W980
model.
If you are already familiar with the W980, then essentially
the W508 comes with only 100MB of internal memory plus
a 1GB Memory Stick Micro in the standard sales package,
compared with the 8GB of non-expandable memory in the
W980.
The W508 also lacks the W980's FM transmitter (although
there is an optional add-on transmitter called the MMR-70),
and cosmetically there have been a few changes. Other
than this, as far as we can tell the W508 and W980 are
almost twins.
If,
like us, you find the ever-growing Walkman range completely
baffling then a brief description of the W508 is as
follows: this is a 3.5G clamshell phone with a 2.2"
QVGA display, 3.2 megapixel camera, and it comes with
comprehensive multimedia support invcluding a YouTube
application.
Memory can be expanded up to 16GB using
an optional card.. these typically retail for around
£50 / €70 / $90 or so. As with almost all Sony
Ericsson phones, this uses the Memory Stick Micro M2
format rather than a more common microSD card.
Possibly the most interesting thing with the W508
is the collection of "Style-Up" covers that
take the standard grey or white phone and adds a number
of interesting colour options such as Architectural
Purple, Forest Green, Mysterious Graffiti, Sunny Orange
and Midnight Summer. There is only one Style-Up cover
in the box, so presumably you need to shop carefully.
The also has shake control, track identification,
dedicated media keys, an FM radio and all of the features
that you'd expect to find in other current Walkman handsets.
The W508 is likely to be a pretty good music phone,
but it is very hard to be enthusiastic about it when
there's nothing here that we haven't seen before. Sony
Ericsson say that the W508 should be available in selected
markets from Q2 2009.
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Sony
Ericsson W508 at a glance
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Available:
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Q2
2009
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Network:
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GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
+ UMTS 2100 (W508) or
UMTS
850 / 1900 / 2100 (W508a)
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Data:
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GPRS
+ EDGE + HDSPA
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Screen:
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240
x 320 pixels, 262k colours
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Camera:
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3.2 megapixels
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Size:
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Medium
clamshell 94 x 50 x 14mm
/ 98 grams
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Bluetooth:
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Yes
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Memory
card:
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Memory
Stick Micro M2
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Infra-red:
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No
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Polyphonic:
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Yes
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Java:
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Yes
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GPS:
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No
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Battery
life:
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4
hours talk / 16 days standby
(3G) 10 hours talk /
16 days standby (GSM)
|
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