Sony Ericsson W960i
Discontinued 15th June 2007
The Sony Ericsson W960i is a "Walkman"
version of the Sony
Ericsson P1i 3G smartphone, and it can be considered
to be a straight upgrade to the existing W950i.
Two major improvements with the W960i
over the previous model are the inclusion of a 3.2 megapixel
camera and WiFi support - the lack of a camera on the
older model was an oddity due to the fact that it too
was based on another Sony Ericsson smartphone, this
time the M600i.
One thing to notice about the W960i
is the unusually uncluttered design - this is because
the W960i uses a large 2.6" 240x320 pixel
resolution touchscreen plus a jog dial. The W960i's
underlying operating system is Symbian with the UIQ
interface on top, which means that there are a wide
variety of applications available, possibly also including
corporate push email solutions. This makes the W960i
an unusually powerful member of the Walkman family.
There are a couple of major differences
between the W960i and the P1i - the most obvious one
is that this has a conventional numeric keypad rather
than the expanded version on the P1i. Another major
change is that the W960i comes with a whopping 8GB of
memory, but this isn't expandable - the W960i doesn't
support any type of memory card expansion. Although
8GB is plenty, many people like to be able to transfer
data (especially pictures) to another machine using
a memory card rather than a cable, so some people might
find that annoying.
The
3.2 megapixel camera comes with autofocus and appears
to have a built-in flash and there's a secondary camera
for video calling.
Of course, this is a Walkman phone and
these latest additions to the Sony Ericsson range come
with an enhanced multimedia management suite including
access to the PlayNow download service. The music capabilities
of Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones have always been well
regarded, and the W960i promises to be even more impressive.
Multimedia support includes MP3, AAC and eAAC+ audio
plus a variety of video formats.
Other features include stereo Bluetooth,
a built-in FM radio, web browser, email client and RSS
reader. On top of that there are document viewers and
editors, personal information management functions,
email synchronisation, handwriting recognition and a
whole host of other goodies that mean that the W960i
should be equally useful for business users- (we can
see that this will be a rival to the popular BlackBerry
Pearl in this respect.
It is an unusually elegant looking device,
available in one colour only (Vinyl Black). Despite
the wide range of features, the W960i weighs a reasonable
119 grams and measures 109 x 55 x 16mm. Sony Ericsson
anticipate that the W960i should be available in Q2
2007.
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Sony
Ericsson W960i at a glance
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Available:
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Q4
2007
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Network:
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GSM
900/1800/1900 + UMTS 2100
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Data:
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GPRS
+ UMTS (3G) + WiFI
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Screen:
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240x320
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-large
monoblock 109 x 55 x
16mm / 119 grams
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Bluetooth:
|
Yes
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Memory
card:
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No
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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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Battery
life:
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Not
specified
|
|
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