The New W8 From Sony Ericsson-An introduction

Over the years Sony Ericsson have enjoyed varying success with their range of mobile phones.  Undoubtedly two highlights of their past ranges were the excellent Cybershot and Walkman phones with the Cybershots specialising in still photography whilst the Walkman models were renowned for the way they revolutionised audio playback.  Prior to these models being released consumers tended to rely upon Minidisic and CD players to listen to their music whilst on the move, these phones offered the opportunity to carry hundreds of songs around with you without any additional bulk.  Unfortunately smartphones stole much of the Walkmans thunder and the devices disappeared off the radar for a while.  To the delight of music fans everywhere they are back and incorporating the excellent Google Android operating system to bring a touch a smartphone functionality to proceedings.It seems evident that much of Sony Ericssons latest line up is targeted towards the highly lucrative youth market with the Xperia Play targeting gamers whilst this model is focusing on audio.  When taking the phone out of the box for the first time you will see that Sony Ericsson have included a high quality set of headphones which is the first indication of this devices audio prowess.  These are named the the MH410s and offer a higher quality audio experience than can be found on similar headsets whilst the headset also benefits from the inclusion of an in line volume control.  This volume control is always a handy addition as it saves you needing to physically access the handset in order to make minor adjustments.   Looking at the facilities on the phone itself and they are indeed very impressive.  The W8 has the ability to handle a wide range of codecs which range from the well known such as MP3 to lesser known formats such as WMA and WMV.  The model is not only superb for your own audio files but also for listening to radio broadcasts.  An RDS FM tuner built in to the handset enables you to listen to a selection of local and national radio stations complete with a host of information being shown on the phones display such as the station name and current programme.It is not only the audio facilities on the Sony Ericsson W8 that are impressive but also some of the other multi media features.  Despite the fact that this is a dedicated music phone the camera can still capture an image at 3.15 mega pixels.  Despite being considerably less than the 5 million plus pixels that you find on many high powered smartphones the image quality on offer is sufficient enough to give a good quality of photograph in most conditions with daylight shots coming out particularly well.  It would be unfair to highlight the shortcomings of the camera as nobody opting for this model is likely to do so for the camera facility, however a flash would have been nice for snaps taken in poorer light.  There is also a VGA video capture mode which records footage at 30 frames per seconds.  Photographs, video and the all important audio files all require ample storage capacity thus the micro SD card slot that is on offer enables you to add to the 128MB of internal memory by up to 16GB.It would be unfair to group the W8 in the same categories as many smartphones including Sony Ericsson own Xperia range.  A fairer evaluation is to classify this as a dedicated audio handset with a sprinkling of smartphone functonality.  When you think of it like this the the W8 really is an excellent model.The Sony Ericsson W8 and the Motorola Pro are coming soon.