The pocket-friendly Sony Ericsson W980 is primarily a music-oriented phone with its Walkman branding and quality sound but it also comes with a wide range of business and entertainment functions. Not least is a 3.2 megapixel camera a haptic interface and 8GB of on-board memory (enough for dozens of albums although there is no card slot for additional storage).
The haptic feature means it its controls and menus are fingertip- and vibration-sensitive - and you can access your media library and control the Walkman without having to flip the phone open.The front is covered in see-through plastic which pulsates gently with a white light as the phone starts up then glows orange for a few seconds after you start a song playing (this can be deactivated if you wish). The W980 also responds to a shake so if you have heard enough of a particular song you can jiggle the phone and something else will start playing.
A feature called SenseMe: the pre-loaded tracks have been tagged according to their tempo and mood. You use the left right up and down buttons to show where on the mood scale you are and the sort of music that will suit: happy sad fast or slow. The CD that comes with the Sony Ericsson W980 lets you add more tracks with mood information.
Other Walkman-related features include an option to subscribe to podcasts get RSS feeds of news stories and other items including thumbnail images. These are accessible in the Web feeds menu under the Walkman options. And Walk Mate is a movement tracker that gives you the ability to keep track of how far you have walked or run in a day - a nice use of the haptics.
But let's not forget the W980 is also a quadband device with 3G EDGE and GPRS for global connectivity fast downloads and browsing along with all the email SMS MMS and IM features. It also has an excellent battery life rated at nine hours' talk time and 370 hours on standby.
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3.2 megapixel camera
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Haptic controls
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Excellent music quality
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2 000-song capacity
