The new Sony Ericsson W960, recently announced , is the new top of the line Walkman phone. Headline features include 8GB of flash memory (700 albums, 8000 songs), UMTS (3G) and WiFi connectivity and an autofocus 3.2 megapixel camera. The W960’s software platform is UIQ 3.0 on Symbian OS 9.1. The W960 weighs in at 119g with dimensions of 109×55x16 mm and has a monoblock form factor.”You couldn’t ask for a better music mix of high performance media player and intuitive phone. The touchscreen is complemented by a regular keyboard and the phone itself is amplified by the Media Manager programme and the many music accessories. The days of taking an MP3 player, a camera and a phone with you when you leave the house are definitely over,” Nicklas Sivander, Product Manager for the W960 Walkman phone said.
Music isn’t the only trick up the W960’s sleeve though, as built in WiFi connectivity allows for high speed web browsing and email. Out of range of a wireless hotspot? The W960 also includes UMTS 2100MHz 3G connectivity and tri-band GSM/GPRS. Imaging is also easily handled with the 3.2MP auto focus camera, and since the W960 is a UIQ smartphone, all you PIM data is available as well. What is even more surprising is that all these features are housed in a phone only 16mm think and weighing just 119g.
The Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman phone will be available in select markets from Q4 2007.
Notable features include:
- Tri-band GSM (900, 1800, 1900) and UMTS 2100.
- 2.6 inch TFT touchscreen with 282,144 colours and 240 x 320 (QVGA) resolution.
- 128MB RAM (double that of W950’s 64MB, but effectively quadruple amount of available RAM after boot 20MB vs 80 MB).
- Hardware accelerated 3D graphics and support for Open GL ES graphics (the W960 uses the same chipset as the P1i).
- Enhanced UI including extra shortcuts on the idle screen (up to 15 from 5) including a more applications shortcut.
- The ability to navigate through media stored on the phone using a stylus or your finger on the touch screen.
- The ability to transfer music from a PC at the rate 1Gb every 3 minutes thanks to USB 2.0 PC connectivity.
- Video playback at 30 frame per second full screen is al supported.
- FM Radio with RDS
- Media Manager PRO, a PC program for organising media and optimising music, video and photos for use on the W960. Media Manger will replace the existing Disc2Phone software.
- Support for TrackID music recognition software allowing you to record a clip of a song and instantly find out the track title, artist and the album. Furthermore TrackID has been enhanced on the W950 to provide more detailed information about the song being identified and there now support for extra searching options (e.g. a text search just giving the bands name).
- A stereo Bluetooth headset (HBH-DS220) will be included in the retail box in addition to the usual wired headset.
- A redesigned look compared to the W950 with rounder edges and more defined keypad keys. The back key has moved from the side of the device to the keypad.
- The usual range of UIQ and Sony Ericsson applications including the usual Document Viewers, Blogger, Opera Web Browser and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync email support.


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