Sony Ericsson W8
                                        The Walkman gets a Driod:-Once known

for its versatility in design Sony Ericsson seems to  be

adopting HTC's way of  sticking to certain form  factors.At

least, that is what we felt when we saw the Sony Ericsson

W8, the device that marks the return of walkman phone in

the market.It is a bar phone with a 3.0-inch capacitive

touchscreen.Below it are three hardware keys for

Menu.Home and back.The  power lock key is placed at the

top along with the charging port and 3.5mm jack.


The 3.0-megapixel flash-less camera is at the back.The

device comes with changeable battery covers, two of which

are included in the sales pack.The microSD card slot is

under the battery cover but is hot swappable.While the

phone is pertty good looking and easy to use,it does not fall

in the 'slim category."


  Andriod blues:- At a time when Andriod 2.3 is the norm, the
W8 is still stuck with 2.1, which is frankly

surprising.However, its USP is not andriod but music.The

user interface is the same as seen in other Sony Ericsson
Andriod devices.The  homescreen has five screen

panels.The first one displays Google search, the second

has date and time information,the third hosts the user guide

of the phone, the fourth one has Timescape and the fifth

has the walkman. You can add widgets to these panels from

a predecided  list.
The notification bar stays at the top,granting you

notifications about new mails, missed calls, etc.A soft arrow

at the bottom gives acess to the main menu that is spread

across four screen panels.



Great sound, not so great Pics:- The real strenth of the

device is its sound.As expected, it is outstanding both

through the loudspearker and the headohones.There is an

extra set of speakers in the sales pack and we think they

work just fine for those moments when you want to play

music out loud.The songs are sorted on the basis of artists

and albums and there is an infinity button on pressing which

the phone offers content related to the artiste.The FM radio 

comes with RDS support  and an interface  reminiscent of

the scroll that used to come in old radios.The camera on the

other band-is average.There is no auto focus or flash, and

different  modes like twilight, beach/snow, sports and auto,

while handy, do not save the day.The camera is capable of

taking VGA videoes at 30 frames per second, but the quality
didn't excite us much.As far as the settings go, you can just

choose between normal or MMS modes.
The phone's internal memory is 128 MB and can be

expanded up to 16 GB using a microSD  card.The battery

backup of the phone is par for the course- one full charge

gave around an hour of music, calling and around two hours

of Wi-Fi connectivity.


Alternatively:-  The Sony Ericsson W8 is priced at Rs 9,990
                       and comes with a set of portable

speakers.Other option for a good music phone could be

Nokia X3-02, which is a Symbian device costing Rs 

7,800.An Andriod alternative could be Samsung Galaxy Fit

priced at Rs