Sony ericsson w995

Music for the soul

For 30 years now, portable music and the Walkman have been synonymous in most people’s dictionaries. In the three decades of its existence, the Walkman has changed shapes, sizes and even the media involved, going from tape to CDs to MP3 players via the unsuccessful MD player.

But even as it continues to come out in various shapes and forms, none will dispute that the Walkman Series phones from Sony Ericsson are the Walkman’s most worthy successors. And the W995 even more so. Sony Ericsson has finally got it right. We are still not happy with the user interface, but to say it has grown on us would be an understatement. Mostly, it has to do with familiarity, but that also makes the W995 very easy to use.

Though not essentially a smartphone, the W995 packs a lot of features. It ticks all the standards like YouTube, GPS and Google Maps, PlayNow, Wi-Fi, motion gaming, email, HSDPA, geotagging and a 3.5-mm headphone jack.

The Walkman player is now version 4.0 and makes for an excellent listening experience. Dedicated Walkman buttons on either side of the phone as well as the five-way navigation pad let you fire up and control the player.

The phone effectively has two headphone jacks. And while the length of the excellent noise-cancelling headphones that come with the phone may be too short to directly plug in to the 3.5 mm jack, you can use another old-school style set and share your music. What is more, the phone also comes with small speakers that can be attached to the phone if you’re tired of headphones or want to share your music with a larger group of people.

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