Sony Ericsson W205 Walkman deals & review

The Sony Ericsson W205 Walkman is a stylish mobile phone made especially for listening to music. Transfer up to 5MB of music tracks from your PC in seconds and get ready to be wired for sound with your favorite tunes on the move. The slider design makes for a neat and compact handset with exciting media and communicative features, bringing the concept of the Walkman firmly into the twenty-first century.

The Sony Walkman has certainly come of age with an emphasis on dual functionality incorporated into the design. This compact handset almost resembles an iPod on first glance, with its neat shuffle control feature, but slide back the music control panel and you’ll reveal the keypad. The W205 comes in an array of colours: Ambient Black, Creamy White, Sakura Pink and Windy Blue. Pick your handset, pre-load it with your favourite tunes and off you go.

Record just a few seconds of that elusive sound track and the TrackID music recognition feature can name the tune, recording artist and album title within seconds. (Powered by Gracenote Mobile MusicID). You can load up the W205 with music, directly from a computer; the handset supports MP3 and ACC files with on-screen playlists and album art. Tune in to the built-in FM Radio with integrated antenna or select the WAP 2.0 web browser to download Java games. The Sony Ericsson W205 supports polyphonic and MP3 style ringtones. Alternatively you can use the sound recorder to save your own recordings and use them as ringtones. The rear-mounted built-in digital camera is 1.3MP camera with a 2.2x digital zoom and video recording option. Send pictures, video, music, voice recordings and of course text messages. The rechargeable battery supplies over 13 hours of music playing-time. The Sony Ericsson W205 has five MB of internal memory, with a memory card slot feature that allows for an extra two gigabytes of memory.

Intended for the first-time mobile buyer, the W205 is Sony’s entry-level handset. The slider mechanism feels slightly loose when pulled back to reveal the keypad, but in spite of this disconcerting characteristic, it’s surprisingly robust. While web browsing is slow, the tunes are what makes the W205 Walkman: this is a great-sounding budget phone.

At 41mm, the display is quite small and is equipped with a lowly 128x160 pixel resolution, making the screen difficult to read. The keypad is also rather cramped, making it frustrating for those who like to speed text. On the plus side, headphones with an in-line microphone come as standard, and the handset is compatible with the Sony Ericsson MS410 snap-on speaker stand.

There are now newer Sony Ericsson handsets out, such as the W8, which runs faster and has a host of other improvements on the W205. In saying that, the W205 Walkman does have more than twice as much battery life as its successor. For users seeking a more up-to-date handset with social media integration, the Samsung Galaxy Apollo and HTC Wildfire are both worth a look.