Walkman phones are music orientated devices manufactured by Sony Ericsson and offer some of the most advanced music software found in mobile phones today.
The latest addition to the Walkman range is a direct upgrade to the Sony W880 which was originally launched over 12 months ago.

The new Sony Ericsson W890 was launched last week in a sleek silver casing only to be followed yesterday by a black edition released by Vodafone in the UK. The latter is a network exclusive launch and will only be available on Vodafone for a limited time frame after the manufacturer and network signed an agreement for exclusivity over the device.

This means that the Sony W890 will not be available to any other UK network within this agreed period, consumers who choose to purchase the new black edition will only be able to do so with a minimum term contract period with Vodafone.

Alternatively, the silver Sony Ericsson W890 has already been released on a number of networks including O2, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone giving customers far more tariff choices when trying to match their individual usage requirements.

The Sony W890 offers some new features, upgraded software and enhanced technology over the previous W880 model, firstly the camera has been upgraded from a 2.0 megapixel to a 3.2 megapixel for high quality photography and video capture, the camera also offers a digital zoom for close up photography.

The Sony W890 is a 3G enabled handset with a secondary camera located on the front of the phone for face to face video calling, 3G also allows access to a vast amount of downloads including news and sports reports, music videos, mobile content such as games and ringtones plus the all important new music tracks for listening to on the Walkman software.

Songs can also be uploaded directly to the handset from a PC or laptop, when the user plugs the phone into their computer the PC immediately recognizes it as a new hard drive making it easy to simply drag and drop music tracks and complete albums into the phones memory.

Something that will really appeal about the W890 is its frankly amazing battery life, considering this is a 3G enabled phone with an ‘always on’ internet connection the manufacturer is boasting that the handset can achieve 4.5 hours of talktime and 13 days standby time whilst with 3G turned off this becomes 9.5 hours talktime and 15 days standby, equally outstanding is the phone will allow music playback for a full 20 hours.

The W890 is being advertised by Sony Ericsson as being as thick as a normal CD case with adverts showing the handset hiding within a stack of CDs in someones bedroom, the phone is only 9.9mm thick which is pretty impressive considering the amount of technology and features this phone has to offer.

There is a further color variant to be released soon called the Sony Ericsson W890 Mocha Brown to join the officially named Sparkling Silver and Espresso Black editions, these new Walkman devices are by far the most advanced and power friendly that the manufacturer has released for some time and are sure to please the Walkman phone enthusiasts who have been waiting with baited breath for their release.

By: Susan Hargreaves