Sony Ericsson W760 Walkman phone

The Sony Ericsson W760, one of the Walkman-branded handset announced at the 2008 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, is the manufacturer's attempt to create a high-end feature phone that focuses on fun. Multimedia is the star of the device, as expected from a Walkman handset, but the W760 tries to be a lot more - adding games, internet, and location based services to its repertoire of music, video, and photos. While it falls a little short on the specification sheet when compared to smartphone 'multimedia monsters' like the Nokia N95, it should do well in the feature phone market where it competes.

he slider-style Sony Ericsson W760 feels deceptively small in the hand. Height and length measurements of 103mm x 48mm (4.1" x 1.0") are almost N95-like, though the W760 is substantially thinner at 15mm (.6"). Despite this, when held in the hand the phone seems very small and light, and the slider action is satisfyingly firm and well sprung. I am sad to say that the plastics used on the W760 make it feel somewhat cheap, though, which is unfortunate for such an attractive device.

Cheap plastic or not, the colors and lines used on the Sony Ericsson W760 are quite nice. Our review unit was clad in a black and yellow-gold color scheme, with the device to also be available in silver/red and silver/grey. Speakers positioned behind the call and end keys create an interesting design queue, which certainly make the device unique, but may be a point of contention when making a purchasing decision.

The remainder of the front of the device is filled with two soft keys, a shortcut menu key, a clear key, a 5-way d-pad with markings for music and video control, the 2.2" 262K color TFT LCD screen, and two game control keys positioned above the display. While this might sound busy, the W760 seems to retain its simplified styling, using ridges instead of lines to define keys. The right edge of the device holds the volume control keys, the left the charging port and Walkman shortcut key, with the top containing just the covered Memory Stick M2 card slot. The camera is positioned on the back of the top portion of the slider, creating a lens cover by default, with a Walkman logo placed just above the battery cover that lights up with the keypad.

As previously mentioned, the Sony Ericsson W760 has a 2.2" TFT LCD display that is capable of showing 262,000 colors. The display can be turned up to extremely bright levels, even painfully so, but unfortunately our pre-production unit had an odd flicker to it when brightness was turned up more than the default setting. Looking past this, colors were very well saturated and overall we found the screen very satisfying - though it does seem small when compared to other high-end phones on the market today. Even outside viewing was quite good, with the screen keeping enough saturation to still be readable in the California sunshine.

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