By Victor Chen \\ Published: 2006.12.31
I’ve finally retired my Sony Ericsson Z600 mobile phone and picked up a new replacement that will hopefully last me nearly 3 years like the last one did. My search for a new phone took forever because I really didn’t see any phone that was that compelling. I’m actually a huge fan of flip phones and Sony Ericsson but they didn’t seem to have anything (domestically) that impressed me.
After much research and internal debate, I ended up with a Sony Ericsson W850i (yes, a Walkman phone) which I like very much and will be covering soon more in detail. The most interesting to note is that the Walkman features make it a better MP3 player than the regular consumer MP3 players that Sony makes. It’s a 3G Tri-band GSM phone, takes MS DUO Pro memory, has a high resolution screen, and tons of connectivity options.
On top of that, the included software DISC2Phone is simple, unassuming and nothing like Sony’s much-hated SonicStage music transfer software. Better yet, you can simply drag and drop files to the Music folder and organize folders yourself! Yes, it’s a crazy concept for owners of Sony digital audio players…but it’s true! You can even create playlists directly on the unit which is a nice feature. At any rate, I’m going to get more familiar with the phone and report back in depth once I get a better feel for the phone. For now, I’m surprisingly happy.
