Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman
Sony has been bringing portable music to the masses for decades now and the Sony Ericsson mobile manufacturing branch has carried on this fine tradition, rolling out a series of popular Walkman branded handsets over the years. The Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman phone is the latest in that series, replacing last year’s W580i. So, are the improvements to this music phone enough to make it worthy of an upgrade?
The good news is that the Sony Ericsson brand is still a reliable seal of quality. The firm rarely releases dud handsets and the W595 is no exception. Since it is a slider phone you want to feel that the mechanism will survive millions of openings and closings and this is certainly the case here. On the front of the Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman phone there is a dedicated button that will take you straight to the media library and music playback functions without delay. This operates in a very similar way to the older models.
The design of the Walkman menus is uncluttered and depending on the way in which you orientate the phone, the built in accelerometer will adjust the screen to suit your viewing angle. The Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman software can play back a whole host of audio and video file types. This includes mp3, mp4, WAV and Windows Media Audio.
The W595’s Walkman feature is further enhanced by the inclusion of stereo Bluetooth. If you want to take advantage of this, you will clearly need to purchase a stereo headset for wireless use. One of the main problems with the W595 and indeed all of Sony Ericsson’s Walkman phones is their lack of the standard 3.5mm headphone socket. Although the W595 comes with an adaptor, it is large and clunky and protrudes unnecessarily from the phone. In the future Sony Ericsson will need to up their game in this area if they want to stay competitive in the music phone market.
In order to store your music and media you will have access to a 2GB Memory Stick micro straight out of the box. You can use cards with up to 8GB capacity in the W595. The main problem is that you have to remove the battery in order to insert or remove the memory card. This is fine in day to day use, but many people will want to transfer music directly to the memory card rather than relying on a USB connection to the phone. The Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman phone is not alone in suffering from this irritating feature and while it does not spoil the phone outright, it shows that there is still room for improvement.
Rounding out the package are built in stereo speakers which are pleasing, especially in the bass department, as well as an FM radio. There are also a pair of stereo earphones included. Whilst these are adequate if you are not too interested in audio quality, it is worth spending a little money on some higher quality earphones. The W595 is capable of some fairly respectable audio playback and so to do it justice you need to invest a little in your headgear. If you do not, you are unduly compromising what is after all the phone’s most powerful feature.
In all the Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman phone is yet another solid effort. If you are familiar with the Walkman phone brand then getting to grips with the W595 will take no time at all as it remains largely unchanged from slightly older iterations. This is not a criticism as such, but to avoid stagnation within the range Sony need to introduce something new the next time around.
Tags: sony ericsson, sony ericsson w595, walkman