Sony Ericsson has announced its first Walkman branded Android laden phone – the W8 in Indonesia. The W8 seems to be analogous to the old Xperia X8 that was launched last year. The W8 is powered by a rather slowish (by today’s standards) 600 Mhz processor, gets 168 MB of RAM and has a not so large 3-inch display. The display has a resolution of 320×480 screen which is on the lower side. It is evident that Sony Ericsson is positioning this device as a low end Android device.
The W8 runs Android 2.1 and gets the same version of the Timescape UI seen on the Xperia X8. To make the UI look more “Walkman-ish”, the Mediascape music interface has been given a facelift of sorts. The phone will be on sale in Q2 2011 and seems to be on course for a pan Asia launch.
There are chances that Sony Ericsson may skip the North American markets when it comes to this one. Sony Ericsson seems to be more interesting in selling its premium devices like the Xperia Play, Xperia Arc and the Neo in these markets. The W8 will be available in three color options: Azure Blue, Metallic Red and Iconic Orange.
There is a 3.2 megapixel camera at the back of the phone to aid you with casual photography. The phone is 3G ready and offers over 23 hours of music playback time. We presume this might turn out to be decent handset should it arrive in India with a sub 10k price.
I bought this phone just recently at mnvcollections.com and it is like manna for a gamer like me. You can easily play for a hour without any discomfort and the best part is the battery life. I played for a straight hour and then took some calls and went online and still the battery lasted through it all.
The slider control pad is great too, though not quite the PSP which is Ok, because the thumbpads are just like the controller in a PSP. I totally love this phone.