Earlier this year, Sony Ericsson an¬nounced its initiative to combine the "best in entertainment expe¬rience into one offering such as the Walkman experience, Cybershot imaging, Java gaming and messaging inte-' grated with service and application". The company is up to the task: within months, it is ready to roll out the the music phone W995. A "music phone" mostly recalls Sony Ericsson's Walkman series. But oflate, its un¬matchable sound has faced tough competition from the likes of Nokia's Xpress Music and Samsung's Beat phones. But the W995 is equal to the task. What scores for the phone is the MediaGo software with easy file transfers and hassle-free format conversion. Apart from that it comes loaded with the regular set of features, including the preset equaliser modes and the manual mode for adjustable bass level. It also has the regular shake control for changing tracks, SenseMe for playing tracks according to the mood and trackID.



The inside of this phone are likely the same as the in earlier Walkman series. The W995, how¬ever, has dedicated music controls added on the right panel. (The panel is a bit crowded with other controls for volume and camera.) A welcome change is Sony Ericsson replacing its pro¬prietary headset jack with a 3 .5mm jack. In addition to the excellent music, you also get good photography options with the W995 with its 8.1 MP shooter, auto focus and flash. Although all the earlier high end Walkman phones had cameras, none of them allowed zooming and clicking detailed images except in the VGA mode. The W995, however, has sur¬passed all expectations as it not only allows zooming (l6x digital zoom) but has incorpo¬rated the Cyber-shot features from capturing the image to editing them on the phone. So be it smile detection, image stabiliser or photoD], you will miss none of them. The only thing missing is the lens cover, leaving the lens to the mercy of dust and scratches. It has 8 GB of expandable memory, portable speaker and a 930 mAh bat¬tery that lasts a day on average.