Sony Ericsson W995

The Sony Ericsson W995 carries the Walkman badge with good reason. It is one of the best phones we’ve looked at for those who enjoy music on the move. It’s a slider phone with the keypad hidden behind the screen until you need it. It’s normally only needed for text entry as there are plenty of dedicated buttons. The screen itself measures 2.6in and a light sensor on the front automatically adjusts the brightness.

It has a full-size headphone jack on the top, so you can use your own headphones. You can even use headphones with the hands-free kit as this has a jack on it as well. The supplied headphones are better than average and you also get a small external speaker set. We’d normally be sceptical about speakers this small but the quality was pretty good.

Internal memory is a little tight given the emphasis on mobile media but it can support Memory Stick Micro cards up to 16GB in size.

The Walkman button on the side starts the music player and there are also buttons for track and volume control. The W995 isn’t just about music as it has a small stand so you can watch video without having to hold the phone. Videos can be played from Youtube or the BBC iPlayer.

Motion sensing is all the rage these days and the W995 is no exception. The screen rotates between landscape and portrait automatically and there are some shortcuts for controlling the media player performed by holding down the Walkman button and flicking the phone from side to side, or up and down for volume control.

It’s a nice idea but didn’t really work very well, and keys already exist for doing this. Waving the phone around in public only advertises the fact that you own an expensive phone.

Thankfully it gets better when you move on to the GPS (satellite navigation) features of the phone. Google Maps is no real surprise but the Nearme application for finding cinemas, restaurants and taxis could prove very useful.

The athletically minded will also appreciate the Tracker application, which will help with jogging programs. It can display distance or time.

No self-respecting phone would be without a camera, and the 8.1-megapixel model fitted to the W995 offers all the quality you’d want in a mobile phone. There are some interesting tricks built in, such as smile detection. Holding the phone like a camera helps to keep it steady, the autofocus is good and it can create panoramas.

Overall the W995 feels like a very capable phone, rather than a handheld computer with a phone tacked on. And that’s a compliment because we found it easy to use and all the applications worked on the small screen. We didn’t find ourselves wishing for a touchscreen. It’s a shame not all of the motion shortcuts worked, but they have dedicated keys anyway.