Sony Ericsson unveils W910 and W960

Sony Ericsson broadens its portfolio in all directions with the official announcement of two new Walkman handsets, a new mid-range bar and a couple of Z-series clamshells.

The most exciting of the pack are definitely the new Walkman phones which as usual attract great attention among music lovers. The Sony Ericsson W910 is a HSDPA-enabled slider and comes with the version 3.0 of the Walkman player which means that Sony Ericsson have prepared a number of new treats to the users. The new feature Shake control will allow W910 users to skip tracks backwards and forward with a mere shake of their handset. A double shake back and forth shuffles the current playlist. The Shake control will add new dimensions to mobile gaming too. The Shake control will also be available on the Sony Ericsson W580 slider announced in March 2007.

The Sony Ericsson W910 comes also with the PC synchronization software called Sony Ericsson Media Manager. The first phones to use the new Media Manager will be Sony Ericsson W910, Sony Ericsson W960 and Sony Ericsson K850. Those three handsets are also equipped with a brand new media browser which replaces the well-known Sony Ericsson file manager. The Media Manager software allows for the next interesting feature expected in the Sony Ericsson W910 called SenseMe. The software automatically designates a mood to every track transferred to your handset based on tempo and style. Afterwards you can easily create your current playlist according to the mood you are in. SenseMe has an innovative visual interface representing tracks as dots in a matrix and positioning them according to the mood they've been designated. Up until now the only place we've seen mood filtering is the Sony Ericsson W950 smartphone, but now this feature is taken on a next level.

The Sony Ericsson W910 also comes with an updated version of the TrackID free service which not only gives you name and artist for a captured audio clip but can now also give you additional info on the artist and album. You can now make dedicated searches on an artist's name without even supplying the TrackID with a recorded sound.

Besides all that, the Sony Ericsson W910 boasts a 2 megapixel camera plus a secondary one for video calls and a really large 2.4" 262K color TFT display with a QVGA resolution. The W910 has stereo Bluetooth and FM radio and full UMTS/HSDPA 2100 MHz and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE network support.

The Sony Ericsson W910 will be available in Hearty Red or Noble Black from Q4 2007.

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The Sony Ericsson W960 is the next Walkman in line but this time it's powered by the Symbian OS with the UIQ user interface - much like the W950 Walkman phone and all other Sony Ericsson smartphones. When it comes to size the new W960 is only by few millimeters larger than the original W950 while offering a number of hardware enhancements such as an integrated camera, double the internal memory and 3G support with video calls.

The 2.6" touchscreen 262K color TFT display with QVGA resolution plus the regular alphanumeric keypad and a Jog Dial allows for navigation that is flexible enough. The Sony Ericsson W960 boasts a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera much like the Sony Ericsson P1 smartphone but packs in 8GB of memory to store all your media files. There is no memory card slot but that would hardly make any difference with all that available space. The handset has UMTS 2100MHz and tri-band GSM/GPRS network support - no EDGE support is present. The Chinese version of the handset will have EDGE but no 3G. Other features of the W960 that are worth mentioning include Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio and USB support.

When it comes to music capabilities the Sony Ericsson W960 has a new Walkman music player which can be operated with fingers easier than ever. The player also supports the SenseMe technology for filtering tracks by their designated mood. In order to enhance the music listening experience Sony Ericsson have decided to include the new stereo Bluetooth headset HBH-DS220 in the retail package.

The Sony Ericsson W960 will be available in Vinyl Black from Q4 2007.