Sony Ericsson introduced the W8 Walkman Phone in India this week.
The Android handset is based on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 and features a 3-inch touchscreen. Powered by a 600 MHz processor with 128MB of ROM and 168MB of RAM the W8 Walkman is not like the Xperia series handsets. The W8 Walkan is more of an entry-mid range device and Sony is counting on its past success with the Walkman brand to revive it. Nonetheless, the W8 Walkman will feature a 3.2 megapixel, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, and microSD card support. Note that it will come with FM radio, a nice feature that very few phone have.
The Sony Ericsson W8 Walkman runs Android 2.1 Eclair. Sad, as this is more of an older Android version, and most manufacturers are coming out at the very least with Android 2.2 Froyo which is already a year old, if not Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
The phone will come with a 1200 mAh battery that should allow for 4 hr 45 minutes of talk time and 476 hours of standby.
The Sony Ericsson W8 Walkman will be available in 3 colors Azure Blue, Walkman Orange and Metallic Red.
Sony Ericsson announced the phone to be available in India where it retails for Rs 10950 (USD $245).
The phone will not be available in the United Kingdom, and Sony Ericsson released the following statement,
We can confirm that the W8 Walkman phone will be available in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The Walkman branding and the legacy from previous Walkman phones is very strong in these particular markets and therefore we decided to launch the phone in these markets.
Sony Ericsson is following Motorola’s move who also announced that it would not release the Motorola Milestone 3 in the United Kingdom. These markets are maybe saturated with low-mid end devices such as the HTC Wildfire S, and Sony Ericsson maybe wants to focus on higher end devices such as the Xperia Play and Xperia Arc.
What do you think? Will you miss this phone? Let us know!
