While Sony itself still makes Walkman music and video devices, the true successor to the Walkman is clearly the Walkman phone, or mp3/media player and phone combination, something that has also been popularised thanks to the iPhone and Nokia’s N95.Feature-wise, as seen at Sony Ericsson’s website, the W910i has it all, from accelerometer, to 3G and video calling, to mp3 and media playback, expandable memory, Bluetooth, blogging, Track ID feature, gaming, shake control, camera, media manager, video recording, voice recording and plenty more.Although better phones are on the way, with some previewed by Sony Ericsson and Nokia at the 3GSM World Congress, the awards clearly are designed for phones on the market during the awards period, and when the judges examined all the entrants, the W910i was their choice.
Sony Ericsson’s president said that: “We are very proud to receive such a prestigious award for what has proved to be a very popular product”.
Other phones in the race for consideration for the ‘Best Handset’ award were the 3SkypePhone, the LG Viewty, the Nokia 6500 Classic and the Samsung SGH-G600.
The N95 and the iPhone weren’t part of the list, which is curious, as they would have given all the other phones listed a run for their money, although whether they would have won the ‘best handset’ award is clearly up for debate.
So, what’s our view on this new award for the W910i, and what was likely one of the considerations for the judges especially considering the other phones that it was compared against? Without knowing precisely what the judges were considering, this must have been one of the judges’ factors in choosing the ultimate winner.Sony Ericsson note that, since the launch of the W800 Walkman phone in August 2005, more than 57 million Walkman phones have been sold worldwide.
They also note that the Walkman range is yet to see further expansion, with Sony Ericsson’s W980i due later this year, although it only comes with 8GB of internal memory compared with the upcoming Nokia N96’s 16GB of internal memory, while the iPhone is already sold in a 16GB configuration.
While the W910i is certainly a feature packed phone, and is worthy of recognition, the simple fact is that it’s already out of date for mobile phone aficionados who simply must have the latest technology.
There’s also no doubt that N95 and iPhone fans would dispute that the W910i was the best handset on the market.But we were not one of the judges, and happily acknowledge that the N95 and the iPhone would be even better phones if they had all of the features the W910i offers as standard.
So, congratulations, Sony Ericsson, on winning this award. We look forward to even more vigorous competition in the future, as mobile phones converge even further to become ultra advanced and yet ultra easy to use computing and communications devices.
(By Alex Zaharov-Reutt @ http://www.itwire.com/ )
