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Many of you probably know the phone by its codename – namely Hikaru. The W995 is a perfect example of how Sony Ericsson is aiming to combine Cyber-shot and Walkman features in its high-end handsets. It is also Sony Ericsson’s first phone to be under the umbrella of the newly-announced ‘Entertainment Unlimited’ – more about this right over here. So what’s this all about, you ask? Well, for starters, unlike any other Walkman phone, this slider phone features an auto focus and photo flash-equipped 8 megapixel camera with up to 16x digital zoom. The camera software enables the use of an image and video stabiliser, face detection, picture and video blogging. Yep, that’s face detection on a Walkman – neat, huh?

Speaking of Walkman, the W995 features the Walkman music player - most likely version numero quatro, totally new and totally awesome! Just like the preceding version, it is able to display album art, has an equalizer, which can be adjusted manually or according to several presets, the award-winning Clear Stereo and Clear Bass audio enhancement technologies, Shake Control to switch songs and control the volume, and SensMe, which allows you to pick tracks according to their “mood coordinates”. On the hardware side the phone features Bluetooth with A2DP, which can be used for audio streaming, a pair of powerful stereo speakers and – read carefully – a 3.5 mm audio jack – a first for the Walkman series and feature phones (not counting the J132, which can be dubbed a cheapo phone and not a feature phone). The W995 also has the familiar and totally brilliant TrackID music recognition service, which can provide the user with the title, album and artist of a song in exchange for a small recorded clip of the respective song.

- “The W995 Walkman phone brings together the very best music experiences of any phone, augments this with best in class video and sharing capabilities to offer the most complete communication entertainment package to date,” said Alexandre Cardon, Global Marketing Business Manager at Sony Ericsson in a press release.

- “This powerful mobile phone delivers the best possible video resolution that can fit in your pocket and with enough battery stamina to watch two full length feature films. The W995 also comes complete with the award winning clear audio experience and an 8.1 megapixel camera for the highest quality picture and sound available in a mobile phone.”

There’s also a built-in YouTube player in the Media menu for streaming videos off the popular video sharing site. Just set the phone on its built-in stand and watch the videos in full screen and with sound from the stereo speakers on the back.

An accelerometer is also included in the phone, which enables menu and browser rotation, in addition to motion gaming and the use of the WalkMate application.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the W995 also features Wi-Fi connectivity with DLNA for tapping into home or public networks and making use of the (most of the time) freely available bandwidth. The handset is also equipped with a-GPS unit for location services (Wayfinder and Google Maps included on the phone) and photo geo-tagging – a feature that tags every photo with the global coordinates of the place where it was taken. And then there’s also the obligatory FM receiver with RDS. Unfortunately, there is no FM transmitter this time. Other features include chat view messaging, a very nice Facebook application and a Flickr application. The W995 also comes with a rather cool application that can change the sound of your voice.

The handset will come with an 8 gigabyte Memory Stick Micro M2 card in-box and a pair of HPM-77 headphones. These will be replaced by the noise-cancelling HPM-88 headphones in selected regions.

There’ll also be a new media syncing software coming with the phone in place of the Media Manager software – this is called MediaGo. According to the press release, the program “lets you effortlessly and automatically transfer any audio, photos and videos between your phone and computer. You can even find podcasts with exciting content easily from the directory”. That is basically what the Media Manager software used to do, but there’s more to it. MediaGo will automatically synchronize your media with your computer to keep the phone updated. Also, it’ll automatically convert video files to give you the best quality playback on the phone:

- “With Media Go there’s no need to worry about format, resolution and ‘frame per second’ anymore.” said Alexandre Cardon.

- “No longer will the video you transferred from your PC to your phone play in low resolution or bad quality. With Media Go and the W995 the experience is as good on your phone as it was on your PC,” he continued.

What’s more about the W995 is that it features a bright and clear scratch-resistant 2.6-inch TFT display, capable of showing up to 262,144 colours and the resolution being QVGA – QVGA means 240 x 320 pixels, which is quite reasonable for a display of its size. The phone itself measures 97 x 49 x 15 millimetres and weighs a good 113 grams – a fair size and weight for a phone with features of its kind.

The W995 supports quad-band GSM networks (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) as well as dual-band UMTS/HSPA networks (tri-band in the W995a variant for the US). The battery is good for up to 370 / 360 hours of standby (2G / 3G networks) and up to 9 / 4 hours of talk (2G / 3G networks) on a charge. You could also decided to go music crazy, and listen to music for a full twenty hours in a row or watch videos in up to five hours per charge, if that’s what yo prefer.

The phone will ship during Q2 this year in the colours Cosmic Silver, Energetic Red, and Progressive Black.

Personally, I think that this is a fantastic addition to Sony Ericsson’s portfolio. An 8 megapixel camera, Clear Audio experience, a 2.6-inch screen and Wi-Fi in one package makes this phone truly awesome. Here’s to hoping it won’t be overpriced.