By Michell Bak, 10th of April 2009.

The Sony Ericsson W995 is perhaps one of the most important and interesting offerings in Sony Ericsson’s 2009 portfolio. As clearly suggested by the product name the phone is a high-end class Walkman phone, but that’s not all. Sony Ericsson launched the Entertainment Unlimited project a couple of months ago, combining the Cyber-shot camera brand with the Walkman music brand, and the W995 is the first product under the wings of Entertainment Unlimited. What this means is that the W995 could easily be mistaken as an imaging savvy offering with its 8 megapixel camera with autofocus and face recognition.

One could think of the W995 as a lighter and improved music edition of the C905, although lacking the brilliant xenon flash found exclusively in the manufacturer’s imaging handsets for the time being. This means that the W995 not only features a very well equipped camera, as mentioned earlier on, but also adds wireless networking via Wi-Fi and positioning services using the built-in a-GPS to the package. We’re most confident that the Sony Ericsson W995 is going to be a massive success, when it hits the global market in summer.

Official product pictures of the Sony Ericsson W995

Table of contents

• Design
• User interface
• Applications & GPS
• Camera
• Music
• Games
• Connectivity and web
• Contacts
• Messaging
• Calls
• Conclusion

Advantages

• Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
• Dual-band UMTS / HSDPA, up to 3.6 Mbps (tri-band in the W995a)
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, with support for A2DP
• Excellent build quality
• Beautiful design with parts in brushed metal
• Bundled 8 GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) card
• Vivid 2.6-inch large scratch-resistant TFT-display
• Lightening fast user experience in both the general user interface and Media
• Top-of-the-class Walkman music player
• Built-in access to Facebook, Flickr and YouTube
• Support for chat view messaging
• Lots of useful and fun applications and games
• 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, face recognition, and much more
• Built-in a-GPS unit with 3-month trial version of WayFinder Navigator software
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi with support for DLNA
• Built-in 3.5 millimeter audio jack
• Stereo speakers in the bottom and top of the phone
• Very fair price

Disadvantages

• YouTube application only working on certain Wi-Fi router set-ups
• Superfluous kickstand on the back of the phone
• Hardly any tactile feedback from the keypad
• No FM-transmitter
• No camera lens cover
• No xenon flash
• No TV-out functionality

There is really only one phone in Sony Ericsson’s current portfolio that resembles the W995 quite a lot, and that is the C905, which you might already have guessed. The specifications are almost identical, and even though the W995 is the best phone of the two, we don’t want to put away the C905, which is still an excellent fully featured camera phone.

We can’t comment on how the W995 box looks yet as our review units are early prototypes that came with only a battery, charger and headset in a small black case. However, our guess is that it’ll be much like the boxes we’ve got accustomed to. The contents of the retail sales box will be:

• Sony Ericsson W995
• Battery and charger
• USB cable
• Stereo headphones (HPM-77 or HPM-88 depending on your region)
• 8 gigabyte bundled Memory Stick Micro (M2) card
• Software disc with the Sony Ericsson PC Suite and Media Go
• User books, etc.

Did we mention its expected retail price is about £40 lower than that of the C905? Oh yeah!

The W995 is a beautiful slider phone that feels amazing to hold and touch. Its build quality is just wonderful - comparable to that of the C902 or X1.

The scratch-resistant mineral glass TFT-display on the front of the device is 2.6 inches large, making it the largest display on any Sony Ericsson feature phone. The display is bright and clear, and capable of showing up to 262.144 different colours. The screen resolution is 240 x 320 pixels (also known as QVGA resolution). The display is not quite as saturated as the one on the C905, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s a bad thing. It really depends a lot on the image on the screen. Regardless of that, the display performs very well, and it has to be one of the prettiest displays I’ve ever seen on a mobile device. The display is clear and visible outside as well.

We’ve got some comparison pictures between the C905 and W995 just below for you to make up your mind on which display you like the best. It’s worth mentioning that the light sensor on the C905 wasn’t working, which means its screen is a lot brighter than the W995’s screen. The C905 is on the right and the W995 is on the left.

So, which display do you prefer?

The W995 measures a good 97 x 49 x 15 millimetres and weighs 114 grams. That’s an amazing size and weight for a phone with this amount of features (with metal parts, too!). It feels really nice in your hand. The slider mechanism works very well and is rock solid.

The W995 will initially be available in three colour variants - Cosmic Silver, Energetic Red and Progressive Black. Naturally, we expect Sony Ericsson to launch more colour variants in the coming months ahead.

I absolutely hate the keypad for one single reason - there’s almost no tactile feedback, making it extremely hard and very frustrating to use. You simply cannot be sure that you hit the key without actually looking at the display. I wouldn’t say I’ve got large hands or fingers, so I can only imagine how hard it would be to use the keypad for people with large hands. Other than that the spacing between the keys is excellent, and the keys themselves are generously sized as well.

Fortunately the soft keys and navigation d-pad are without problems. They’re working brilliantly and all provide excellent tactile feedback.

The back of the W995 looks pretty stylish. The battery cover is made of brushed metal, and it looks fantastic, especially in direct sunlight. Other than that, we’ve got a fairly standard backside - a camera with flash is located on the upper half of the phone, and the various logos can be found on the backside as well.

As a bit of a treat for all the film lovers out there, Sony Ericsson decided to include a kickstand on the back of the phone. Just drag it up, place the phone horizontally on any plain surface, and you’ll be good to go! Unfortunately, there’s no lock position, i.e. at 90 degrees, which means that it’s not as sturdy as I’d like it to be. Or rather, it’s hardly any sturdy at all. I initially thought this would be a cool feature, but at the current state it’s something I hardly ever use.

On the left side of the W995, we find Sony Ericsson’s proprietary FastPort connector used when connecting to a headset, a USB cable, and basically most of Sony Ericsson’s current line of accessories. The left side also houses a dedicated button for the Walkman player. It provides no tactile feedback whatsoever, making it pretty useless. Also on the left side, hidden behind the battery cover, is the Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot, which takes cards up to 32 gigabytes. The bundled memory card can hold up to 8 gigabytes of storage.

The right side of the phone is more media-oriented. This is where we find the camera shutter release button, zoom / volume keys, and three dedicated music short cut keys - play/pause, forward, and rewind - that are positioned excellently and are very comfortable to use. However, I’m not crazy about the placement of the zoom / volume keys. It works well when you’re taking pictures, but it’s far from optimal for general use.

The bottom and top of the phone each hold a speaker. Also on the top is the 3.5 mm audio jack connector. The W995 is Sony Ericsson’s first feature phone to feature a 3.5 mm audio jack connector (not counting the low-end and cheap J132, that for reasons only God knows featured it first).

The W995 gets its juice from a standard BST-38 battery. It is a Lithium-Polymer battery with a capacity of 930 mAh. Sony Ericsson claims it’s good for up to 370 hours of standby on a GSM network and 360 hours of standby on a 3G network. Alternatively, you might be more interested in knowing that it’ll last for a total of 9 hours of successive blabbering on a GSM network or up to 4 hours of chitchatting when connected to a 3G network.

I’m overly impressed with the performance of this battery in the W995. My average number of days between charges was five. Five days between charges! That’s amazing, considering it includes about 15-30 minutes of WLAN use, 1 hour of Bluetooth use, and 30 minutes of listening to music every day. Not to mention the regular phone operations.

This is one of the areas where Sony Ericsson excels. Sony Ericsson’s feature phone user interface has always been one of Sony Ericsson’s trump cards, and the latest version is no different. The W995 runs the Enea OSE operating system with Sony Ericsson’s refreshed A2 user interface on top. This basically means that the phone operates quickly and is a pleasure to use. It really seems like Sony Ericsson has got a winner on their hands with the W995.

The large graphical icons are easily understandable for anyone, and Sony Ericsson’s way of listing applications and menu options seems to be unmatchable by any other handset manufacturer.

The phone comes preloaded with four themes - Circa, Clarity, Divism and Partim. Clarity is rather boring, and is preloaded on practically every single A2-based Sony Ericsson phone. The others, on the other hand, are excellent and really beautiful. Circa, Divism and Partim also come with Flash Lite menus that look pretty good. Alternatively, you can choose between three menu layouts - grid, rotating and single icon. The former seems to be the most popular one.

The activity menu is a feature I’m very fond of. It’s basically a pop-up menu with shortcut links to your favourite applications, menu spots, etc. If you get a new message or a missed call, it will also show up on the activity menu. The activity menu also keeps track of running applications, so you can easily toggle between them and close applications right from the pop-up menu. Finally, there’s also the fourth tab, which is the Internet / bookmarks tab. I rarely use it, but I’d imagine this being something I would use if I didn’t change my phone so often.

The 3-soft key layout has been round for some time, and most users should be familiar with it by now. It’s easy to get accustomed to, and it seems faster in use than the old 2-soft key layout. This layout also brought along the call and end call keys.

The W995 comes with no less than ten - that’s 10(!) - preloaded applications, so there’s lots of stuff for you to goof around with! The preloaded applications are:

CamPlus - A rather cool yet simple application that takes pictures with the phone camera in time intervals. The cool thing about this application is that it’s a product of Project Capuchin, merging Flash Lite and Java in perfect harmony. It works brilliant and looks extremely slick with slide effects and brilliant use of the phone’s multimedia features.

Comeks Strips - Ever dreamt of making comic strips featuring you and your friends in action? Well, with Comeks Strips you can do that right on your phone - and it’s pretty easy to do. You start off by selecting a background colour, picture or take a picture with the camera. Next up, you can add an effect to the picture. Then you can add cliparts to the picture, and finish the frame with some cool speech bubbles.

Music Mate 5 - If you love making simple beats, you’ll most likely end up loving this application as well. It basically mimics a number of music instruments, and enables you to play different tunes and beats with the instruments. In addition to this, the application makes good use of the built-in accelerometer (motion sensor) in the W995. This means that you can make tunes by shaking the phone.

Music Quiz - Here’s a rather cool application that iPod users might be familiar with. This application reads through your music library and creates a number of questions based on the content of the library. The application will ask about song details (such as artist, album and title) by playing a small bit of the song. The faster you answer correctly, the better your score will be.

Rock Bobblehead - With this application, Sony Ericsson has captured the legendary Elvis, transformed him into mobile 3D and added support for the accelerometer. By shaking the phone, you’ll take Elvis on the ride of his life! This application can be used as a wallpaper.

Sound Sensor Wallpaper - This application makes use of the W995’s microphone to monitor the sound levels from deep sounds to the high sounds. The sound levels are displayed in an equalizer-like way. This application can be used as a wallpaper.

VoiceFX - This has to be one of the single most cool applications yet on a mobile device. With VoiceFX you can tweak and transform the sound of your voice with different effects. There are a total of eight different effects to choose from, and I think it’s quite a broad selection. The effects include a robot effect, high & low pitch effects, a drunk effect and an old effect. VoiceFX is perfect for cracking up your friends, and it’s even possible to save the transformed sounds to your phone.

Walk Mate - Like a pedometer, this application keeps track of your daily steps. It is intended to be kept running in the background or as an application wallpaper.

WayFinder Navigator - This is probably one of the best GPS offerings available on the market for feature phones like the W995. The maps aren’t exactly pretty, but they’ll do. I was very impressed with how accurate and fast the built-in a-GPS of the W995 really is. It picked up on my correct location only seconds after the initial fix, which is extremely impressive! Really, kudos to Sony Ericsson on this achievement. That’s something most other manufacturers could learn a thing or two about. There are lots of settings to play with, including optimizations, traffic info, automatic calculating of routes, voice messages and so forth. The phone comes with a 3-month trial.

YouTube - This application will play streamed videos from YouTube right on your phone. But! It will only work on certain network / router set-ups, and unfortunately did not work on my set-up. I was unwilling to change my router set-up, but having seen how it works in action, I have my doubts about the gains of using this application over the mobile YouTube website - again, if that works for you…

Apart from the preloaded Java applications, there’s the usual array of Sony Ericsson’s standard organizer applications. This includes the ever useful file manager, extensive alarm settings (now with sounds actually working in silent mode!), calendar, tasks, simple notes that can be placed on the desktop, synchronization options, timer, stop watch, torch, calculator and an application for keeping your secret passwords secret.

There’s also the brilliant Media application, which holds your pictures, music and video files. It also serves for shortcuts to your installed games, and features an online RSS reader.

The W995 also comes with Sony Ericsson’s menu spot of so-called location services. This spot holds Google Maps, WayFinder Navigator (as previously described), Tracker, favourite locations and status information about your current position via GPS or a-GPS. Google Maps is pretty cool, and will work alongside WayFinder Navigator if you want ‘real’ maps. It is also significantly easier to use than WayFinder Navigator. If you’re into running or biking, Tracker is a sports application to keep track of your achievements. It’ll measure your speed and distance and display everything in a neat overview with peaks and everything!

The 8 megapixel camera in the W995 is essentially the same as the one in Sony Ericsson’s camera savvy offering, the C905, but the software is different. Pictures can be saved in sizes up to 3264 x 2448 pixels. It features autofocus and there’s an LED flash (mainly) for video recordings, although it will also work when taking photos. There’s no xenon flash, unfortunately.

The camera interface is the usual Cyber-shot like interface, and as always it’s a pleasure to use. It’s relatively speedy and although we’re testing prototypes, it’s not really laggy. When taking pictures, you can choose from the following settings.

• Shoot mode - Normal, BestPic, Panorama, Frames
• Scenes - Auto, Twilight landscape, Landscape, Portrait, Beach / snow, Sports, Document
• Picture size - 8MP, 5MP, 3MP, VGA
• Focus - Auto, Face detection, Macro, Infinite
• Flash - Auto, Off
• Self-timer - On, Off
• Metering mode - Normal, Spot
• White balance - Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent
• Effects - Off, Black & white, Negative, Sepia, Solarize
• Picture quality - Normal, Fine
• AF light - Auto, Off
• BestPic - Fast, Slow
• Review - On, Off
• Stabiliser - On, Off
• Add position - On, Off
• Save to - Memory card, Phone memory
• Auto rotate - On, Off
• Shutter sound - Off, Sound 1, Sound 2, Sound 3, Sound 4, Sound 5
• Reset settings
• Reset counter

Many of these settings are available in the video recording mode as well.

As with the Sony Ericsson C905 and XPERIA X1, the camera software algorithms in the phone are significantly different from what we’re used to see from Sony Ericsson. In the case of the C905 and X1 it was a welcome change, and even though it is more fitting in a device like the X1 due to its smaller camera resolution, it’s still preferable over the old algorithms in C905 and W995.

We’ve gathered a large amount of camera samples from the W995 for you to download right here. Most of these shots were shot in auto mode. Feel free to add your own snapshots by posting a link in the comments.

The W995 isn’t exactly an excellent shooter. Photos quite often lack details in areas with many details. The camera isn’t excellent indoors, but definitely a lot better outdoors. It does a good job at macro photos. Overall, I find the camera worse than the one in the C905.

Colours are generally a bit pale, although with an exception once in a while. The white balance performance is just above average. It’s pretty good, but up until now I’ve only experienced it nailing a perfect white balance a few times. The metering isn’t excellent either. Almost all my shots with the W995 were using the normal metering mode, and it’s safe to say that it has a tendency to over-expose the photo. By changing it to spot metering, it’ll meter the available light at the focus spot and set an appropriate exposure based on that.

The LED flash in the W995 is hardly useful for taking photos. It’s far too weak to be of any use, and if you do use it, odds are that the white balance issues will shine through.

The W995 records video clips in MP4 format (container for the H.263 codec) in 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA). We measured an average video bit rate of over 700 Kbps, which is more than we’ve ever experienced on a feature phone. The video framerate is approximately 26 frames per second, but we’re expecting Sony Ericsson will bump it up to 30 frames per second in the final versions. Unfortunately, the W995 records audio in mono only.

Below you’ll find an unedited video sample, that you can download to your computer (right click below).

Download

Your photos and video clips can be viewed in the Media menu. You can easily access it by pressing the up button when in camera or the left soft key from standby. In the Media menu you can add tags to your media, view photos on a map (if they’re geo-tagged), edit photos and videos, and view photos in a slide show using the X-Pict Story feature.

It seems the Walkman player in our prototypes is undergoing a make-over, so we’ll just share a few quick thoughts about music on the W995 at the current stage, and update this section when the retail version hits the market. The audio quality is very high and sounds fantastic. The phone supports an array of file formats, and it’s very easy to use. We can’t really comment on the player, but it seems to be working very well.

The W995 is Sony Ericsson’s first proper feature phone to feature a 3.5 mm jack (not counting the J132). Unfortunately, this does not work in our prototypes, so we’ll get back to this at a later point in time.

The built-in FM radio works very well and even supports RDS. I’ve always liked the FM radio in Sony Ericsson’s feature phones and this is not exception. It also supports TrackID to recognize songs on the radio.

The W995 comes with seven games preloaded.

Bowling - A rather simple bowling game in 2D. You can play practice, tournaments, bowler, score-o-rama or for trophies. You throw the ball by moving your phone. Yes, it makes use of the built-in accelerometer.

Bubble Town - This is probably the most addictive of the games on the W995. The objective is to smash bubbles in pairs, and that’s really all there is to it. This quickly became my favourite game on the W995, and I’ve almost managed to complete it. Let me know if anyone succeeds!

Diamond Island - This appears to be a maze game in which you have to move a large stone around a number of levels on Hawaii using the motion sensor.

Guitar Rock Tour - Can you say Guitar Hero? This is a pretty cool mobile version of the popular console game. You have to press keys at the right time to gain points.

NitroStreet Racing - A rather boring racing game. The graphics aren’t good, and the overall game play is mediocre.

Playman Extreme Running - In the role of Playman, you have to jump around the city and avoid objects. I suppose this could have been a cool game, had it been in 3D and perhaps a bit more responsive.

Real Football 2008 - I’m not a huge fan of soccer games on mobile phones, and I’m afraid this is no exception. The 2D-graphics are all right, but a game like this gets too complicated on small mobile devices. It’s hard to control the players properly and the amount of game information can be overwhelming.

Overall Java performance is very good. Due to issues with the prototype firmware, our benchmarking tool did not work on the W995.

The W995 supports both quad-band GSM / EDGE networks, and UMTS / HSDPA 2100 (3.6 Mbps) networks.

Bluetooth 2.0 is part of the package and it supports EDR for enhanced data rates. It means you’ll get much faster data transfer rates. The W995 peaked at 180 kilobytes per second, which is more than any feature phone I’ve tried. The phone also supports the stereo audio Bluetooth profile (A2DP), so you can stream music and sounds from the phone to an A2DP compatible headset using Bluetooth. The phone can also be connected to a computer using Bluetooth (or USB). Using a USB connection is definitely the fastest solution, especially if you put it in storage mode. You’ll find no support for infra-red connections (irDA).

One of the excellent features of the W995 is that it offers built-in WLAN functionality, supporting both 802.11b and 802.11g networks. The overall performance and reception is very good. The reception strength is better than the C905, and download speeds are excellent. If you’ve set up a favourite network or have previously been connected to a network, the W995 will automatically connect to the network if it’s in range. Just enable WLAN, and it’ll pick up on the network if it’s there. It doesn’t have to get any more complicated than this!

The W995 also supports DLNA, which makes it possible to share digital media between a number of consumer electronics, including the Sony PlayStation 3, computers and other mobile devices supporting the DLNA standard.

The web browser you’ll find under the hood is called Access NetFront version 3.4. It’s not a bad web browser, but it’s not as good as Opera Mini. We still can’t see why Sony Ericsson won’t include this browser as a pre-installed Java application on its phones. One of the best features of NetFront version 3.4 is the mouse cursor. The mouse cursor makes it considerably easier to browse large websites, as you can easily pan around websites. Another nice feature is the website overview feature, which makes it easy to get an overview of a website and quickly zoom in on an interesting part. One thing we dislike about NetFront is that it’s rather slow at loading large websites and that it slows down significantly with these large sites. Because the W995 features WLAN, this is a bit of a let-down. You simply can’t expect users only to browse websites specifically fitted for mobile phones when your phone features WLAN.

NetFront 3.4 supports CSS, HTML, xHTML, and light Javascripts. It cannot display any Flash content. It’s quite a nice web browser when it comes to rendering web sites. You can also use the browser in landscape mode, and it will automatically switch to landscape mode if you tilt the phone.

The custom homepage has been slightly updated, and now looks a lot cooler and more fresh. A neat “extra feature” is that the background image is randomly chosen when you load the homepage. The homepage includes search functionality, shows your browsing history, bookmarks, RSS feeds, and a few links to some of Sony Ericsson’s services.

RSS feeds provide a brilliant opportunity for people to keep themselves updated on the latest news from various websites. This is built right into the web browser, and if you’re browsing a website with RSS feeds, you’ll be notified by a RSS icon at the top of the browser. From here on it’s easy to add the feed to your list of subscriptions on the phone. You can set the feed to be updated automatically or manually, if that’s what you prefer. You can easily access your feeds from the Media menu, but if you don’t want to go through the hassle (or lack thereof) of doing that every time, you can simply add the feeds directly onto the standby screen. This is quite a brilliant solution, if you’re a keen user of RSS feeds.

The W995 supports most common e-mail services, including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. You’ll have to set up everything manually though, unless you choose to make use of Sony Ericsson’s online e-mail set-up. The phone also supports push e-mail. You can make use of both IMAP4 and POP3 protocols.

The W995 can save up to 1,000 contacts and 7,000 phone numbers. That should be enough for most people. I have only heard of few people with higher requirements. Each contact can be stored with the following fields:

• Name
• Number (Mobile, Mobile (private), Mobile (work), Home, Work, Fax, and Other)
• E-mail (up to 3 e-mail addresses)
• Web address
• Picture
• Contact-specific ringtone
• Voice command
• Work information (Title, Company, Street, City, State, Zip code, and Country)
• Personal information (Street, City, State, Zip code, and Country)
• Info (a note)
• Birthday (can be added to the calendar)

Naturally, you can synchronize your contacts with your computer, other handsets or online services. It is also possible to send contacts via Bluetooth, e-mail, MMS or SMS message.

The W995 features a built-in backup feature to backup all your contacts with all details. This is a very useful feature that I have used a couple of times.

It’s possible to create and receive both MMS and SMS messages on the W995, and unlike a particular American manufacturer, the majority of Sony Ericsson’s phones have supported MMS messages since the end of 2002 / the beginning of 2003. Impressive, eh?

The messaging editor is visually and functionally impressive. It kicks off being an SMS editor, but the minute you add a picture, video or audio file, it turns into an MMS editor. Yes, it’s that smart! It’s easy to use and sports a lot of great features - copy / paste support is another feature that have been in Sony Ericsson’s phones for years. The T9 dictionary is the best on the market, and you can add your own words to its database of words, if you want. The phone will even suggest the next word when typing, based on your use of words in previous messages.

Chat view messaging does not work on our prototypes, but having tested it on the C901 and C903, it’s quite a cool feature, and an easy way to keep track of your conversations with individuals.

As expected, there are several ways to call up a contact. You can dial the number, find the contact in the phonebook or search directly on the standby desktop using Smart Search. Smart Search will automatically search through your phonebook for any contact details that match the key combinations you enter - this could be a contact’s name or phone number.

The W995 supports both regular voice calls and video calls. I doubt many of you actually use video calls, so I haven’t bothered trying. Voice calls come out very good. There’s hardly any noise, the volume is excellent and the sound quality is likewise very good. Overall network reception is excellent. No issues whatsoever.

The call manager can be accessed from the main menu or by pressing the call button in standby. It can hold a total of up to 30 calls, which should be enough to get you through the day. We’re still eagerly awaiting the day Sony Ericsson updates the ancient call manager to include information about the length of a call and when a call ended.

It is too early to make a conclusion about the Sony Ericsson W995, but we’re definitely excited about it and are looking forward to getting our hands on the retail version, at which point we will update this review with our thoughts of the retail version. The USEB score below is subject to change when the retail version arrives.

[Review based on early prototype units running firmware revision R1EA012]

Video - Sony Ericsson W995 preview

Gallery