Sony Ericsson unveils 'most affordable' Walkman phone, but price a secret

By Tim Conneally | Published July 22, 2008, 12:00 PM

Sony Ericsson today announced the upcoming availability of its newest Walkman-branded handsets, adding a new top and bottom to the now three-year-old line of phones.

The W302 will be the "most affordable Walkman phone to date," when it premieres in the fourth quarter of this year, according to Sony Ericsson. Offering a 2-megapixel camera, FM radio, and 512MB memory stick storage, the W302 is a quad-band GSM/EDGE/GPRS device -- the only model of this new crop that doesn't offer 3G connectivity.

The W595 is meant to be a music-sharing device, with built-in stereo speakers and an additional "sharing jack" for a second set of headphones to plug into. The 595 has 2GB of memory, a 3.2-megapixel camera and stereo bluetooth (a feature not found in Apple's popular iPhone).

Additionally, this handset offers the unique SensMe velocity control option. This allows the device to be shaken as an additional command, volume, skip, stop or other standard functions can be assigned to SensMe. The UMTS/HSDPA 2100 W595 also comes in non-3G incarnations, the GSM/GPRS/EDGE-only W595a and W595c.

Sony Ericsson's W902, the "top of the line" model announced today reportedly came as a surprise to fans of the brand, as the Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog anticipated this release would carry with it the clamshell phone codenamed "Alicia." The W902 has a 5-megapixel camera, and 8GB memory stick storage. This UMTS/HSDPA 2100 and quad-band GSM device will be available in select markets in the fourth quarter of 2008.

No pricing was announced yet for any of the new Walkman phones. Sony Ericsson also didn't specify which markets will see the devices first, although it typically launches new phones in Europe before bringing them to the United States.

Sony Ericsson struggled earlier this year, but anticipated stable growth during this quarter. Where analysts predicted a slow 2008 in "saturated markets" such as the EU and North America, the handset maker's sales in North America were actually up 47% year-over-year.