The Sony Ericsson W995 is a convergence device that borrows the camera functionality from its Cyber Shot ancestors and brings the best of business phone functionality like Wi-Fi , GPS and HSDPA. There has always been a gripe against such devices, they are often jack of all but master of none. We find out if this is the case with this phone.

Look and Feel
It is probably the first time any Walkman series phone from Sony Ericsson has used a Black and silver color scheme, but Sony could not resist using orange lights when you switch to the walkman mode in the phone. The change from the monotonous black and orange feels refreshing and the brushed metal body adds a touch of class to it. Just that they have done nothing to ease the hard brick-like looks of the phone. It has an oxymoronic look of a classy but boring looking phone.

The sliding mechanism is top notch and great to use. The D-pad, the shot-cut keys and the numeric keys are well placed and spaced out well for a easy and comfortable operation. The balance of the phone, as with most sliders, is not that great when open. Thus, it is a bit of a challenge to type long messages. The quick play keys are placed on the right hand side and are back-lit for easy access in dark light conditions.

A small problem is the volume key which is squeezed between the camera and the multimedia keys making it difficult to use. You may end up pressing either one of those while trying to adjust the volume.

A stand behind the phone is a nice addition as it tilts the phone for a better viewing angle for videos. But the quality of the stand is not up to the mark and could have been better.

Display and Hardware
This phone features a 2.6 inch TFT display with a WVGA resolution. The display is bright and legible under bright light conditions. This is the first time Sony Ericsson has added a standalone 3.5 mm jack to their phone. Earlier you had to use a 3.5 mm connector with the proprietary Sony jack which made using custom headphones pretty difficult. The standalone jack solves the problem.

This phone is also Wi-Fi capable for browsing the Internet using a faster wireless broadband network at your home, office or coffee shop. Alternatively you can use the lower speed GPRS/ EDGE connection for it. The phone also comes with preinstalled Google maps and this phone uses it beautifully in conjunction with its on board GPS chip and A-GPS capabilities.

This phone sports a Memory stick M2 expansion slot that can support up to 8GB memory cards. The phone package includes the 8GB card.

Camera
Most phones feature a camera. This one has a mighty 8.1 megapixels auto-focus camera on board. It can capture still images up to 3264x2448 pixels and can record WVGA resolution videos at 30 frames per second.

Unlike the Cybershot series the camera does not feature any form of lens protection and it does not have a Xenon flash.

What it does feature is a power LED flash which has a very limited range. Thus, you may not get extremely good results when shooting in the dark. It also features face detection, smile detection and panoramic shooting. One cool feature of this camera phone are its BestPic mode which captures a series of pictures and suggests the best possible picture based on sharpness, exposure and light balance.

Walkman
This phone features the most advanced version of Walkman, the Walkman 4.0. It can handle most audio contents like MP3, WMA, WAV AAC and AAC+. Plus it supports video playback too but sadly enough it does not support Divx/Xvid playback. The stereo speakers do a good job. If you are not satisfied with them you can use the included speaker bar for louder notes.

Along with all the regular Walkman features like the Shake control and FM radio with RDS, this phone also features SensMe. SensMe is a feature that can sort the songs based on the genre and can play them back based on your mood, which of course you will have to tell the phone.

Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson W995 is a good feature rich phone with a price tag of Rs. 22,000. So if you are willing to shell out 22k then along with this you can consider the latest Nokia N86 and the Samsung Innov8 as well. Both of them feature almost the same amount of features except the difference that other than the W995 both these phones feature the Symbian operating system.

The Sony Ericsson W995 is a convergence device that borrows the camera functionality from its Cyber Shot ancestors and brings the best of business phone...