The W850 WALKMAN® phone - a cool slider made for music

18 May 2006

London, UK - The evolution of Sony Ericsson’s successful Walkman® phone range takes another step forward today with the announcement of the UMTS enabled W850. Sony Ericsson’s first GSM/UMTS ‘slider’, the W850 has been uniquely combined with a full horizontal mode camera experience and the latest Walkman® player 2.0 for easy music download.

Available in Precious Black or Golden White, the phone has an attention grabbing ‘heartbeat illumination’ feature to light-up the control keys in rhythm with your music. Visually stunning and appealing to use, this phone isn’t just about good looks – it also offers blisteringly fast music downloads direct to the handset. The phone is configured for operator over the air (OTA) music download services and accepts many popular music file formats including e-AAC+, which reduces download time and space needed for tracks. Memory isn’t an issue either with a 1GB memory stick PRO Duo supplied which is enough for around 1,000 songs in e-AAC+. This can be expanded to 4GB so that you can store a much larger music collection and have it with you all of the time.

The Walkman® player 2.0 simplifies navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or music albums and there’s also a TrackID™ feature powered by Gracenote Mobile MusicID. This is a new service which means you can record a few seconds of a song, either via the microphone or the in built FM radio, and then with one click send that clip to the Gracenote® worldwide music database which will identify the track and relay the information back to the phone.

“The W850 is really empowering our users to listen to what they want, wherever they are,” said Jan Wäreby, Corporate Executive Vice President, Head of Sales and Marketing, Sony Ericsson. “Many people now have existing music collections stored in MP3. The W850 allows users to identify and buy music in a new and spontaneous way – hearing tracks they like, identifying them with TrackID™ and downloading them to the phone.”

Sony Ericsson has also evolved the Walkman® music player in ways which will appeal whether you’re a new user or already familiar with the interface. The user interface is more intuitive and makes it easy to search and play tracks as well as download them. New graphics capabilities make the experience more visual and provide music metadata and album art. And the download service is integrated, so there’s no need to come out of the music player and into the web browser to visit online music stores.

There is also a high performance 2 Megapixel camera that makes it fun to capture your favourite moments and share them with friends. Fast internet access and web browsing also make it easy to use your W850 to create and maintain blogsites, so you can keep your friends posted from wherever you are.

An impressive range of accessories means you can have even more fun out of your W850. Stereo Bluetooth™ headsets allow you to enjoy music in full stereo quality wire-free, and an advanced car handsfree set makes it safe to enjoy your music phone while driving. Music Desk stand speakers provide a boost to the sound to make the W850 the centre of any party.
The Sony Ericsson W850i is a UMTS 2100 and Tri-band GPRS 900/1800/1900 Walkman phone for Europe, Middle East, Africa.
It is commercially available in Precious Black or Golden White and starts shipping during Q3 2006.

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications serves the global communications market with innovative and feature-rich mobile phones, accessories, and PC-cards. Established as a joint venture by Sony and Ericsson in 2001, with global corporate functions located in London, the company employs approximately 6,000 people worldwide, including R&D sites in Europe, Japan, China and America. Sony Ericsson is the global title sponsor of the Women’s Tennis Association, and works with the Association to promote the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in over 80 cities during the year. For more information on Sony Ericsson, please visit www.sonyericsson.com

About Gracenote
Gracenote is a leader in global digital entertainment technology. Formerly known as CDDB, Gracenote provides businesses with critical embedded software and metadata that enable consumers to better manage, enjoy and discover digital media. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Gracenote also has offices in New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Seoul. Gracenote’s solutions are embedded in leading media players such as Apple iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, RealNetworks Rhapsody, Napster and AOL Winamp, as well as software applications for Creative and iRiver portable devices. Gracenote’s technology powers leading home and automobile consumer electronics brands such as Alpine, Denon and Marantz, Kenwood, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony and Yamaha, as well as international mobile music applications for KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Portugal), Oi (Brazil) and Golden Bytes (Benelux). For more information about Gracenote, please refer to www.gracenote.com/corporate/.

Any product features, specifications or statements in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual product features, specifications or forward-looking statements are subject to change.

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Sony Ericsson

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