14 DAY TRIAL // Sony Ericsson announces four new phones, which add to its global product portfolio and meet a number of specific regional market needs. Three models, the Z558, and W830 & W958c Walkman phones are optimized for China and South East Asia markets, while the Z550a is optimized for the American one.
Z558 is a Tri-Band GPRS 900/1800/1900 clamshell featuring a touch screen for Chinese character input, as well as Thai and English text recognition and one-touch SMS access. It is the first phone non-Symbian based in the Sony Ericsson range to offer a touch screen & stylus; and will be available as both the Z558c for mainland China and the Z558i for other selected markets. It features a bright 262k color touch screen and a 1.3 Megapixel camera for work and leisure. With 18MB of onboard memory expandable to 1GB, the Z558 has plenty of storage and connects easily to a PC for fast transfer of multimedia files and synchronization with your phone book and calendar. The handset will be available in 'Expresso Black' starting from October 2006.
The W830 Walkman phone is a specially adapted EDGE version of the recently introduced W850 Walkman phone. It will be available in two versions; W830c will feature a Chinese keypad whereas the W830i will be aimed at other SE Asia markets. Available in Precious Black & Golden White, the W830 is a good looking 'slider' phone that offers fast music downloads direct to the handset. W830 is configured out-of-the-box for the PlayNow 3.0 direct music download service featuring Sony BMG artists. The phone is also 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. The handset has plenty of storage space for music tracks featuring a 1GB memory stick PRO Duo supplied in-box, which is enough for around 900 songs in e-AAC+. Further more, the memory can be expanded to up to 4GB. The Walkman player 2.0 simplifies navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or music albums. Plus, there is also TrackID, which allows you to record a few seconds of a song, either via the microphone or the in-built FM radio. With one click, you can then send that clip to the Gracenote worldwide music database which will identify the track and relay the information back to the phone. So no more arguing about who sang that song on the radio!
The W958c Walkman phone is a GSM/GPRS variant of the ultra stylish W950, and has been developed specifically for Chinese market. It is equipped with a large 2.6'' touch screen for simple navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or music albums. The W958c is Sony Ericsson's second Symbian v9.1, UIQ 3.0 based handset for the Chinese market, the first being the recently launched M608c. With a 4GB flash memory, the W958c Walkman phone can store up to 4,000 songs. It's quick and easy to get these onto the phone in the first place, with transfer speeds of music from PC to phone of approximately 3 minutes per gigabyte. And thanks to the graphic-rich interface on the Walkman 2.0 player, it is simple to navigate around the music library by song, artist or playlist. It is also possible to search visually by browsing through downloaded album covers. The W958c Walkman phone is also fully configured for the PlayNow 3.0 full-track music download service featuring Sony BMG artists. It offers all the benefits of a combined phone and music player, enabling multi-tasking between listening to music, emailing and browsing the Internet.
The Z550a is a Quad Band GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 clamshell phone, developed specifically for the Americas market. It features a 1.3 Megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and bright 262k color display. With 25MB of onboard memory, expandable to 1GB with Memory Stick Micro (M2) support, it is possible to store a large collection of pictures or share them using MMS, Bluetooth or e-mail. The Z550a also has full HTML internet browsing and optional Bluetooth headset and car-handsfree kit for wireless freedom on the move.
