Sony Ericsson has announced the W800i, its first Walkman phone. Sony Ericsson announced at 3GSM World Congress that it would later announce a line of Walkman phones.

The new W800 Walkman will come with a 512MB Memory Stick Duo which should be able to store around 150 tracks, or 10-12 full CDs. Both AAC and MP3 music formats are supported. They can be transferred to the W800 via Sony's Disk2Phone software (and most likely, knowing Sony and all, only with Disk2Phone software). No word on if the phone will work as a file storage medium, but I expect it will.

The 2 megapixel camera will sport autofocus, picture light, active lens cover and digital still camera interface. When the phone function is switched on expect around 15 hours of battery life, when the phone function is turned off expect 30 hours of pure music listening; pretty sweet if you ask me.

Sony Ericsson is clearly making that bet, today launching the first of its Walkman-branded phones (actually due out in the third quarter of this year). The Walkman brand now extends beyond Sony MiniDisc players, portable CD players and so on.

Others are also at advanced stages, with the bosses of many handset vendors at the recent 3GSM show declaring 'mobile music' their big idea for the year and, grabbing headlines galore, most eyes on the partnership that Apple and Motorola share to bring iTunes to the US giant's phones.
Sony Ericsson has announced that will work closely with Sony Connect and Sony BMG, its music division, on content