14 DAY TRIAL // Sony Ericsson has started to release the recently launched entry-level smartphone W8 in select markets.
It appears that India is among the first markets to get the budget phone, but Sony Ericsson is expected to launch it in other countries too.
Unfortunately, SE fans living in other regions than those selected by the handset maker to receive the phone, won't be able to purchase it.
For unknown reasons, Sony Ericsson officially stated that the W8 will only be released in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
The handset is now available for purchase in India from online retailers Flipkart and Letsbuy for Rs. 10,950 (about $245) without contract.
Sony Ericsson W8 was unveiled by the Swedish-Japanese joint venture in April and hit shelves next month.
As we already mentioned the W8 is a low-budget smartphone that runs Android 2.1 Eclair and with no hopes of receiving any major software upgrades in the future.
However, the main trait of the phone is the revamped music player, which puts the phone in the Walkman series.
Furthermore, the phone is equipped with a low-performance Qualcomm MSM7227 processor clocked at 600 MHz, which is complemented by the first generation Adreno 200 GPU (graphics processing unit).
The W8 packs 128 MB of internal memory, 168 MB RAM, as well as microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).
It is HSDPA-enabled and supports data transfer speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps download and up to 2 Mbps upload.
Other interesting features of the W8 include: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP connectivity, GPS with A-GPS support, Stereo FM radio with RDS and 3.0-megapixel photo snapper with camcorder (VGA@30fps).
The handset comes with a 3-inch capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors support and 320 x 480 pixels resolution, as well as Timescape user-friendly interface.