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Sony Ericsson’s W995 was announced a few months ago and released just recently.The W995- king of the Walkmans.

Here’s the review of W995:

Neat stuff

* Aluminium housing adds an undeniable “sexy” factor to the phone’s looks
* The kickstand has proven useful on numerous occasions
* The large-ish 2.6″ screen is nothing short of brilliant
* Playback keys on the side can be used while the phone is locked
* The 3.5 mm jack at the top enables you to plug in any pair of headphones on the fly
* Finally some nice stereo speakers on a Walkman phone
* 8.1 megapixel camera is more than welcome
* Did I mention it has face and smile detection, along with an LED flash?
* 7 preloaded games and 9 additional applications
* Included 8 gigabyte M2 card
* Wi-Fi and aGPS
* Cool themes

Small annoyances

* The kickstand could have felt sturdier
* Volume rocker needs some getting used to
* Keypad keys exhibit various amounts of feedback
* M2 card slot is under the back cover
* Rather small softkeys

The W995 is a fantastic media phone, despite the lack of a larger (preferably touch-enabled) screen. It’s got smarts, but it also definitely has looks. The W995 is by no means covered in aluminium – there are only 2 plates that cover most of the back and the front. Despite that, the phone is still lighter than, say a C905. The slider mechanism is also tighter and doesn’t allow any wobbling at all. The brushed look of the material is especially prominent here. Describing the phone side-by-side is, in my opinion, redundant.

Most amazing thing is that when you opend the kickstand, put it on a table horizontally and launch the Walkman player, the W995 looks exactly like a mini-stereo system with its brightly-lit (naturally, in orange) keys at the top and the front, the large screen on the front and the stereo speakers on the side. Believe me, whenever you want to listen to music or watch a video, you’ll want to set the W995 on its kickstand somewhere. Fact is, the kickstand clicks into place, which saves you the hassle of adjusting it manually in accordance with the surface.

The speakers themselves are pretty powerful and of very high quality. I doubt many would want them to be even louder. They make for a pleasurable video viewing experience – along with the screen! Speaking of watching videos – the phone may not support DivX (or XviD for that matter), but it comes with this really neat software which can convert any of your .avi, .mp4, .mov or .wmv films into a format that can be played on the phone – automatically as you transfer the videos.

Now, the audio output quality of the phone is superb. Its camera may not be able to replace a standalone point-and-shoot.Also worth mentioning is the fact that the phone ships with an 8 gigabyte M2 card.Well, in that case, you shouldn’t be surprised that the W995 also comes with high-quality noise-cancelling headphones, which, by the way, are super.

The phone’s camera pack 8.1 megapixels, an LED flash and autofocus.It also has face and smile recognition and BestPic, which enables you to take multiple photos in rapid succession. The quality of the images itself could have been better, but I’m sure it’ll get sorted out in future software updates. To be more precise, the colours are spot-on, but the details could have been better.

The phone records QVGA videos at 30fps. The audio quality is good, but it’s more than obvious that Sony Ericsson should have bumped up the video resolution.

t’s the same as on every other recent A2 feature phone from Sony Ericsson. There’s one difference, though – the settings menu is not tabbed any longer. This enables it to have one more sub-menu – the electronic user guide. You could say that’s both bad and good. The themes that come preloaded are also pretty nice. They employ nigh-hypnotizing animations and a very modernistic style.
Speaking of preloaded content, there are 7 pretty fun games that come with the phone and 9 more applications (excluding the ones from the organizer).
The software itself is as stable as can be.

Finally the additional connectivity options. First off, we have your usual Bluetooth connectivity with the A2DP profile. The assisted GPS is also a feature worth noting – it enables geo-tagging for photos, turn-by-turn navigation, Google maps and assists in the sporty Tracker app. Then we have a DLNA-certified Wi-Fi (b & g) chip on-board. Connecting to a wireless network is easy as pie and the speed and range are also pretty adequate.