Sony Ericsson W995 review: Ready, set, play

Convergence is the buzzword and the Cyber-shot Walkman affair-turned-marriage is busy producing offspring. And hey, the young Sony Ericsson W995 sure makes the first-born W902 look like a helpless orphan.

Easily the best equipped feature phone of the house, Sony Ericsson W995, still more popular as Hikaru, packs in all there is to find at the top of the company portfolio. The full set of connectivity options, the biggest screen on a Sony Ericsson feature phone to date, GPS, Wi-Fi and the great user interface make a sweet enough package on their own.

But in the case of W995 they're just the perfect background for the unprecedented blend of music and imaging. The Cyber-shot line is graciously lending its 8 megapixel triumph, while the music dowry includes the latest Walkman 4.0 player, with all the bare Walkman necessities such as Shake control and SensMe. And there's more to make it even sweeter. We called it a marriage and Sony Ericsson have taken due care of the wedding presents. We don't know what else to call the kickstand and the on-board 3.5 mm audio jack.

So Sony Ericsson W995 has it all, doesn't it? Now let's see if it gives it all. 

   
Sony Ericsson W995 official photos
Key Features:
Brushed metal body parts 
Quad-band GSM, dual-band HSDPA 
2.6" 256K-color TFT display of QVGA resolution 
8.1 megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection 
WQVGA video recording at 30fps 
Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality 
Wi-Fi with DLNA support 
Bluetooth (with A2DP) and USB v2.0 
Accelerometer sensor 
118MB of internal memory and M2 memory expansion (8GB card included) 
Stereo speakers 
3.5 mm audio jack 
Kickstand 
Walkman 4.0 music player with Shake control and SensMe 
FM radio with RDS 
Multi-tasking support 
Smart dialing 
Comfortable keypad, nice sliding mechanism 
Main disadvantages:
Video recording limited to WQVGA 
No lens protection 
No DivX/XviD video support (though it's touted as a video-centric phone) 
Kickstand construction could've been more reliable 
No office document viewer