The new Sony Ericsson W8

The new Sony Ericsson W8 is ideally suited as a music phone. It offers the technology to store your digital music collection as well as play music files in various formats. But is it functional enough to replace a standalone MP3 player like an iPod?

Walkman Music Player

Sony Ericsson has not released a Walkman music phone for quite a while, and the Sony Ericsson W8 is the first touch screen device to offer this technology. This allows several different formats of music files to be supported; in this case MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV are all supported by the music player, and represent the most common types of music files. Therefore it is unlikely that you will have any tracks that the device is unable to play.

Internal Storage

The Sony Ericsson W8 comes with 128 MB of storage as standard, allowing a good number of music tracks to be stored, straight out of the box. But for those who want to keep their entire digital music collection stored on the phone, and really take advantage of the music specifications on offer, a micro SD card slot is also integrated onto into the phone. Utilizing this is simple; by installing a memory card (up to 16GB capacity) you have the ability to store thousands of music tracks on the phone. 

Once you have loaded your music tracks onto your phone via a PC (thanks to the micro USB connection), you even have the ability to assign MP3 tracks as ring tones. Also, there is a 3.5 mm audio jack located on the top of the handset. This can be used with earphones to listen to your music, as well as allowing devices such as hands free headsets and portable speakers to be used. 

Of course there is much more to the Sony Ericsson W8 than its functionality as a music player. An impressive touch screen allows users to seamlessly browse the internet, and carry out social networking, as well as browse the Android Market for new apps to download. 

But to answer the question at the start of the article, can the Sony Ericsson W8 replace a standalone MP3 player? In my opinion it’s a resounding yes; it can play multiple music formats, and accommodate headphones, and users can utilise 16GB of internal storage. But as an added bonus, you get all the functionality of a touch screen, and the Android operating system.