Images tend to have well-balanced, zingy colour, and snaps can look acceptable enough. It’s fine for casual shooting, but snapping plays second fiddle to music. Shooting tweakery is functional rather than comprehensive, checking the regular shot adjustments, multi-shot and colour effects options.

Both images and video clips can be snapped and immediately uploaded to Blogger accounts directly from the handset. Depending on which operator you bought the W959 from, you may find other online upload options supported too. Incidentally, unlike the W910, there’s no forward-facing video call camera – though you can make and take video calls with the main camera, or use stored images as your outgoing pic when talking.

The 3.2Mp snapper is not the most versatile of shooters

A selection of extra entertainment applications, fun features and organiser tools make up a decent mix of additional functionality for this class of handset. It’s bustling with useful and throwaway stuff: the excellent standard-issue TrackID automatic song identification software is included, as is stuff like Comeks Strips cartoon maker and Rock Bobblehead.

Sony Ericsson delivers the usual organiser staples. Walkman-regular Music Mate software is included for would-be musicians, while gamers can while away time with four games.

There’s plenty to play with on this phone, but voice calling is still likely to be one of the most-used features – and this phone ticks all the right boxes with a solid, reliable performance. Sony Ericsson estimates the W595’s battery can last up to 385 hours in standby - 365 hours on 3G networks - or give up to nine hours of calls on GSM networks or four-and-a-half hours on 3G networks. This should be sufficient for most users.

Regular music playing or online activity will, of course, shave off battery life. Sony Ericsson reckons that using the music player alone, the phone can run for up to 25 hours between charges. With our average level of usage, however, we managed a good three days before we needed to plug in the charger.

Verdict

It’s easy to warm to this handset, with its appealing design and functionality. While the Walkman W595 doesn’t break new ground for the music phone range, it offers a fine set of features for the price, including much of what the W910 previously offered. It has a pleasing usability about it too, while its headline music player package delivers a high quality tune-playing performance. It may not be a flagship phone, but the W595 is still an attractive and able addition to the Walkman fleet.