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Sony Ericsson Walkman W902 mobile phone

Image-conscious Walkman phone gets a snappier snapper

Shooting settings can be tweaked with various white balance and scene settings, plus other multi-shot, panorama and image colourisation options. There’s an image stabiliser too (you probably won’t notice much difference), plus a positioning option that adds location metadata to snaps.

This uses cellsite mapping information rather than GPS to get an approximate fix, so a rough position of where your image was taken can be shown up on a suitable mapping service or application - including Google Maps on the phone itself. Images can be uploaded to blogs straight after snapping using standard Blogger software, or automatically touched up using the standard issue Photo fix app. Additional PhotoDJ editing software is available too.

Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman mobile phone

The music keys are lined up on the same side as the camera and volume control buttons

The stills camera may be a step up for a Walkman phone, but video capture quality isn’t a great leap forward. Like the C902, it shoots at maximum QVGA resolution at 30 frames per second, so gives smooth played back but not in great quality. You can get decent playback though for video files copied over or downloaded to the handset, albeit on the limited-sized display.

Sony Ericsson has also pre-loaded a YouTube app on the phone, which enables you to easily upload footage you’ve shot straight from the phone, using your YouTube account details, or browse, search and view content from the service over the air.

Imaging is one thing, but music is at the heart of any Walkman phone. The Walkman player’s audio performance is superb for a mobile handset, with terrific depth and a nicely balanced sound. The earphones boxed with it are much better than the norm for a music phone, the in-ear buds putting on a good show with decent bass and clarity. Thanks to the 3.5mm adapter, you can plug in your own headphones if you want to boost delivery quality further. Bluetooth earphones are also supported, and as an alternative the speaker on the back panel is loud and not too awful when lying down.

The W902 has the same Walkman Player software as the likes of the W980, so is straightforward to operate with its attractive user interface that’s consistent with the rest of the media gallery. Walkman music player track categories extend further than most music mobiles, covering albums, artists, tracks, genres, playlists, years, audio books and podcasts, plus Sony Ericsson’s mood-and-tempo generated SensMe option – enabling you to create playlists automatically based on how you want the tracks to ‘feel’.

Next page: Verdict

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