Sony Ericsson W700i

Expected Q2 2006
4th April 2006

The Sony Ericsson W700i is another addition to that company's line of "Walkman" phones.. but this one looks very familiar.

In fact, the W700i is identical to the Sony Ericsson W800i in every way that we can find, except for the colour scheme and some cosmetic detailing, and the fact that it comes with a 256Mb memory card rather than the 512Mb on the W800. Out goes the W800i's funky orange and white colour scheme (that wasn't to everyone's taste) and in comes a "titanium gold" scheme (that also might not be to everyone's taste). To make life a little more confusing, there will also be a "smooth white" colour scheme which makes the W700i look almost identical to the W800i.

It has the same 2 megapixel camera (although it lacks the W800's autofocus), 176x220 pixel display, Memory Stick Pro Duo slot, Walkman software, Bluetooth, email client, web browser, plus all the usual features. And apart from the software aspect, it's pretty much the same as the K750i and D750i too.

So, what's the point of the Sony Ericsson W700i at all? Well, the W800 is going to be replaced by the slightly better Sony Ericsson W810, and we guess that Sony Ericsson realised that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the W800i so they just tweaked it and moved it a notch down the product range. The W800 iwas our favourite phone of 2005, so this seems to be a pretty reasonable idea.

There will be two variants, both tri-band 900/1800/1900 devices. The W700c will be for mainland China, the W700i for the Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia. The W700 should be available in Q2 2006.

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