Talk, Tunes and the phone of Tomorrow!

Over the past couple of years, Sony Ericsson have been gradually refining their walkman phones. The W890i is their finest model yet.

Up until recently, Sony Ericsson had a whole series of phones that were mighty fine music-players, but left things to be desired on the phone front - or vice-versa. With the W890i, all of that has changed.

As a phone, the W890i has all the gadgets and gizmos you have come to expect from a high-end pocket-blower: The screen is sharp and clear, reception is fabulous and the menu system is the classic Sony Ericsson-style: easy to use and quick to learn. Battery-wise, you get around a week's worth of standby time, so it takes an act of incredible clumsiness and forgetfulness to find yourself with an empty phone battery.

While the phone is very good indeed, it's the music playing part of the W980i which really gets us going. You get 28MB worth of built-in memory which is enough for ringtones and suchlike, in addition there's a Memory Stick Micro slot. This means you can use up to 4GB worth of memory at a time - and of course, you can carry as many of these tiny cards with you as you like.

The sound quality from this thing is downright mind-blowing, and you can control your tunes with a simple, blase flick of the wrist. If you go tired of the tunes you have in your pocket, you can download some more from the internet, straight to your phone. If all else fails, there's a radio built-in as well, to get some new inspiration.

Still not impressed? You should be, but add Java support, 3D gaming, video calling, A2DP bluetooth wireless headset support, PictBridge printing, and full USB support (so you can use your phone as a memory stick) to the mix, and it shouldn't be hard to realise why we're so excited about this phone.

With a battery life that would make the Duracell bunny a deep shade of green with jealousy, swanky looks, and hundreds of hours of non-stop rockage, we think we may just have found the perfect phone for the festival season. Bring on the gods of rock!

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