So the pre-ordering of the Xperia that I spoke about a couple of weeks back didn't go very well, plus the Prada was turning out to be a bit of a trophy wife. It looks good, feels nice, and I can take it places. But the Prada wasn't very smart. Don't misunderstand, I still love the Prada. But I needed a smart secretary.
So I got my hands on a Sony Ericsson W950i which is a continuation of SE's walkman line, as indicated by the "W" in the name.

Running through what's inside, it's a UIQ 3.0 Smartphone running an SE version of Symbian OS. It has GPRS, 3G and Bluetooth connectivity, and 4GB built -in memory. You can see things through a vivid 240x320 touch screen display, and interact with it through the stylus, or your fingers. The side buttons include a Play / Pause button, volume control, a back button and a jog dial.

Coming from SE, it's no surprise that the user interface is flashy and smooth. Lots of eye candy is everywhere in the customizable menu system, but the response rate for transitions and animations tends to be a bit on the slow side, probably owing to an underpowered processor.

Usage wise, the phone has a nifty RSS reader, and I've already set up my Gmail on the email client. Using email is surprisingly easy, and text entry is a breeze through the large keypad. The phone also allows a handwriting recognition mode, but I'm keeping the stylus for navigating around the phone. The sheer speed of entering text through a keypad cannot be surpassed by the hand writing recognition system, or the minute onscreen keyboard.

The phone has two major downsides though. It's sheer bulk, and the lack of a camera. Shocked? So was I. Apparently one can purchase a phone close to 40,000, without a built-in camera built-in. This doesn't make a huge difference to me, as I'm not a big fan of phone cameras. Their utter lack of photographic control just drives me nuts.

The bulk of the phone is the key downside then. It's almost as big as that oversized giant, Nokia's N95. But it's not an ugly bulk. The W950i looks quite impressive and even stylish.

In this world of phones which are packed with everything under the sun, the W950i is an exception. It combines a media player with a proper and focused mobile solution to be a near perfect mobile connectivity device.