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Sony Ericsson Announces First Walkman Phone
jonknee writes "Sony Ericsson has announced the first in a new line of self-described "Walkman phones" that specialize in playing music. The W800i features a 512MB memory card to store tunes and up to 30 hours of playback (if you keep the phone off, otherwise about half that). We should see a Motorola phone with iTunes onboard within the next two weeks, making March the month of music phones."
Nokia announced a similar device last month. It had a slight bump in storage, i think it was 768 flash memory. The problem with the nokia version according to early tech specs is it looks like they sacraficed battery capacity more then the other phone companies (moto and ericsson) in order to be able to play music. The coolest feature of that phone though wasn't the music ability but rather the 360 degree rotatable ability of the screen.
The Nokia phone I think is expected to hit in time for summer, there goal was to have it out by beach time so that people would only have to bring one device with them when they beached it. We'll see how it goes though.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Photos and more here
fuvoo: watch something
Here's another article about the release:0 050301&PHPSESSID=280a890691a670ebbee1282abba931df
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1028&date=2
I've been listening to MP3s on my N-Gage with a 512MB MMC card and stereo headphones for 1.5 years. Granted, I don't have a dedicated start/stop button. On the subject of annoying behavior, yes, I can play songs over the loudspeaker and I can make MP3 files my ringtone should I ever need to annoy you.
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
I'm mystified by this because my Sony Ericsson V800 already does this. From the pictures, the phone seems to run the same software too. So aside from branding, I fail to see the difference. The V800 also has expandable memory via Memory Stick Pro Duo which cards are available up to 1GB for.
:( But with a little enginuity you could make your headphones work too.
Granted the V800 is not "available" in America, but one can be snagged from eBay and unlocked/flashed. The same thing you're going to have to do with the W800 though.
The drawback to the V800 though is that the earphones connect through the T28 connector as there is no mini-headphone jack.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
But for a lot of people carrying shit around is a real pain. I have a phone and a PDA and a Network Walkman. The PDA never leaves my bedroom. My Walkman rarely comes with me. My phone is always with me.
Having more PDA and music functionality in my phone (my phone has radio but appears to need some crappy Nokia headset for it) would be a definate advantage to me.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I have a Motorolla E680, It has 50 megs built in, but an SD slot in the bottom (now filled with a 1GB card)
it also comes with real player, so I play my mp3s or mp4/real player format movies in 320x240 resolution.
Not only that is the phone has stereo sound, hand writing recognition on the touch screen, a VGA resolution camera, bluetooth and full GSM world phone capabilities.
The downside is the USB1.1, USB2.0 would have been better.
The greatest part: The phone runs linux with the J2ME over top. Write your own apps in J2ME,
for example, I can SSH from my phone to my network and deal with anything while listening to my mp3s and taking phone calls.
I've been doing this since December, Although I had to order my phone from China, it is fully english and cost me just under 600 dollars.
So why is this new technology anyway?
If you haven't noticed, music tends to be choppy because its double if not triple encoded. IVR system uses compressed music, call centers usually are connected via voip(add another compress) and then your cell phone network will compress it again. Try calling a place that puts you on hold with a land line compared to cell phone. I always thought their IVR system music was fucked up.
My Treo 600 with a 1GB SD card holds approx 11 CD's ripped to mp3 at a sample rate of 44k
1GB SD cards are available at a cost of approx $70.
In addition to phone + mp3's the Treo can:
- Runs the palm O/S and applications which run on the Palms
- receives email with attachments (word, excel, powerpoint, pdf, zip)
- browses the web
- syncs with Outlook
- servers as a cellular modem (using PDA net)
- creates word, excel and power point documents
- receives and sends text messages
- Serve as a camera (the Treo 600 resolution is weak)
At the end of the day the Treo is a solid all in one with a very good form factor.
I've got an old Kycera 7135 that works well. Just drop in a 512GB SD card that you've copied MP3s to via a card reader and you're in business. Lately I've been using it to listen to podcasts pulled down by iPodder.
Yeah, explaining the joke sucks, but for the one or two folk still scratching their heads:
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http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
My motorola v600 can record a phone conversation into the phone, unfortunatly it only has 5 megs of memory in it and no expansion, but you could probably store 20+ mins of phone audio in that and bluetooth it out, unless your phone has been neutered by your friendly cell company.
:)
5 Megs, that's all us canadians get, and for hybrid devices, I'm all for it, it may be a sub standard mp3 player and only a decent phone and adequate 1.3 megapixel camera in your phone, but in a few years, the battery life problem will be solved and we'll all hopefully be watching tv and video conferencing with out cell phones. Multi purpose is good, if they can put the entire functionality and power of my pc today into my cellphone of tomorrow, I will be very happy with that device, you can't blame them for trying. Lets stop innovating and live in the past!!
Stupid marketting strategies are dumb though, stop the bs sony, sell aibo's for $50 and I'll be impressed you bastards!!..
When I followed the tinyurl link, I was expecting goatse or something, not something THAT bad, man.