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."

All in one?

[zoloto]

How many "all on one" devices do consumers really need?

On another note... haven't there been phones like this before? What's their claim to being the first?

http://tinyurl.com/6vq2z/ [tinyurl.com]

I like my seperate devices

[moofdaddy]

Everythign is getting so small now, tiny phones, tiny mp3 players, tiny cameras. It is not that difficult to get each device seperate. I hate this trend towards convergence because you end up with a crappy phone and a crappy mp3 player. I bought one of those phone/pda things and it was terrible. It wasn't half as good as my regular PDA or the phone I traded it in for. So instead i get two crappy devices in the size of one.

Focus on making things better, making phone reception clearer, i don't need to listen to music using my phone, thats what my iPod is for.

Re:All in one?

[gl4ss]

how many?

1.

that's the point of all in one.

that being said, this thing is pretty lame featurewise. phones have had mp3 players for ages.

Looks like Sony will fuck it up.

[gregvr]

Lessee, it's a Sony digital music format, so it'll be all fucked up. 1. Memory Stick? Give me a break. 2. I'm sure that I can't just put a FAT formatted flash card in it. I'm sure that I have to use some sort of fucking evil-ass Sony piece of crap, PC-only software for the sole purpose of COPYING FILES TO A FLASH CARD.

Convergence Convergence Convergence!

[ihatewinXP]

Well as much as some /.'ers hate the convergence of phones and would rather wear a utility belt - this looks like a great mix. I think the older generation instead of lamenting that most convergence phone/camera/music/pda phones dont do it right should applaud the ones that do. This looks like a great first step.

Most importantly the battery life kicks ass on this phone in both modes - I really think that this is the acid test for many - What good are feautures if there is no power to turn on the phone.

One day soon I will own a Phone / PDA / iPod / Camera (Still and Motion) with hopefully some GPS thrown in for good measure - Convergence is key - that or bigger pockets.

Hmmm

[paithuk]

"if you keep the phone off, otherwise about half that"

uh huh, because it's not like I'd be expecting to receive calls with this phone thing...

Maybe Sony thinks it's a new idea

[Anonymous Coward]

But my wife's Siemens SL45 is over three years old now. And it wasn't the first mp3 phone either.

The problem with "convergence"

[BlastM]

up to 30 hours of playback (if you keep the phone off, otherwise about half that).

The problem with devices converging is the compromises that are made. Instead of two seperate gadgets that do the job well, in this case a mobile phone and an MP3 player, you get one device that is substandard at everything. To me it seems as if the phone is just a gimmick to sell the MP3 player instead of being a functional replacement for a standalone phone.

Does it play Ogg Vorbis? I bet it doesn't, and I can name several standalone DAPs that do support it and probably have better audio quality.

A substandard MP3 player and a phone with poor battery life if you actually want to use both the components of this device? No thanks, I'll stick to my Rio Karma and my trusty old CDMA phone.

Re:All in one?

[ackthpt]

How many "all on one" devices do consumers really need?

'Single Point of Failure' comes to mind. I.e. it does everything for you and either dies or the battery runs out and your alone in the Wilderness of the Non-Conntected. Like those goofy cartoons from years ago that said things like, "The computers all were down today so we had to think." But more like, you do without the luxuries and have to borrow cell phones or find rapidly vanishing (in the UK anyway) public phones.

Or worse, all your stuff is on the phone and some weasel breaks in and copies it all and leaves you a message like "I'm Sorry Bitch"

Unconnected and lovin' it.

Re:All in one?

[jacksonj04]

It should be, but my PDA thinks it's a music player and my phone thinks it's my calendar and my iPod thinks it should be my contacts list.

And none of them do them well.

I either want a single device which does them all well, or my devices to do one thing and do that well. I would be quite content if my phone didn't try to offer me a bigger penis in between serving up music...

Re:All in one?

[timeOday]

On another note... haven't there been phones like this before? What's their claim to being the first?

Does being first really matter? The iPod wasn't the first of its kind, and look how profitable it is.

Combining the functionality of a phone, camera, pda, and Walkman into one is certainly doable technically (many of the components are common - battery, screen, processor, radio transciever). The hard part will be keeping it comprehensible, and making each part work well. My Sony Clie has all but the phone, and I can tell you the software needs a lot of work.

I sure hope they don't stop reinventing this "convergence device" wheel until they get it right.

WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

The "obvious" answer is one. The correct answer is unlimited. There is a point where you cannot keep putting devices together. It would be ridiculous to make an "all in one" device that is a phone, a camera, a walkman, and a printer. You would need a seperate "all in one" device that is a printer/fax/scanner/copier. So there are two "all in one" devices already. You can see where this is going.

off-topic: I need my phone to make phone calls. thats it.

ptpete

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason it's lame -- Sony proprietary Memory Stick.

Also, limited to T-Mobile (US customers) service.

Also, no price announced yet.

Also, DRM music only.

Re:Yeah...

[jasen666]

memory stick... don't care about too much

tmobile... great, that's my co. :)

DRM... where does it say that at? I read Ericsson's site and saw no mention of DRM.

Re:Sorry I Missed Your Call

[Dr. Spork]

No, see, the whole point is that unless you had your phone on vibrate you would miss their call if you were listening to an ipod. I assume this will do something like turn down the music volume when the phone actually rings, and that the caller will be heard in the headphones. This is one convergence device that makes sense.

Re:Yeah...

[doctor_no]

Problem is sir, the SD is also proprietary. SD is controlled by Matsushita, Toshiba, and Sandisk. MMC isn't proprietary, but by default pretty much all new MMC slots pretty much needs SD compatibility since consumers don't know the diffrence and expect SDs to work.

Why would Sony dump one proprietary standard just to adopt another which they have to pay licencing fees for? Quite honestly, the Sony-bashing regarding memorysticks is garbage. It would be a valid argument if the alternative was an open standard, however most people seem to endorse SDs. Out of all the pletohra of the small flash multimedia standards that constantly pop up I'm not sure why people only attack Sony.

As far as DRM goes, all other players also have DRM. plus it supports MP3s, so there's a way around it. Also, the phone is GSM/GPRS triband so it will likely work with other GSM services in the future.