Sony Ericsson on Thursday revealed its W710 Walkman phone — a new cell phone/digital music player the company hopes will appeal to athletes and users who engage in an “active, sporty lifestyle.” The quad-band phone will start shipping in the third calendar quarter of 2006.
The W710 will come in two different finishes: Performance Graphics and Hatha Violet. In addition to GSM cell phone and music playing capabilities, the W710 includes a 2 megapixel camera with digital zoom and a 512MB Memory Stick Micro flash memory card.
The phone comes pre-loaded with fitness applications, including a jogging application that helps you measure speed and distance covered and a daily step counter that will reset itself at midnight. The Walkman player and integrated FM radio can be controlled using the external display.
The W710 comes with a clip that let you hang the phone on a bag, your waist or your arm using an armband. Earphones feature ear hooks to stay in place while you’re exercising. And the phone will mute music when you receive a call.
The W710 also features “flight mode” so you can listen to songs in “no phone zones” like onboard airplanes.
Supplied Windows software lets you transfer music, but when the W710 is connected to the computer using a USB cable, the Memory Stick Micro card is recognized as a mass storage device, so you can click and drag MP3 or unprotected AAC files to the phone as well.
The version coming to the US is the W710i — a quad-band EDGE-compatible phone.
Other features include Bluetooth connectivity, WAP 2.0, HTML and RSS support, and accessories including portable speakers, music cable, FM music transmitter and 1GB memory stick. No pricing was announced.
Sony Ericsson’s US Web site had not been updated with information about the W710i as Macworld posted this article.