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If you are looking for a midrange music oriented music phone you should probably read this article. When you say music phone, and it is not iPhone, then you say Sony Ericsson Walkman. The Sony Ericsson W508 is a great music minded folder type phone. Sony claims that this phone is not for the youth who normally go for models such as Sony Ericsson W380. However the W508 is here to replace the W380.


The Sony Ericsson W508 offers the full Walkman package at a bargain price. In terms of specs the Sony Ericsson W508 is similar with other Sony Ericsson slider phones, W910 and W595. Unfortunately all this three devices compete with each other; therefore in terms of sales this means disaster for the W508. In fact the only appealing features (in comparison with the other Walkman models) are its form factor and a 3.2 MP digital camera (way better than the old 2 MP camera on the W910). Also potential buyers might like the Style Up covers.




The Sony Ericsson W508 is shipped with a spare one. So why did the W508 arrived in the Sony Ericsson portfolio? Believe it or not, the W508 was created to save the W980 reputation. Sony Ericsson believed that their music player flagship, W980, will generate significant sales. Unfortunately they marketed with a high price list, therefore poor sales is the word of choice for the W980 sales success. But Sony Ericsson did not learn from the lack of success of the w980. They have positioned the new W508 at a price point higher than that of its two slider type predecessors with almost identical list specs. So we have a not flagship, music oriented slider, with a no nonsense design for middle aged men, with an asking price of an unsuccessful flagship music phone.

I am starting to wonder if Sony Ericsson actually has a marketing plan, or if they just change the draft depending how the wind blows. Beside itself, the main disadvantage of this phone are: the camera who lacks autofocus or for that matter LED flash, low grade video recording at only QVGA with 15 frames per second, no web browser screen auto rotate and no document reader (shocking). However the W508 tries to be a user friendly phone, by having ways to interact to you (like Track ID - to find certain tracks, Sense Me - so you can pick songs based on your mood, Shake Control and Even Gesture Control).

The W508 design is somewhat close to the design of the Sony Ericsson W980; the same layout of touch sensitive controls, two color choices (Poetic White and Metal Grey), approach this phone device to the flagship's design. A unique feature is the removable extra front cover. You can now choose whatever color or pattern you like (sunny orange, architectural purple, forest green, midnight summer, splashed art, radial blue and others). The phone's case is made entirely out of plastic. The front cover is a rather light glossy plastic; the back cover is made out of rough plastic.

The opening mechanism is not a high luxury feature. The opening is done only manually (can anyone say back to 2004). Even more cheaply is the sound of the plastic case when you open or close the phone. The dimensions of the Sony Ericsson W508 are average for a flip phone. It has a height of 93.5 mm, wide of 50 mm, deep of 14 mm with a weight of 98 g. On the left side of the phone we have the dock connector, while on the right side we have the volume control keys and with a switch for the touch sensitive controls. The three keys of the music player are a play / pause key and skip coward and backward keys that also work for seeking. The Sony Ericsson W508 has a TFT display with up to 256 K colors. It sports a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels wide of 2.2 inches.

The screen size allows it to accommodate up to 9 text and 4 service lines. Overall, the main display boasts vibrant colors, it has a good color reproduction and it performs decent under sunlight. The secondary display is monochrome with a diagonal of 1.1 inches and a resolution of 36 x 128 pixels. It offers information such as: time, battery charge, and signal strength and network type as well as song information during playback. However its legibility under sunlight is bad. When it is not lighted it even blends in with the plastic case. The Sony Ericsson W508 is shipped with Li Ion battery (BST 39) with 920 mAh. In the 2G network the standby time goes up to 400 hours, while in the 3G network it has the same standby value. In the 2G network the talk time is up to 10 hours, while in the 3G network the value lowers to 4 hours. If you will listen to music continuously, then the battery will get drained in 22 hours. The W508's battery needs two and a half hours to charge itself up. The W508 is equipped with a 3.15 MP digital camera, with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels.

The camera also sports 1632 x 1536 pixels, 1280 x 960 pixels and 640 x 480 pixels resolutions. You have a few settings available in the camera interface: shutter sound, white balance, effects (negative, solarize, sepia and black and white), timer, night mode and shooting mode. The W508 can record video at 320 x 240 pixel resolution with 30 frames per second. The videos taken with the W508 are average quality. The Sony Ericsson device sports a not hot swappable card slot, memory stick micro M2 up to 16 GB. The new walkman 3.0 software sports DRM 2 support as well as support for MTP, which makes for direct music transfers with Windows Media Player. The player supports a big collection of file formats and has several equalizer presets.

The Sony Ericsson W508 runs in the 2G network (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) and in the 3G network (HSDPA 2100 and HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100). The connectivity is ensured by the GPRS Class 10 (4+1 / 3+2 slots, 32 - 48 kbps), EDGE Class 10 (236.8 Kbps), HSDPA, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and USB. However the Wi-Fi is missing from the connectivity package. The Sony Ericsson W508 doesn't offer any significant upgrades than the already released slider models. The success of this phone is purely fictional. This device is for a small category of people. They will like it and buy it, but at the end of the day this phone will not be a market success. At bests it will have the same faith of the Sony Ericsson W980.