New Walkman Phone Offers 4GB, 3G

Sony Ericsson W950iSony Ericsson's line of Walkman phones has been a modest success, the company revealed on Tuesday, announcing that nearly 3 million units have been sold. The company also unveiled its latest addition to the line, the sleek W950i.

The dark purple-colored phone will run on the Symbian operating system and will be UMTS-capable for connectivity to high-speed networks. A touch screen provides easy access to music files and 4GB of flash memory storage would put it in line with Apple's iPod Nano.

While the focus of the W950i Walkman phone is entertainment, Sony Ericsson said its choice of the Symbian OS would also make it useful in business applications. A multitude of third party programs are available for the operating system, which has long been offered by rival Nokia.

The phone would be the manufacturer's third to be based on the popular smartphone OS this year.

As with most of the Walkman phones, no announcement of a U.S. model has been made. Two versions would be available initially: one for Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and another for China dependent on the availability of 3G services.

The W950i will come with Disc2Phone, a software application that would allow a user to transfer music from the PC, and supports the capability to be used with a cellular carrier's direct download services.

Sony Ericsson said the W950i would be released in the third quarter of this year at a price of 300 to 400 euros ($350 to $450 USD).