Sony Ericsson W995 from 2009

The Sony Ericsson W995 is perhaps my number one favorite of all the devices I’ve reviewed outside of the smartphone era. The retractable device had a real stand to watch a movie. We discuss the Sony Ericsson W995 in ‘The forgotten phone’.

Sony Ericsson W995

In 2009, Sony Ericsson introduced a new device from the Walkman series; the Sony Ericsson W995. This was also the year in which the smartphone really started to gain popularity, in 2010 the Xperia X10 came on the market. This phone featured a brushed steel casing and a premium design. At that time, the so-called slider model was very popular and you could slide open the W995 after which the keyboard appeared.

Multimedia

The W995 had a 2.6 inch TFT display with 256,000 colors on the front. On the left, the large charger input was quite noticeable, along with the Walkman key. Numerous multimedia keys were located on the right side of the W995. Think of buttons for the music player, volume button and shutter button for the camera. The back featured an 8.1 megapixel camera, but even more special was the kickstand; the so-called kickstand. This allowed you to put the device down to watch a movie, for example. The camera could also be used to film in 320p.

Despite being a Walkman series device, the focus of the device was on ‘video’. Still, the Sony Ericsson W995 had everything to offer when it comes to music, the device is equipped with stereo speakers on both the top and bottom. The phone was also equipped with a 3.5 mm connection and its own YouTube app. Of course, that application cannot be compared at all with how we know the app now.

Navigation and bowling

Another application found on the Sony Ericsson W995 was Google Maps. You could also use WayFinder as a trial version. In addition to GPS, navigation always required an active internet connection, and the size of the bundle is much larger today than it was back then. You could also bowl ‘with’ the device thanks to the pre-installed game. Thanks to the sensors, you could make the same movement with the phone to throw the ball, just like with a Nintendo Wii.

The Sony Ericsson W995 was equipped with its own SE interface, which contained various well-known applications, for example. Think of the PlayNow Arena and of course TrackID. It was also interesting that the W995 was already equipped with WiFi. There was also a 930 mAh battery and 120MB of storage space. This could be expanded with a Memory Stick Micro M2 memory card of up to 16GB.

In 2009, the Sony Ericsson W995 appeared on the market in the colors black, silver and red/dark pink. Some colors were only available from different providers. The device had a price of around 400 euros. The phone immediately received competition from the Samsung S8300 UltraTouch.

I was the first in the Benelux to review the device for GSM Helpdesk and found it to be one of the nicest phones I’ve ever tested. It was a complete device that was very pleasant to operate.

Sony Ericsson W995 summarized in 5 points:

• Kickstand on the back as standard
• Stereo speakers
• Wi-Fi
• Brushed steel
• Plenty of keys on the side