Sony Mobile Evangelist

Today Sony Ericsson announces the successor of W380 - the W508. Similar to its predecessor, the phone's exterior features 3 buttons which control the music playback and one OLED display, hidden underneath the glossy top part. Unlike the W380 though, it comes in a much sleeker, yet less extravagant body.

- "The W508 Walkman phone builds on our iconic Walkman range and the successful W380," said Alexandre Cardon, Global Product Marketing Manager for Music at Sony Ericsson, and continues: "For those who like to express their style and individuality through their mobile phone we've brought our creative design team in to design stylish changeable covers so that W508 offers a truly interactive and individual experience."

As a midrange Walkman phone, the W508 runs on the A2 platform and thus features SensMe and Shake Control (now with light effects!) in its Music player menu. TrackID is there as well, now also boasting text search. The phone comes with a 1GB M2 memory card. Some people will be delighted to know that it also comes with 1 additional Style-Up cover, which can be swapped with the phone's generic one at any time.


The other, rather differentiating thing about the phone is its ability to mute phone calls and alarms with a sweep of one's palm, just like on the W380. This is what Sony Ericsson calls gesture control. Otherwise, the W508 packs all of your standard mid-end specifications, including a 3.2 mega pixel camera with PhotoFix and Photo/Video blogging, quad-band GSM / EDGE, 2100 MHz UMTS / HSDPA (tri-band 3G for America), Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and a 2.2" internal screen. Both screens are scratch-resistant. As a last note, I'd like to add that the phone also features the newly-introduced YouTube player (embedded in the Media center), as well as MMS and SMS conversation messaging (chat view).

It measures 93.5 x 50 x 14 millimetres and weighs in at 98 grams. The W508 will be available in selected markets from the second quarter of the year. It will come with several different Style-Up covers; Architectural Purple, Forest Green, Metal Grey (main colour), Midnight Summer, Mysterious Graffiti, Poetic White (main colour), Radial Blue, Splashed Art, Street Hip-hop, and Sunny Orange. The phone comes in the two main colour variants, and with one StyleUp cover bundled.


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