a.k.a. Hikaru Sony Ericsson W995 WI.FI

The Sony Ericsson Idou might have stolen the spotlight off the Sony Ericsson W995 but the truth is that the W995 is one of the most well equipped feature phones of the company.

At their press conference Sony Ericsson announced their strategic plans to converge their separate product lines such as Walkman and Cyber-shot into single powerful high-end products so that users will no longer have to choose between enhanced music or imaging capabilities. Lower range phones may still get some kind of specialization - be it Walkman or Cyber-shot, but that would be more of an added bonus feature than anything else.

Sony Ericsson W995 a.k.a. Hikaru goes officially live

As we already mentioned, the Sony Ericsson W995 (previously codenamed Hikaru)combines both music and imaging prowess and additionally it takes a shot at a field Sony Ericsson have never turned attention to - video playback.

The neat kickstand on the back of the W995 is used for watching videos, while the device is in landscape position on your desk for example.

Sony Ericsson W995

Unfortunately, the W995 2.6-inch display (the largest on a SE feature phone to-date) doesn't have a widescreen aspect ratio. The handset doesn't even have DivX or XviD support - that's a certainly a downside for a product with ambitions in video playback. So all in all, the only specialized video feature of the W995 remains its kick stand - not quite enough to qualify for a portable video player.

An additional disappointment is that SE have not done anything serious to pump up the video recording capabilities of the W995. While their competition is going for 720p HD video recording, the best that Sony Ericsson can offer with their top multimedia device W995 is 30fps video in WQVGA resolution.

Having said all that, we still favor the W995 since its feature package seems rather well balanced. The relatively large screen is coupled with Wi-Fi and GPS connectivity, there's a standard 3.5mm audio jack, and most of all the device is quite compact.

Sony Ericsson W995 in Cosmic Silver and Energetic Red