Sony Ericsson has announced the launch of W550, the latest entrant to its Walkman phone family.

The W550 comes in a compact swivel phone design and features an integrated 1.3 MP camera, stereo music, full Internet browsing capacity and a credible games console.

Steve Walker, head, product marketing, Sony Ericsson, said, "The W550 is an exciting product that combines music, imaging and game playing to offer consumers fun and entertainment, wherever they are, while still being a great phone."

"This new Walkman phone is aimed at fun seekers, who enjoy a good party and like to share enjoyable moments with friends. There are so many entertainment features crammed into this small, sleek handset, that whether you are alone or with a group of friends, the W550 can satisfy all your entertainment needs," Walker added.

The new phone incorporates a 1.3 MP camera with 4x digital zoom for close-ups and uses Bluetooth or MMS for storing images that can also be transferred to a PC through USB cable.

The W550's digital music player delivers considerably good sound quality through 2 external high quality stereo speakers or alternatively through quality stereo headphones additionally provided. Loading music onto the handset is made simple by the Disc2Phone PC software while the 256 MB internal memory allows for storage of 60 to 120 standard MP3 or AAC music tracks. Also, the phone has a battery life of up to 30 hours of music.

The full Internet browser offers a choice of viewing modes: full-scale mode enables users to scroll round the complete page, or information can be presented in a single column.

The company said the W550 also offers an authentic games console experience with its 1.8-inch 262K-color TFT display that provides razor sharp pictures. Games can be played with the screen positioned horizontally and buttons on the left and right of the screen being used for two-handed control.

The phone come with pre-installed 3D versions of Worms Forts: Under Siege 3D developed by THQ Wireless, Extreme Air Snowboarding developed by Digital Chocolate and a new multiplayer version of Midway's Gauntlet, developed under license by TKO Software. The W550 also supports multi-player peer-2-peer gaming over Bluetooth.

Sony Ericsson said the W550 would be available during early Q4.

From TECHTREE.com