Studio Press

Sony Ericsson introduces the W710 Walkman phone, which includes a motion sensor plus new fitness applications that measure your running speed, distance and time, or simply count your steps when walking.

Sporty good looks, a high performance Walkman player and easy-to-use interface all combine to make the W710 the perfect sporting partner, whether you’re running for fun or keeping a check on how much you walk each day.

Available in Performance Graphite and Hatha Violet the phone also features a 2 Megapixel camera with digital zoom and comes supplied with 512MB Memory Stick Micro (M2) - enough to keep you going through the longest walk or fitness session, although this can be expanded to 1GB if you’re left wanting more.

Fitness applications included as standard help you take your Walkman phone into new territory. The jogging application can be accessed easily from both the sub display and main display to measure both speed and distance covered while out running. There’s also a daily step counter that resets automatically at midnight and your progress is displayed even when the phone is on standby.

The user interface is easy to use while on the move. The fitness application, Walkman player and FM radio can all be controlled using the external display and the quick access keys next to it - so you don’t have to open the phone and find yourself losing concentration.

To add even more dimensions to your active life, the W710 comes with the very latest Sony Ericsson accessories. The Active Clip IAC-60 is specially designed to make the W710 accessible and comfortable to wear. Clipped to your bag, waist or arm by way of a highly adaptable strap, it makes using all the features on the W710 easy when working out.

We all know the frustration of earphones falling out when we’re on the move. With the Stereo Portable Handsfree HPM-65 that is eliminated, making it the perfect handsfree for the W710. A light design with ear hooks give a stable fit, while a standard 3.5 mm plug means you can change the earphones if you wish. As with all Walkman phones, the music mutes when the phone rings, so you need never miss a call.

Supplied Disc2Phone Music Management Software allows you to easily rip your CDs and transfer tracks from your PC to your phone. You can also transfer tracks to your phone that you’ve already ripped into your existing music libraries; just ‘drag and drop’ and the full metadata – artist, album and track – will be transferred too. When the W710 is connected to your PC with the USB cable, the PC recognises the Memory Stick Micro (M2) as an external hard drive, so you can easily and quickly transfer music files to the Memory Stick in this way.

Now you can easily discover the title and artist of a song you’re listening to on the phone’s radio or even your own radio at home or in the car. TrackID powered by Gracenote Mobile MusicID is a new service which means you can record a few seconds of a song either via the microphone or the in built FM radio and then with one click send that clip to the Gracenote worldwide music database which will identify the track and relay the information back to the W710 phone.

The Sony Ericsson W710 is a Quad-band EDGE/GPRS Walkman phone commercially available in Performance Graphite and Hatha Violet and starts shipping during Q3 2006.-By Jonathan Cheah