Sony Ericsson unveils its Live with Walkman smartphone

PHONE MAKER Sony Ericsson has announced its Live smartphone with Walkman technology.

The pint sized Live with Walkman smartphone will be tipping up sometime in the fourth quarter this year with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Its focus is on content services such as music and Facebook integration.

Nikolaus Scheurer, head of product marketing at Sony Ericsson said, "Consumers want smartphones to deliver a rich and social entertainment experience. Rather than a one dimensional music experience, they want instant and seamless access to new content, combined with the ability to share and connect with their friends. The Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman provides exactly this, in a powerful package with great style."

The Live with Walkman will have a 3.2in TFT touchscreen with 320x480 resolution and a 1GHz processor. There will be 320MB of onboard memory and the phone will also have a microSD card slot for expansion.

A 'deep Facebook integration' will allow access to the web site through the gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar. The 'Infinite' button will connect users to Sony's Qriocity service which provides music and video content.

Sony's 'Xloud' technology enhances the audio output from the inbuilt stereo speakers and TrackID can indentify what music you're listening to.

The phone will be 14.2mm thick and weigh 115g. It will have a 5MP rear facing camera with dedicated button and a front facing webcam for video chat.

The handset is fairly similar to the Mix Walkman phone Sony announced back in June, but the Live with Walkman is a higher specification handset. There is no price quoted for the Live with Walkman yet, but the Mix Walkman retails for around £100 so we expect the Live to be priced between £150 and £200. µ