The Sony Ericsson W700i is almost identical to the W800i walkman phone. The only differences are the change to a new gold colour, a smaller memory card, and the lack of autofocus in the camera. The gold colour is attractive, and if the camera is not that important to you, you can save a few pounds by choosing the W700i. However, we would urge you to spend a little extra and choose the W810i which offers all the features of the W800i including autofocus and a 512 Mbyte memory card and has a 5-way navigation button instead of the slightly awkward joystick used on the W700i.

Dimensions 100 x 46 x 20.5 mm
Weight 99 g

The W700i uses basically the same chassis as the W800i with the only difference being the colour scheme. The previous model was white and orange but the W700i has a more refreshing and refined titanium gold look. The rest of the unit is exactly the same so it's still a well designed and easy to use handset. Sony Ericsson has employed a simple but effective button layout with two selection keys on either side of the dedicated Walkman button, back and clear buttons as well as a five-way navigational joystick. The joystick is sometimes difficult to manoeuvre due to its stubby design and may pose a problem to those with large fingers. To support the on-board music player, the W700i includes a play/pause and a volume up/down button on each side of the phone. The latter can be used for both music and voice call volume.

One aspect of the controls that is quite frustrating is the keypad: this hasn't been improved from the W800i. The keys aren't raised enough and require a firm press to activate. Also, users of the T9 input system will not be pleased about using the joystick to change words either. This means you have to lift your fingers away from the keypad, slowing down input considerably.

262k color 176x220 pixel resolution display

On the back of the phone is a 2.0 megapixel fixed focus camera with flash and a lens cover. The quality of photos it takes are fairly decent, but it is not good enough to replace a stand-alone digital camera. The W700i camera takes photos at Small (160x120), Medium (640x480) and Large (1632x1224) resolutions and can shoot in panorama, with frames or in burst mode. Our main concern with the camera is the lens cover. When sliding the phone out of your pocket, the cover can easily slide open, meaning the camera application starts - even when the phone has its keypad lock activated.

The camera has extensive settings including night mode, light, a self-timer, four effects (colour, sepia, etc.), white balance and time and date. Also included is a video camera, which can record until the memory stick is full. Sony Ericsson includes a 256MB memory stick in the sales package as well as the latest version of Disk2Phone software.

Sony Ericsson rates the W700i's battery life at nine hours of talk time and up to 400 minutes on standby. We found these figures were pretty close to the mark and this is pretty impressive, especially considering the amount of features the W700i offers.

The W700 builds on the legacy of the first Walkman phone, the W800. "This phone will appeal to anyone who wants a quality music player in their phone for occasional listening, " said Jan Wreby, Corporate Executive Vice President, Head of Sale and Marketing, Sony Ericsson.

The W700 comes supplied with high quality headset that plugs into a standard connector, so you can connect a favourite headset of your own if you wish. There are also a full range of plug-in music accessories from small portable speakers to car systems available.

Music management couldn't be simpler. All the software and cables you need to rip CDs to your PC and transfer them to the phone is included the box.

W700i has a 34 MB shared memory
Memory Stick Duo Pro, 256 MB card is included with the set.

Tri-band GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 Mhz
WAP 2.0 XHTML
Bluetooth 2.0
USB 2.0 mass storage
USB cable in box
Expandable Memory Stick Duo slot
Infrared port
Modem
PC synchronization