Lifting the curtains of mystery, let me introduce you to the Sony Ericsson W850i and W810i. The two new musical sensations from the house of the Sony-Ericsson conglomerate. As understood, both are the forerunner phones of the ‘Walkman’ series and are manifested with the aim of satisfying the need for high-definition music. And to everyone’s delight, instead of stepping up one step above the other, both models stay true to their own way of providing best-in-class service.

Let’s start the procedure with the most expensive counterpart. It’s the Sony Ericsson W850i, priced a little higher than its Sony Ericsson W810i sibling. The phone is packed with features like TrackID, Mega Bass, Melody Composer and a 2 megapixel camera complete with flash mechanism. A VGA camera on the front panel is used for making video calls. A 1 GB memory card included with the phone supports memory space expansion. The phone’s built-in media player supports a wide range of file formats. The 2” TFT screen reflects up to 262K colors with a resolution of 240×320 pixels. The phone as a whole packs great sound playback and video capture capabilities into one package.

The Sony-Ericsson W810i, on the other hand, is a quad-band enabled GSM phone with EDGE support. The dedicated buttons on this phone help the user to download a music file with three clicks. The mounting of a digital music player, FM radio, and music management software makes arranging music and listening throughout a pleasurable experience. The form factor of both phones is the differentiating factor. In this sense, if the W850i presents a ‘slider’ form factor, the W810i presents a chocolate bar shape. Leaving this, the other difference is the screen size of both phones.

With elegant “swipe” operation and higher resolution image display, the phones differ subtly in their respective looks. For a user with a taste for slide design, W850i stands as the perfect choice. In the same breadth, the simplistic-looking W810i offers enough of a package to entice a buyer.