When opened up it is a tad on the bulky side, and can be somewhat awkward to use. It has a rather retro-looking keypad, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, one of the main complaints is of the clamshell design; it just makes things needlessly confusing, especially when it has to be opened to make use of the camera; everything just becomes a bit too fiddly.

Speaking of the camera, it’s only fitting we discuss a little further; it’s not great, especially combined with the awkward clamshell design. At 3.2 megapixels, it will take decent enough pictures, but it’s just not fun to use.

As a walkman phone, this phones strength should be its music player, and it is; in fact, it’s really very good. Once the external touchscreen controls have been mastered, it’s just as good as most mp3 players, and with a brilliant 8gb of in-built memory, there’s plenty of room to store your favourite tracks.

All in all, this is a very good music phone, but not too great at most of its other tasks. If you like your music though, this should at least be a consideration.

Summary:

• Good Points: Excellent built-in memory, great music player, with very good sound quality.
• Bad Points: Awkward clamshell design, which tarnishes the phone as a whole and poor battery quality (despite what Sony Ericsson states).
• Others to Consider: Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, Motorola RAZR2.
• Free on Contract with: 02, Orange & T-Mobile.