Can Sony Ericsson W960i compete with Apple iPhone?

Sony Ericsson recently announced a new flagship Walkman handset, called W960i. It's a real music phone with 8GB internal memory it can hold up to 8000 songs, which is pretty much for a mobile phone and actully it's as much as iPhone (the better version) can hold. Speaking of which, Apples iPhone will out on June 29th, but only in USA and Sony Ericsson W960i will be available in the end of this year, so iPhone will have some advantage of that. On the other hand, in Europe the situation is different. iPhone will be out in the Europe in the end of this year or in early 2008. Let's see what happens. We might even see new version when the iPhone comes to the Europe.

8GB internal memory isn't the only similarity. Sony Ericsson W960i has touchscreen, just like the iPhone does, but it's not a multi touch and the screen is used by a stick. W960i has 2.6" screen, so obviously the iPhone has a bigger screen.

Of course these phones difference a lot of each other. Both are smartphones, but they have totally different operating systems. Sony Ericsson W960i has a Symbian UIQ OS and iPhone has OSX. This makes the phones totally different. W960i can have some advantage of it's OS, because there are already a lot of software out for Symbian UIQ. In the other hand. it's quite easy to develope apllications for iPhone. You just need to know PHP and stuff. Actually there are already some web applications out for iPhone. I really hope that SE have learnt from their mistakes with M600i and P990i. When M600i/P990i came out the OS was very buggy and now after many months its getting usable. The good thing is that Sony Ericson is working on with the OS and they just release a new version for P990i and W950i. It's nice to soo how good the OSX on iPhone really is... I have seen some videos and if the OS really is as fast as it's on those videos I'm sure iPhone is a great phone.

Then the design. iPhone has a nice clear design, but so does the W960i and I can't really choose, which one looks better. I need to see both in live, then I can probably make my desision. the big difference in design is that iPhone is totally based on touchsreen interface. it doesn't have number keys or anything like that, but W960i is just like a basic candybar phone. It doesn't offer much new...

Let's get back to the similarity, shalle we? iPhone has a 2 megapixel camera, but we really don't know how good the camera really is. If I have to make a guess I think W960i will beat iPhone when it comes to camera, because it has 3,2 megapixel camera with autofocus, but I think the camera isn't the most important thing when you are buying a music phone.

Basically, Apples iPhone has iPod inside and Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple said that it's the best iPhone they have ever made. So, I'm quite sure former iPhone users feels like home when they are using iPhones media player. W960i has a new version of it's Walkman player, but I'm quite sure it doesn't offer anyting revolutionary, but how knows...

The conclusion is that I think W960i can compete with iPhone. I think it's nice that Sony Ericsson finally announced phone that can be iPhone alternative.

19.06.2007. 08:05