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AT&T and Sony Ericsson have announced that come July 19, they’ll be delivering up the new C905a Cyber-shot phone and W518a Walkman phone.
Both are consumer-focused and multimedia-driven. The C905a Cyber-shot is a slider phone – a straightforward keypad slides down – with a 2.4-inch QVGA scratch-resistant mineral glass screen.
The 4.8-ounce phone is slightly thick by today’s standards, measuring 4.09 by 1.93 by .71 inches, but flip it over for a look at its camera lens with protective slider, and you realize you’re essentially holding a digital camera.
The highest resolution of any in the AT&T lineup, the camera is 8.1 megapixels and includes face detection, autofocus, Xenon flash, red-eye reduction, 16-times digital zoom, GPS tagging and, among other features, something called BestPic, which shoots seven photos with one shutter click, allowing users to choose the best one.
On the phone end of things, it’s compatible with HSPDA 850/1900/2100 (tri-band) networks and GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 (quad-band) networks.
In addition to 3G speeds, there’s a GPS for turn-by-turn directions, AT&T Video Share, a music player, FM Radio, Bluetooth 2.0, and mobile e-mail and instant messaging capabilities. It’s also compatible with a Memory Stick Micro, for adding up to 16GB of storage.
The major talking points about the clamshell-style Sony Ericsson W518a Walkman phone are its direct feed to Facebook, its music player and its Shake Control technology.
Starting backward, Shake Control, made possible by an on-board accelerometer, lets users shuffle, skip songs and turn the music volume up or down with a flick of the wrist. Equally intriguing is Gesture Control, which reportedly lets users reject calls, or snooze the alarm, by simply waving a hand over the device’s 3.2-megapixel camera lens.
The Walkman music player supports MP3, WMA, ACC ACC+ and eACC+ files.
There’s stereo Bluetooth, FM Radio, an external music key, and music can be downloaded over the air using Napster Mobile and eMusic Mobile.
As for Facebook, just flip open the clamshell to check friends’ updates or change your own status. The W518’s standby screen features a rotating carousel of Facebook friends, letting a user so inclined stay continually in the loop.
The W518 supports HSPDA 850/1900/2100 GSM/EDGE 850/900 networks, weighs 3.35 ounces, measures 3.7 by 1.9 by 0.6 inches, includes up to 35MB of memory and features a 2.2-inch QVGA screen.
And, like the C905a, along with 3G high-speed data access, W518 users get aGPS, Java2ME technology for games and applications, conversational SMS, mobile e-mail and instant messaging support, and Media Net: Access NetFront 3.4 HTML browser.
After mail-in rebates, and with two-year service agreements, the C905a Cyber-shot will be priced at $179.99 and the W518a at $49.99.