In all my years of reviewing mobile phones, surprisingly enough I had never reviewed or even used a Sony Ericsson handset until the W705 arrived on my desk. I have friends who have a love/hate relationship with the brand. One friend has had nothing but hardware problems with them and has had numerous replacement phones over the years – yet he still updates to the latest Sony Ericsson model when it’s released. So I figured they must have something going for them – and after a couple of weeks using the W705 I experienced both frustration and joy.

Frustrations were associated with texting and mainly the fact that ‘space’ has been mapped to the ‘hash’ key instead of the ‘0’ key like every other mobile phone I’ve used. Why? Just to be different? Well unless you’re used to Sony Ericssons then this one small difference proves to be one huge pain in the arse.

After over 10 years of texting using the ‘0’ key for spaces, retraining my brain and the muscle memory of my thumb was impossible in the 3 weeks I had the W705. The sheer amount of text messages I sent with ‘+’ between words was embarrassing.

My other issue was that it seemed just too long-winded to send a new text message to a recipient in your contacts. Perhaps one click too many for what should be a very streamlined and convenient feature – considering it would easily be the most utilised feature on any mobile handset.

The sliding action of the W705 felt a little too fragile for my liking as it doesn’t have the clicky nature of the comparable Nokia models. There was also nothing substantial for the thumb to get a purchase on to slide the top up. I either ended up inadvertently pressing a button or plastering thumbprints all over the screen.

That aside, the W705 is jam-packed with great little applications, features and utilities. First and foremost is the fact that it’s a fully featured Sony Walkman with Clear Stereo, Clear Bass and premium headphones to deliver sound in its purest form. The clever, although somewhat gimmicky inclusion of Shake Control means that with a flick of the wrist, the phone will select the next or previous song or playlist. While quite clever, it’s a feature that I can’t see being used all that often. SensMe is a feature that might get more use. By labelling your music appropriately, you can quickly choose a “mood” of music to listen to. Feeling a little melancholy? Then your W705 will filter through your collection and play all your Alanis Morrisette, Creed and Enya tracks  - just in case you were thinking about backing away from that cliff.

All the features you would expect from a modern phone are here, but a few of the more notable/interesting ones are:

Camera

3.2MP

3x Digital Zoom

Geo Tagging

Video & Picture blogging

Video light & Flash

Photo Fix

Entertainment

Radio

Walk Mate (built in pedometer)

YouTube viewing and upload

Motion gaming

3D gaming

Connectivity

WiFi

PictBridge

USB

PC Sync

Bluetooth

Google Maps

Access NetFront Web Browser

Music

Music tones (MP3’s as ringtones)

TrackID

Shake Control

SensMe

Bluetooth stereo

Album Art

Screen

2.4” 262.114 colour TFT

320x240 pixels

Memory

Memory Stick Micro up to 8GB (4GB included)

Phone Memory 120MB (approx)

Size/Weight

95x48x14.3 mm

98g

Ultimately, the Sony Ericsson W705 is a fun phone to play with and well worth a look if you don’t want to carry around a Walkman and a phone separately. Some of the inclusions seem a bit of a gimmick, but then there are others that make you want to show it off to anyone who will listen. Sony Ericsson fans will love it to bits, and given enough time I probably would have grown to love it too. For the reasonable price of $599 (cheaper if you commit to certain plans) you do get a lot of phone for your money.

(Telecom XT Network) RRP $599