Sony Ericsson has announced a new sporty Walkman phone running Android. Called the Sony Ericsson Live, this is a refreshed WT18i that focuses heavily on music and social networking integration.
Sporting a funky curved design that's definitely less-generic than your average Android slab, the handset measures 56.5 x 106 x 14.2 mm and weighs 115 grams. The Walkman branding doesn't seem to be as loud as with phones in the line, though, as there's none of that liquid W logo anywhere on the front panel. Do expect it heavily in the UI, though.
Details of the Sony Ericsson Live include a 3.2-inch scratch-resistant touchscreen 480 x 320 resolution), a 5.0 megapixel camera module (with LED flash and 720p recording), a front-facing VGA camera, aGPS, WiFi, 3G with HSPA, Bluetooth, stereo speakers, a 3.5mm audio slot and microSD card expansion. Processing will be handled by a 1GHz chip, with the 1,200 mAh battery claiming up to almost 7 hours of talk time.
As with every Walkman handset, there's an emphasis on music-centric features here, including xLOUD (Sony's digital enhancement for speaker output), TrackID, Infinite button (jumps to a music-focused content app), Media Discovery app and access to Qriocity. The Gingerbread-running phone also boasts "deep Facebook integration," providing access to the social site from many areas of the interface.
While this is far from the most exciting Android release in the last few months, the Sony Ericsson Live should provide an interesting option to younger users who spend most of their time listening to music and fiddling with Facebook. No pricing yet, but it's slated to roll out sometime in the fourth quarter.
[Sony Ericsson]
