The W850i is a Walkman branded phone, and as such has a reputation to live up to. It’s a 3G slider phone, which most notably packs two cameras and brilliant music management system into a stylish package.

The 2 megapixel camera takes decent photos in most lighting conditions thanks to the LED flash, although there is no cover for the lens, so debris will slowly build up around its edges. Two small buttons at the top of the phone will display your photo album in either thumbnail or preview modes.

The W850i has one of the best music management systems we’ve ever seen in a phone. Like the iPod, it organises your collection by ID3 tags, and displays a tree of the artists, albums and playlists that are stored on a Memory Stick Duo memory card. It will even display the album art from the ID3 tag. Although there is a music management feature included on CD, you can simply drag and drop tracks onto the memory stick and leave the rest up to the phone.

You access it by pressing the dedicated orange music player button on the front of the facia, which turns the menu navigation controls on the front of the phone into the music navigation controls. A headset that ends in a 3.5mm jack is included, so you can plug in normal headphones or use the included rubber flanged headphones. They sound surprisingly good, and their design blocks out some ambient noise.

Other than the Walkman feature, it also packs Bluetooth, infra red, and USB connectivity; although we were disappointed that the phone had to turn itself off before acting as an external storage device. It synchs with the included software with minimal fuss, and the speakerphone is quite clear and can play back music, should you wish to test the patience of your fellow commuters.

The keys are quite large for a sliding phone, and although it’s a little harder to reach the top line of the keypad than the rest of the buttons, it’s nothing to complain about. The navigation keys, however, take a little getting used to. They surround the menu (which doubles as the play button) and are recessed to fit your thumb, but it doesn’t provide you with enough confidence to blitz through menus and web pages with no second thoughts.

We find browsing the internet on any phone quite a chore, but the 240 x 320 colour screen makes the process less painful. As you should expect, you can switch between landscape and portrait displays while browsing.

The battery cover is a little flimsy and the build quality feels a bit cheap plastic-ey, but the menu system is the same excellent tabbed Sony Ericsson trademark that we have seen in almost all of their recent phones. If the Walkman features and the design appeal to you, you’ll get along well with it.