Walkman mobile phones are ace. We know this. It’s just part of the technical description - ‘play music, combine phone stuff with mp3 stuff, be fabulous’… But now, there’s one that aims to be fashionable and sleek, too: the stunning Sony Ericsson W380i.

Walkman - music for the mobile phone generation

The Walkman names been around for well over 20 years, now (in fact, it’s nearer 30 years, now!), and in all that time, it’s been synonymous with music on the go, wherever you are. From the first portable tape decks of the early 80’s (yes, I had one… well, I had a cheap Alba rip-off, until it broke, and I cried and bleated till I got a Sony one…), to CD players in the 90’s, and all the way up to the Sony Ericsson W-series Walkman phones of today, it’s a name that is purely about music on the go.

And it’s with the Walkman range of Sony Ericsson mobile phones that our story picks up today. Over the couple of years they’ve been on the market (the first one was the W800), they’ve continued evolving and developing, becoming some of the biggest sellers Sony Ericsson have ever seen. Phones like the aforementioned W800, the W850 and the awesome W960 have continually evolved the technology of musical mobile phones. But… they’re not ALWAYS the most fashionable phones. Until, anyway, because now there’s a phone designed to meld the worlds of music and fashion in one sleek body; the stunning Sony Ericsson W380i.

Sony Ericsson W380i - when music and fashion collide

The first thing you’ll notice if you get your hands on it is that the Sony Ericsson W380i is sleek. As in VERY sleek. Its slim body belies the bags of cool technology inside, starting with the awesome Walkman music player. In fact, the awesome in that last sentence was a bit superfluous, as when you read the words ‘Walkman music player’, assume it’s awesome, anyway!

It’s on the body of the Sony Ericsson W380i that it becomes obvious it’s part way between music phone and fashion phone, because, as well as being sleeker than just about all the mobile phones you could mention, it also has a ‘hidden’ screen. That is, when the phone’s idling, the shell of the phone has nothing on it. However, when the music player kicks in, or someone rings you, the shell itself becomes the screen! It’s something that’s just grin-inducingly cool when you see it in action. The Sony Ericsson W380i is available now on O2, Orange and Vodafone.