Sony Ericson W31S

Well this the damn sexy new phone that has just been released by Sony in Japan. It is geared towards the teenage market and features a well crafted mp3 player, an fm radio and a 2 MegaPixel camera. The controls are a bit limited but with the addition of a MemoryStick Duo - the smaller sized memory stick, you can hold a good few hours worth of music and photos, combine that with its funky styling and this phone is sure to be a hit with the Japanese youth.
This phone is the latest offering from Sony for the AU network, Japans second largest carrier and is 'WIN' compatable - a flat-rate packet payment scheme for data transfer and access to the EZWeb mobile internet. The phone also features support for Macromedia Flash lite and Qualcomm's Brew.
The phone is not geared up to be a totaly independant music device as you probably wouldn't want to rely on just downloaded music content because of the high price and as the phone doesn't run on the 3G network the transfer times would be sluggish to say the least. However, using the MemoryStick cards you can quickly and easily transfer your existing playlists onto the device from your PC. Another great thing to note is that Sony have finally relaxed their grip on the ATRAC standard and now offer support for regular MP3s.
The only thing, apart from not being 3G, that brings this phone down is its cheap and plasticy feel. Once you have held the phone for a short while and have goten used to its good looks you will notice that it is quite thick and does feel like it would be prone to damage. Sony could have spent more effort creating a more quality feel - the phone just feels cheap.
As a step towards a fully featured, completely independant music device built into a mobile phone the W31s does put up a good show, however, it is not a far leap from the older SO505is that I used to own, even the display and navigation are almost exactly the same although the W31S has a special headset adaptor, lovely QVGA graphics and better quality audio.
When this phone eventually meets 3G the results should be pretty spectacular.