Buying a mobile phone is like entering into a relationship. This phone welcomes you in to the successful music phone family that is the Sony Ericsson Walkman series.

As families go, there’s plenty of pedigree – outstanding musical capabilities and efficient, easy-to-use phone heritage. In terms of playing music, it’s hard to beat a Walkman phone.

The music capabilities are, of course, very strong. The phone comes with above-average headphones that can be swapped for others, thanks to the 3.5mm jack supplied.

A big orange-glowing button on the front of the Sony Ericsson W850i takes you straight to the Walkman function, which displays track, time and other information as though it were a dedicated music player. There’s even an impressive MegaBass feature.

Moving music onto the phone is a cinch, thanks to the Disc2Phone software. Memory Stick storage means you can expand the phone’s music capacity to up to 1GB, enough for about an hour of music.

But although you can expect a happy relationship with the W850i, there may be times when you want to go looking for an escape clause in the pre-nup. You’ll get used to its idiosyncrasies, but they can be off-putting at first.

It’s a slider phone, something Sony Ericsson has handled with aplomb before. However, when you slam the phone shut at the end of a call, it doesn’t hang up. If you let rip with a cutting comment the other party could hear. Second, the phone lock isn’t reliable, so you may find your left buttock has been dialling your mum while the phone was in your pocket.

In terms of drawbacks, though, that’s pretty much it. And in its favour, despite the fact that it’s a small (if plump) phone, it squeezes in 3G capabilities, so you can make video calls, if you wish.

As for photography, the 2-megapixel camera is great, with flash to boot and delivers very good results both for pictures and video. Plus, there’s Bluetooth on board so you can make calls while the phone’s in your pocket. It comes in white or black-coloured versions, too.

Were it not for those little operational difficulties, then this would be the most advanced combination of music and camera phone so far from Sony Ericsson. Not perfect, but not far off.

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