iPhone vs Sony Ericsson W950i vs Nokia N95 vs LG Prada

First up is the Sony Ericsson W950i Walkman phone. It measures 54mm wide by 106mm tall by 15mm deep. It runs on the Symbian OS v9.1 and uses the UIQ 3 user interface, which means you can run a variety of Symbian software on it including translators, maps and games. It also supports push email and while there's no Wi-Fi, it does have 3G connectivity, which the iPhone doesn't, meaning you can connect to the Internet much faster than over the iPhone's EDGE connection.

It has a 2.5-inch (63.5mm) colour touchscreen that doesn't have multi-touch capabilities, but it does have handwriting recognition and there's also a stylus at the back of the phone when you don't want to use your finger. There's also a built-in Internet browser that you can use in landscape mode, but you have to change the mode in the settings menu.

There's also a handy scroll wheel on the side of the phone for navigating the menu or scrolling through your music when you're using the music player. The music player will play almost any audio format and lets you see album art, in addition to letting you set a track to a certain mood and select your music via moods rather than playlists. The W950i has 4GB of on-board memory so you can store about 1000 songs.

Unfortunately, the W950i doesn't have a 3.5mm jack for your headphones, but it does come with an adaptor so you can connect one via the headphone port at the bottom. It also features stereo Bluetooth, which Apple has yet to announce for the iPhone, and that lets you listen to music wirelessly with a compatible pair of headphones.

One important thing to note is that the W950i supports 3's new X-Series flat-rate data plan, which gives you unlimited Web browsing and free Skype-to-Skype calls to any PC or other X-Series user worldwide, as well as the ability to search on Google and Yahoo, send MSN instant messages to your friends, watch your TV from a Slingbox, access your computer at home with Orb and buy or sell stuff on eBay.

The W950i is available now for free on a monthly contract or for about £360 SIM-free.

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