Sony Ericsson W902

If you take a cursory glance at Sony Ericsson's portfolio of phones you'll notice that two distinct product lines have emerged. The C-range (formally the K-range) is concerned with providing the consumer with an alternative to their traditional 'point and shoot' digital camera by offering the highest possible standard of photographic quality. The W-range, on the other hand, is focused on supplanting the dedicated MP3 player and carries the world-famous Walkman logo in order to truly hammer this point home.

All of the recently released phones in SE's catalogue naturally combine these two elements to a certain extent, but the W902 is the first handset to really give users the best of both worlds without even the merest hint of compromise.

First things first. The fact that this phone has Walkman emblazoned over it naturally gives the impression that it's geared up for aural brilliance. As well as packing the latest build of SE's adept and wonderfully intuitive Walkman software, the W902 has a few additional features which help it become a thoroughly dependable music player.

One of the most helpful aspects of the phone is the Walkman shortcut button, which is cunningly located at the top of the phone (chances are you'll mistake it for the power button when you first pick up the phone). This grants swift and easy access to your music and other media, and once you've picked a track to listen to you can assume command over proceedings via the dedicated Walkman buttons (skip track, play/stop) on the right-hand side of the handset.

Music playback is predictably excellent - SE has had enough chances at getting this right now, after all - and the usual features such as 'Shake' control (a deft flick of the wrist changes tracks) and 'SenseMe' (music is selected depending on your mood) are all present and correct, just as they have been on other recent Walkman phones.

Sadly though, SE continues to cling to its 'Fast Port' interface as the means for plugging in headphones, and refuses to give its Walkman-branded handsets the one thing that would make them almost unstoppable - a humble 3.5mm headphone jack.

That said, the bundled headphones are fantastic and should you really want to it is possible to connect your own set of cans via the Fast Port's 3.5mm adapter (although you're sadly left with enough loose wire to hang yourself with).

With only 25MB of internal storage to play with, the amount of onboard memory offered up for music is somewhat underwhelming, especially after the 8GB contained within the frame of the W980, but thankfully the bundled 8GB microSD card mitigates this issue somewhat.

So that's the musical side of things dealt with. What about the photo capabilities of the W902? Ordinarily treated as something of an afterthought with Walkman phones, the five-megapixel camera included here is nothing short of stunning, offering the same high-quality results that you'd expect from a Cyber-Shot device.

So in terms of ingeniously melding an MP3 player with a camera, the W902 is an unexpected triumph. Putting these two obvious facets aside for a moment, closer inspection of the phone reveals even more positive points.

Although the design initially seems a little too rooted in the past, with the front of the W902 looking a little too similar to the W810, after spending a little more time caressing the robust casing of Sony's latest Walkman challenger, it's hard not to come away with upbeat vibes. Granted, you can argue that the all-plastic casing lacks a certain element of sophistication, but not every phone has to be dripping with chrome and brushed metal to exude an air of class. The W902 may be understated, but it's still capable of attracting admiring glances from fellow members of the public.

From a gaming point of view, meanwhile, the W902's performance is encouraging, but not exemplary. The D-pad is a circular affair which is a little too small and indistinct for our liking; as a result it's far too easy to push the wrong direction during play. In fact the W902's buttons in general are a massive disappointment – the numerical keys are too thin and this not only has a detrimental effect on gaming, it also makes texting less pleasurable than it probably ought to be.

Thankfully the W902 also features motion-control (thanks to its built-in accelerometer) and this is put to good use with the pre-loaded demo of EA's Need for Speed ProStreet. Like the vast majority of SE's handsets these days, 3D Java games run like a dream.

Ultimately the W902 shows just how confused SE is regarding the direction in which its mobile phone range should be heading. When you're able to fuse together the photographic brilliance of a Cyber-Shot with the musical capabilities of a Walkman phone and do so in such a convincing fashion, is there really any need to single out these two aspects as separate brands any more? Regardless of SE's game plan, the W902 is another brilliant addition to the line-up, albeit one that doesn't quite provide the mobile gaming experience you'd be entitled to expect.