Sony Ericsson W995a attractive, functional
Just a week after the Sony Ericsson Idou became official, the other phone that the company unveiled at GSMA 2009 was released into the wild. The W995a is notable not because it has an 8.1-megapixel camera and a Walkman player--we've seen those before--but because it had a 3.5-millimeter headset jack and kickstand. Yes, we know that those features may seem insignificant, but as usability goes, you can't top them. After a long wait we finally can use our own headset on a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone.
The W995a has other attractions, of course. The display is brilliant, the music player performs well, and the feature set includes Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, and GPS. It also is a full quad-band world phone that supports AT&T's 3G network. There were some things that we didn't love: the volume is low, some aspects of the boxy design felt flimsy, and the unlocked W995a will put a serious crimp in your wallet. But as music phone goes, it's far from bad. Check out our Sony Ericsson W995a review for the full scoop and be sure to peruse our gallery of W995a photos.
Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent. 
I bought a W995a to replace it (my 4th S-E), because I like S-E phone software (much easier to use than Nokia's deep repetitive menus/windows (reminds me of MS Windows) and no need to shift over into floating sub-menus like on my wife's Samsung SGH -D900.
After I read the CNET review I tried to see if my phone was structurally weak in the slider and keypad areas as mentioned, but my unit is fine. I installed the music management software on both my PC and Mac, and then copied about 150 songs from Mac Itunes into the phone without problems - my recently added and a couple of "50 top" playlists, sorted by genres, artists, albums - all transferred smoothly. This allows me to listen to my Dream Theatre albums in the car (via bluetooth) without giving my wife a headache.
When I have a chance to use more of the functions, I'll write a decent review.
When I have tried out more features I'll