The Walkman Phone Lives

A lot of people have been waiting to see what Sony Ericsson would have up its musical sleeve, especially since the launch of the first iTunes phone is imminent (maybe) and Nokia's hard-drive enabled N91 is slated for the fourth quarter (complete with 4GB hard drive). Sony Ericsson's executives stressed that its first crack at a Walkman phone stateside was not meant to replace an iPod but to let users carry a subset of their music (it has 256MB built in to store about 80 to 120 songs) for on-the-go listening. That's not a bad tack to take, given that weIre really in the early stages of this type of convergence. There are a few drawbacks that may keep this phone from becoming a Razr-like success. Here's what we like and don't like about the W600.