Fight! The W960i meets the N81 and iPhone

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As part of Ewan's music-focussed look at the Sony Ericsson W960i, he's pitched it in a free-for-all music fight with the Nokia N81 and Apple iPhone . All rocking 8GB of storage, which emerges as the music champion? It turns out that music playback quality isn't perhaps such a differentiator, after all...

"Frrroooooom the north we have the Fighting Finn, the  White and Blue Corner, the Nokia N81 8GB! Our only ‘slider’ phone, with the only sensible headphone socket (a nice and central 3.5mm) and some always available playback controls, can it pull ahead of the competition?

W960Iiiiinnnn the Orange and Black Corner, Sony Ericsson’s W960 Walkman phone – also sporting 8GB, comes up to the plate. The lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack is an interesting decision, but the supplied extension cable with socket on the end (and one button remote control) still allows you to use your own headphones if you want. Dedicated playback buttons are available while the Walkman app is active, and the side rocker controls the volume and forward/back skipping if you hold them down (and don’t look for that in the manual - I couldn’t find it either).

iPhoneAaaaaaand finally! The challenger from Cupertino, the Apple iPhone. Also available with 8GB of flash memory, it does take your own headphones but you’ll need to hand over a bit more cash for a special adaptor to lift the 3.5mm headphone socket up from deep inside the machine to somewhere where you can use your own.

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