With Sony Ericsson clearly the manufacturer of choice for music-orientated handsets, it was only a matter of time before more were released and in alternating designs in order to consolidate their position, and with the new W380i they certainly have done that.

Though Sony Ericsson’s design of choice is pre-dominantly candy-bar type, they have been known to put-out the occasional slider, the W580 in particular springs to mind. Clam-shell form factor phones are definitely not first choice for Walkman phones considering Sony Ericsson’s history, and the W380i isn’t the first, but if you consider that the last of the ‘W’ series that were designed in this way were the W710 and the W300, you can tell that it’s been a long-time coming.

In terms of the design, we’ve already made clear that the W380i is a clamshell design, but the way it has been set-out resemble a smaller version of the Nokia N76. Measuring around 16mm thick and a weight of 100g, it is clear that the W380 is made to be compact but not necessarily miniscule.

There are some interesting variations to the standard design in terms of the button layout, in particular the music keys and the addition of what is know as ‘Gesture Control’, something akin to what we’ve seen in the recent W910i. The outside of the phone when snapped shut houses a set of music keys which are touch-sensitive, thus saving the hassle of having to take your phone out of your pocket in order to change tracks or playlists.

As well as this, the ‘Gesture Control’ is designed to allow you to operate certain functions without physically touching the phone. For example, you can simply wave your hand over the top of the device to either activate snooze on the alarm clock or to mute an incoming call.

To avoid accidental operation of any of the touch-based controls, there is also a lock-key placed below the back-cover that you simply flick to lock all buttons on the handset.

As usual with Walkman phones, the music playing-side is the most feature-packed. Featuring MegaBass for top-notch sound-quality, an FM radio with RDS and TrackID, the market the W380i is aimed at becomes abundantly clear.

Boasting a 1.9” screen, GPRS & EDGE capabilities, picture blogging and a 1.3MP camera the non-music features aren’t exactly groundbreaking, but in what is predominantly a music phone, this is to be expected.

With Sony Ericsson holding a large-portion of the music-phone market, the W380i was never going to be a flagship model of the Walkman range, but it manages to pack in some unique music features whilst still boasting good basic phone capabilities. The looks of the W380i are also sure to turn a few heads, in particular the option of the ‘Electric Purple’ colour scheme. Though the non-music features are competent yet basic, this is sure to keep the price low, making the W380i a potentially excellent choice for Music Monsters on a budget.