The sports or active phone is a rare breed. In fact, by our reckoning there has only been, including very recent additions, five phones to get sweaty with released here the UK. Past glories include the Nokia 5210 and 5140i, and the Siemens M75, a small band of handsets designed for the outdoors and built to withstand a hard-knock life. But these ruggedised phones became more popular with the likes of plumbers and builders than fell walkers and mountaineers.

More recently Nokia has revamped the sports phone with the 5500. This Symbian Series 60 smartphone was pumped full of training management apps that turned it into a personal trainer. Now it’s Sony Ericsson’s turn to catch the fitness bug, introducing a sporty version of its W710i Walkman phone.

Like the 5500, this handset is aimed at the fitness freaks who live in the local gym, are training for a marathon, or just like to exercise (yes we’ve heard there are such people). It has walking and running apps to monitor our fitness progress and, of course, the built-in Walkman player to provide the soundtrack to your workout. But unlike Nokia’s effort, the W710i isn’t a tough cookie. With only soft rubber buffers on the side music player keys and memory card slot cover, the W710i is constructed like any other phone. Should it accidentally fall from your belt grip during a rigorous run we can’t see it lasting a round with the pavement or gym floor. If you’re looking for a more ruggedised phone then the Nokia 5500 looks like your only option at present.

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The W710’s design is loosely based on previous Sony Ericsson clamshells like the W300i and Z550i, and you can even get a non-Walkman version in the guise of the Z710i. It’s a pretty compact phone with a sturdy flip action that ends in a satisfying click. The most noticeable feature is the large front display.

This greyscale screen dominates the front fascia and is large enough to display the handset’s running and walking apps and Walkman player information, which is essential when you’re glancing on the move. Another nice touch is the side keylock switch that conveniently disengages the front buttons from accidentally going off inside your tracksuit pocket when you’re scooting along.

Open up the W710i and Sony Ericsson has crammed dedicated keys into a tight space without compromising on usability. The main keypad clicks away nicely with good-sized buttons, while the five-way joypad is reminiscent of the slick W810i navigator. The small, dedicated keys sit in the four corners for power-up, launching the internet browser, firing up the Walkman player and the task manager key for shortcuts.

The display is the standard 176x220-pixel resolution that appears on most mid-rangers like the W810i, MOTOKRZR K1 and LG KG800 Chocolate phone. Similarly, the intuitive user interface plays out like other Sony Ericsson phones but with an added Fitness app icon (see Fitness first box) to contend with.

Elsewhere, the Walkman player (version 2.0) follows the same lines as recent stable-mates. Its user interface is easy to use, while the Disc2Phone software for transferring your digital or CD music to the phone from the PC is equally straightforward and not far behind iTunes for user friendliness.

The W710i lets you make playlists on the fly and you can boost the low-end rumbles with Sony’s Mega Bass sound enhancement option. The supplied HPM-65 portable headphones carry an over-ear grip for when you get lively and, like the whole Walkman range, pumps out a dynamic but meaty fidelity. Sony Ericsson kindly supplies a 512MB Memory Stick Micro card that holds about 125 good-quality MP3s encoded at 128kbps, and you can currently expand to 2GB.
The embedded two-megapixel camera has been borrowed from the likes of the K600i and Z610i, and shoots in a 1600x1200-pixel resolution, with auto-focus nowhere to be seen. While it doesn’t rank alongside the W810i, K750i and W850i for performance, picture quality is respectable.

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For a sporty phone the W710i isn’t really geared for rough and tumble but keep it safe and it’s a worthy fitness companion. Its exercise apps and features aren’t as comprehensive and advanced as the Nokia 5500 in terms of planning and management but you can still help the casual fitness follower to improve and beat targets. Outside of its fitness speciality, the Sony Ericsson W710i is an accomplished mid-range phone and a nice addition to the Walkman music phone dynasty.

Fitness first
The Walkman tag will no doubt garner the headlines but the W710i’s fitness applications are a neat addition. Using an embedded motion sensor, it can detect how many steps you take, how fast and how far you run and calculates how many calories you burn.

But before you begin your fitness programme you need to enter some personal details like height, weight, date-of-birth and gender. You can also calibrate the accelerometer to calculate your walking pace by walking a known distance (at least 100m) and entering this into your phone.

The phone can be attached to your arm by a supplied strap or to your belt via a clip. Both are sturdy and secure so hopefully your phone won’t be catapulted when you get over-active. You will need to take eight continuous steps to kick off the pedometer and the steps you’ve made are displayed on the front screen. Be warned, you need to walk a fair distance to make a dent into your calorie intake. The pedometer resets at midnight every day but your daily and weekly stats are stored for comparison.

The running app works in much the same way but tells you the distance run, time, average speed, maximum speed, lap time, average lap time and calories burnt. If you want a more advanced overview of your progress, a Java app is included and plots your daily stats on a graph.