Following on from the 3 Dark Side launch event, I've had my hands on the SE W595 for a while now and have had a chance to play with most of the features.

Taking a look at the build quality - it's not the sturdy or quality like a Nokia E71 but then again what is? But the W595 hold it's own if you compare it to the Nokia N95's, the slide and curvaceous design is pretty appealing. The jungle grey edition is pretty neutral so would appeal to most. I do like the little gaps in between the buttons to show of the green jade design, makes the buttons feel like they are glowing.

Bearing in mind this is a mid-range handset aimed at the music enthusiast and younger generation I tried to put my mind set into what they would probably do with the handset, so I spent most of my time playing music, browsing youtube and switching themes every 10 mins to show how cool I was!

What I liked:

• I like the XMB (X Media Bar) interface used form the PS3 and PSP which familiar users of the console and hand-held gamer would find recognisable, but it's also easy to get the hang off as the menu is uniform in what it does.
• The included M2 2GB card was appreciated, transferring music onto it was a breeze, the Sense Me function was nice, it changed the type of music played depending on your mood, i.e. if you were moving fast it would play high bpm tracks.
• The whole SE interface is pretty sleek, I've been a fan of the SE UI for ages ad it's been tweaked somewhat in recent time with added flash based animation and cool transition between some screens.
• I loved the great themes which were included, all of which pretty much puts any Nokia handset to shame, they are cool, unique and functional! Even the 3 branded themes wasn't intrusive or blatantly obvious.
• I like the 3 additional menu and quick access to Planet3 where one can take a glimpse of their account balance, usage of data calls and Skype etc, very nice indeed, and it works pretty well too.
• Earphones, If there is one thing I love especially with a music orientated handset are good earphones! SE have been doing this for ages and lead the way with providing decent earphones to listen to music with, and their branded earphones are some of the best I have had.
  

What I Didn't Like:

• Lack of Wi-Fi is a big issue here, especially with the predefined Favourites menu, where one has access to many of the favourite sites including the Youtube mobile site, which is going to be data intensive, and young users will likely be fixated and overuse all their prepay balance without realising. There bundled data packages which could soften the blow, but Wi-Fi would be a nice addition.
• Internal M2 slot, not nice, I don't want to have to open up the back to get access to the M2 card to either replace or change, hot swap is now, that needs addressing.
• Propriety SE port, not a big fan of the SE propriety port, it leaves the user restricted to not only having to either charge their handset, or plugin their earphones - which I didn't like. But it also means there is one port for all connectivity issues, which itself solves the problems of having many different ports all over your handset.

Conclusion:

I can say, this handset is pretty sweet for any young teenager who likes their music and would like to use Youtube and share multimedia, it's easy on SE handsets, there are many options available with this handset, be it using the integrated Youtube function, Bluetooth, or E-mail and MMS which actually surprised me when I found it.
The handset is going to be affordable and is stylish, which is a key factor in most teenagers, image plays a lot when you're young.