Sliders are few and far between in the Sony Ericsson range, the W850i is one other one with a confusingly similar name. However, the W580i is a quad band GSM device, rather than the 3G W850i.. but even so this is an attractive and interesting handset in its own right.

The W580i’s specifications are decent enough, but not groundbreaking. There’s a 2.0″ 240×320 pixel display in 262,000 colours, a 2 megapixel camera, FM radio, Bluetooth (although it is not clear if this is stereo Bluetooth), expandable memory using Memory Stick Micro cards (up to 2GB with 512MB supplied as standard) and the W580i is available in two colour schemes – the traditional orange and white as seen on the original W800, plus a more subdued “urban grey” theme. Sony Ericsson fit all of these features into a handset just 14mm thick and weighing a pretty reasonable 94 grams.

As you would expect, the Sony Ericsson W580i comes with the well-regarded multimedia setup found in other Walkman branded phones, plus a web browser, email client, RSS reader and those applications that you might just use once and then forget about (VideoDJ springs to mind).

It’s a little bit more that just a standard Walkman phone with a slider – the Sony Ericsson W580i comes with a range of applications to help with your personal fitness regime, including a calorie counter and pedometer also the W580i doesn’t appear to be ruggedised in any way.

The W580i also supports EDGE data in addition to quad band GSM and GPRS. Maximum talktime is quoted as an impressive 9 hours with up to 14 days standby time.