It feels like Sony Ericsson has been churning out Walkmans at a terrific rate recently, in all shapes, sizes and formats - sliders, candybars, cheap 'n' cheerful music players and fancy touchscreen smartphones. And if something's not broke, why fix it?

The latest approach is thin. Very thin. So thin in fact, that it's thinner than a CD case, something Sony Ericsson has made much of in its marketing - it can hold up to 900 music tracks on a device that's thinner than a standard CD case. But in this age where thin is only as slim as a RAZR, that doesn't really sound like anything special. Until you hold it in your hand that is.

It's a candybar shape, so without a hinge it seems even more slimline than those Motorola style icons that once seemed so anorexic. It nestles very comfortably in the hand and needless to say, in the pocket - the only worry is that you might forget it's there.

It's lightweight, too, at just 71g and its stainless steel finish cuts a fine dash if you set it down on pub table or desk - either in black or silver, with the trademark Walkman orange on the back. The keypad buttons are distinctive too - little orange metal slivers that feel more functional than they look. They proved to be perfectly fine for normal use, though they got a bit fiddly when we tried playing games.

It's easily the best looking item in the Walkman range so far, and stands up very well against the other catwalk phones out there. But of course it's not just a pretty face, and Sony Ericsson has packed in plenty of functionality, and comes with 3G built in too.

The Walkman music player, accessed via a dedicated button on the side, has been rightly praised. It looks good, tracks are organised into intuitive sections making them easy to find, plus it sounds better than most through the decent quality supplied headphones.

Although the headphones connect via a dedicated Sony Ericsson plug, there is also a standard 3.5mm mini-jack socket on the microphone attached to the cable, which allows you to upgrade the headphones if you prefer.

The music player also has those useful little extras such as PlayNow - Sony Ericsson's quick route to buying tracks online, and TrackID, a Shazam-like feature that allows you to identify a song off the radio or you hear playing around you.

The phone samples a few seconds of a track and then sends it off to be identified via a GPRS data link to the Gracenote-powered service. The advantage it has over the dial-up Shazam track ID service is that it works via the internet, so you only pay for data charges, rather than the cost of a phone call.

The strange thing with the W880i however is that there is no FM radio on board, which is a shame. It certainly cuts a swathe through the phone's music-playing abilities, but that's the price you pay for thin. Happily, you can use Track ID with any sound source, and it gets quite addictive after a while.