The Spanish Television and Press Graphic Reporters Association (accronym banned) has awarded the K800 the distinction of the Best Cameraphone of 2006, as an outstanding product that helps the professional photographer optimize his job.

In the United Kingdom, Sony Ericsson has also been awarded by consumers with the Best Manufacturer Of The Year award, the Best Mobile Phone Of The Year award to the K800 —which also was voted the “Readers’ Dream Phone“—, and the Best Music Phone award to the W810.

Finally, the German edition of the Connect magazine granted, with readers’s votes, the awards of Best Cameraphone to the K800 (45,2% of the votes, and the apparently-not-so-old K750 being in third place), Best Music Phone to the W810 (with 59,9% of the votes), Best 3G Phone to the W900, and Best PDA Phone to the P990 (hmm…).

To summarize, Sony Ericsson nowadays seems to be losing the “best phone with wheels and facial hair” category only, or whatever. Unstoppable! [Via Spanish Press Release]

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Sorry, third-parties, all JAVA-enabled Sony Ericssons now have official support from Microsoft to run their new Windows Live Messenger Mobile application. MSN/Windows Messenger site Mess.be found this goodie in a chineese MSN website. Well, actually, functionality may be a little below some other JAVA clients, but if you’re like me and only need your contact list and being able to chat with some few emoticons, you’ll take this Windows Live themed instant messenger over anything else. Apparently these download links (be careful to chose the version for your model) are completely legal and free to download, but after a couple of months they will stop working unless you pay a small unknown monthly fee. Hmm, let’s just enjoy it in the meantime and we’ll talk again in January. Check some screenshots of it running on K800 inside this entry. [Via Mess.be].

For Sony Ericsson J300, K300, K310, K500, K510, Z520 and Z530, Download Windows Live Messenger Mobile 380

For Sony Ericsson K610, K700, K750, W550, W600, W700, W710, W800, W810, W850, Z550 and Z710, Download Windows Live Messenger Mobile 382

For Sony Ericsson K790, K800, S700, W850 and W900 (it should also work for Symbian smartphones), Download Windows Live Messenger Mobile 384

If your exact model number isn’t listed here, make sure your phone supports JAVA and then download the version of models using the same screen pixel size.

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UPDATE: Download links working again

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Straight out from the French Riviera, Noreve offers a series of high quality leather cases for almost all current mid-high Sony Ericssons, for those who don’t mind losing some portability in favor of protecting the precious device inside while adding a touch of style and personalization with the many leather colors available. I say losing portability because after trying these with my P990, it just won’t fit any comfortably in trousers any tighter than 50 Cent’s. It shouldn’t be a big problem for smaller models’ users though —the P990 itself isn’t very pocket-friendly anyway—, but it’s fair to say that these cases add considerable bulk to your phone, not to mention if you even attach the huge belt clip. This belt clip led McCoy, reviewer of the black M600/W950 and red P990 cases, to find a funny problem with the back screw, which you can check in the video (in all Superhandz style) after the jump, along with photos of those and my black and white P990 cases.

Go to Noreve’s Sony Ericsson leather cases product page

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Tired of my K750’s remote control template for Media Player lacking a couple of functions, I have customized it a bit and thought I should share it with you. As you can see in the background image, it’s the same template but adding the Shuffle, Repeat, Full Screen and Mute functions of Windows Media Player. If your phone has a smaller screen resolution than 176x220 you can resample the image and edit the template with the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Remote Control application.

Download SuperMediaPlayer.hid

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I waited until I got it shipped because I wanted to see if it lived up to its promises, and it certainly does! If you need a 1 or 2gb USB pendrive, but already have that amount of storage in your Sony Ericsson, this is for you: it just turns your memory card into a USB 2.0 plug and play mass storage device! And the best way to load MP3’s, of course. Okay, maybe not a technology wonder, but it’s as small as it can get, sleek, really fast and it’s price is a joke. How else can you get a gigabyte flash drive for less than 3 dollars?

NOTE: I’m not the seller nor do I get commission or anything, I just LOVE it

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We do have an excuse if you didn’t find news around here for a while, even if there was a lot of spy shooting lately (to which we have something to say about, but later on that) or you sent in news or cool stuff (all will get published); it’s been the holidays, our comeback to California, the yearly server slowdown/upgrade, and the resulting technical problems in the forum, altogether. So while we’re updating the latter, here’s a little trick I found myself the other day and will certainly surprise more than one or two readers out there. Were you, like me, furious about the first so called music phones, W800/K750 and W600, not having dedicated music buttons other than the pretty basic “music button”? Will I make your life happier if I suggest you to press-and-hold the volume buttons from any menu, keypad locked or not, during playback, and you found yourself skipping songs? Oh yes! now go tell everybody, you SE prophet!

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And if you already knew, why the heck didn’t you tell us!?

UPDATE: Steve tells us it also works in the V800, so it may also be a feature of the K600, K700 and S700?

Still no press releases or photos available in Sony Ericsson’s websites, but along with the W810 announcement they emailed to UCSE, they presented these couple of cool speaker sets, one more portable-ish, one more desktop-ish, to go with the known MDS-70 (which, numbering-wise, should sound better?). The MPS-60 is really really small and pocketable, at 30x55x42 mm, while the MDS-60 measures 54x120x200 mm. They will be available in the first quarter of 2006 at unknown price and in colors Silver, White and Orange.

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Not one, not even two, but THREE pieces of software have I found that will let you synchronize your MP3s with iTunes, if you just sold your iPod to buy a W800 After the great success of that phone and the unveiling of the ROKR-killer W900i, this is the last boost to the fast comeback of the Walkman brand. But remember! If your SE isn’t Walkman branded, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the same features: all these iTunes add-ons will work with any mass-storage compliant phone (that’s every Sony Ericsson with Fast Port and Memory Stick slot). [Via Engadget, Pocket-lint and Tea Vui Huang]

iWalkman by The Office Maven
iTuneMyWalkman by Ilari Scheinin
Mass Storage Synchronizer by Tea Vui Huang

Which one is better overall or better for your needs? Do you know of any other software? Discuss this in the forum

The third product announced yesterday is another music accesory. The Walkman-branded MMR-60 is a music transmitter via FM, one of the most ready-to-go ways to connect portable music devices to bigger HiFi equipment like your home/car/party stereo, and one of the favourites of iPod users (isn’t it great to put iPod and Walkman in the same article and not feeling unfair competition anymore? Go SE Go!). If you’re not familiar with this, it’s as simple as choosing an FM band in your phone (in the menu that appears after connecting the MMR-60) and then selecting said FM band in your FM receiver, that must be within 10 metres of distance. Wireless music streaming at 43x27x11mm and a mere 9 grams, connecting to any Fast Port enabled Sony Ericsson, but leaving a replica of the port below if you want to use the charger. Despite being a basic device, Sony Ericsson has released even more official photos than they usually do with phones, and in some you can count up to 5 Walkman logos in the same photo. That’s what I call a comeback. By the way, the Press Release says it will be available in silver, white and black colors (to match your chosen W900) but the Official Product Page just mentions the silver and I haven’t found photos of the other two.
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With the help of Sony (who will be also selling the same product, Sony branded “Cradle Audio CPA-001″), Sony Ericsson has presented a set of speakers of an apparently high quality (RMS 25W output, S-master digital amplifier, neodymium magnet speaker units, shielded speakers and Surround mode) that you sit your Fast Port enabled Sony Ericsson on in order to listen to your Radio FM or MP3’s out loud while charging the battery. According to what I understand from the Press Release, it also has a standard “Line-In port” (3.5mm? RCA?) and Bass/Trebble controls, while the Product Page says something about a “Multi AC adaptor with subwoofer” which if it turns out to be an AC adaptor with an integrated subwoofer it will start to appeal to me seriously. There’s also a “Remote Control” but I can’t help putting it all between quotation marks if they don’t show it in photographs. So far I’ve only found high res pics of the main unit holding both black and white hot W900’s.
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This is what Kinny Cheng dislikes about the K750i after finishing one of his comprehensive reviews (in bold, the issues that especially annoy me):

Bluetooth – no longer possible to perform file transfer operations from handset
Camera – no support for a 1.x megapixel image size
Camera cover – can be somewhat tricky to open at times (*)
Fast Port design – cannot simultaneously charge the phone and use a wired headset
Design – back design questionable
Display – smaller than expected for such an imaging-based device?
Network data connectivity – still no EDGE support
Phonebook – new search method not available (for Chinese-based versions only)
USB charging – how about an on/off switch?

Having owned an S700 for 9 months, it’s a bit frustrating to find people not mistaking your phone for a camera anymore. The back design just doesn’t show off those autofocusing 2megapixels. And the screen… we’ll have to wait for Ophira or Sakura to stop saying “it’ll look better on the computer”. (*) Excuse me? My problem with the lens cover is the opposite. I have to take care of which position the phone is in my pocket so I don’t open the camera taking it in and out.

Click here to read the revew. [Thanks Yohanes for the tip]
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It’s been out for some time now, but in case you missed it, all-imaginable-accesory shop DomL.com has this useful 3.5mm jack adaptor for the new connector generation (K750/D750/W800/S600/W600/Z520). All these phones come with their own stereo headsets but for $9 or 7€ it’s nice to check if your beloved high end headphones sound actually better, plus you can plug some external speakers in. For HiFi and in-car connectivity you can even combine an 3.5mm-to-RCA cable, and if you like this idea but don’t mind the Sony Ericsson stereo headphones, you can totally forget everything you’ve just read and go for the official MMC-60 cable (pictured left). [Thanks Ed Xavier for the tip]
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UPDATE: Emil reminds us of the official HPM-70 Stereo Headset to which you can connect your desired 3.5mm headphones/speakers while keeping the microphone and the handsfree function. This is the one with the in-ear earpieces you get bundled with the W phones.

Mobilemag.ch has a review of the K750i in french with a couple dozen photos of every possible angle, including shots comparing to vintage Ericssons, while Howardforums’ regular Bengalboy has gone its own way and published a deep W800i review on sweating chicks. I didn’t pretend to put the words “deep”, “french” and “sweating” together but this is how the mobile phone world goes. [Thanks Emil and Marianne for the tips]
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Saliquincer’s K750 review is one of those interesting reviews made by “regular” users, in this case with a few photos of surprisignly high quality. I wish he/she‘d posted high res versions and my camera had such a macro mode. [Thanks DjRaven]
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MartinFields, the creators of the famous screen protectors and other mobile phone and PDA accesories, have just released this retractable USB cable for all the Sony Ericssons with the new connectors (K750, D750, W800, S600, W600 and Z520 so far). The standard USB cable (pictured at the right) is a huge improvement from the old serial cables. It not only makes the Memory Stick DUO in your phone a Plug&Play sorage device: it also charges your phone. But it’s terribly bulky. 1 meter of 5mm-thick stiff cable plus one bulge on each end is just uncomfortable. MartinFields’ retractable cable, while small and light, is supposed to withstand heavy usage. [Thanks Ed for the tip]
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