“Nokia shamed by Sony Ericsson in battle for margins” is the title of a report of London-based consultant agency ARCchart in which the differences in philosophy of the eternal enemies Nokia and SE are summarized: while Nokia has veered towards share and shows a strong growth in low-end sales and moderate in high-end, Sony Ericsson has boomed high-end sales while keeping one of the best mid-range portfolios, thanks —in my opinion— key points like the interface, power of the music and camera functions, and the appeal of the Walkman and Cybershot brands.

But aside from the cameraphone sales, what’s interesting is to see how many people actually take photos with them and therefore to see which phones give a better “digital camera” experience. The graphic above made with Flickr stats shows a competition among several Sony Ericssons and Nokias as the most used to take serious shots. We see the K750 as the stable king of cameraphones and the K800 rapidly gaining popularity along with the also relatively nwe Nokia N73.

Which brings us to Quesabesde.com’s comparative (in Spanish) of these two contenders to the K750’s throne, focusing on the cameras, of which I translate some interesting conclusions after the jump:

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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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Why didn’t they call it K00790 I don’t know. Ah, maybe it’s because this Casino Royale movie first-three-month-only limited edition also affects the K800. Hmm… K8007? Name changes would have made these a little more interesting, because otherwise the “special” stuff comes down to the silver color (which should have been real metal, not metal-looking plastic) and James Bond inspired-theme that you’ll replace with [insert hot model or fast car here] the moment you turn it on.

Read the Press Release “Never miss a shot, James Bond style, with Sony Ericsson’s limited edition silver Cyber-shotâ„¢ phone”

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Sony Ericsson last week unveiled another cool Bluetooth accesory: the MBW-100, which is the Sony Ericsson-styled, Sony Ericsson-branded result of the partnership with Fossil, which also gave birth to other Fossil-branded Bluetooth watches. No, it doesn’t integrate an earpiece or microphone to go all spy-agent, but it has an OLED display to check caller ID, battery life and received messages. It has buttons to mute/reject callso and to play/stop and skip MP3’s too! Sadly, the display isn’t big enough to display SMS’s or song titles. At ~$300€, it isn’t cheap either. Maybe next time.

Cnet Asia already has a hands-on preview (wait, isn’t that a review?) and here are some interesting excerpts:

A rather nifty feature on the MBW-100 is its out-of-range notification function. When the phone is moved out of Bluetooth wireless range, the watch vibrates to alert the wearer. We found this useful as a security feature since it tells you if someone is attempting to walk away with the phone. (…)

The Bluetooth watch comes with a mini cradle that charges the onboard battery via the contact points located at the back of the watch. It is rated for up to seven days of Bluetooth usage and an additional week for analog time-keeping. (…)

The watch is made of stainless steel with a scratch-resistant mineral crystal glass and anti-glare coating for improved clarity of the display. (…)

For full functionality, the Bluetooth watch is compatible with only specific models in Sony Ericsson’s current and upcoming lineup. This includes the K610i, K618i, K800i, W710i, W850i, Z610i and Z710i. (…)

Despite its chunky design and not-so-affordable sticker price, the Sony Ericsson MBW-100 remains one of the more innovative Bluetooth phone accessories we’ve come across so far. It is, however, not expected to appeal to the mainstream crowd.

Read the MBW-100 review in Cnet Asia (don’t forget to check the images section)
Go to the MBW-100 Official 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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The image above shows a W850 in the Norwegian Dutch Sony Ericsson site, but it’s probably fake. The image on the right shows a whitened K790 that looks really nice, but it’s most probably fake. Other couple of photos inside this article show a K800 with slightly redesigned speaker and it’s box, but they are totally 100% fake. All these pics may be fake, but that doesn’t mean that the rumour of a Walkman branded model based on the K790 can be true. After all, the K790 has all the Walkman capabilities and it would be an inexpensive way for Sony Ericsson of selling the phone in music related stores in which otherwise wouldn’t make sense to display a Cybershot device. Call it the Nokia way, but you can’t deny it’s effective: if the K750/W800 platform would have been one only model, it wouldn’t have sold as much as the K750 and the W800 altogether. [Via Mobile-review and Mobil.cz, thanks F3nix for the info]

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May is going to be unexpectedly exciting with two Sony Ericsson product presentations on the 11th and 18th of that month, the second one being “the sh**”, an internal source confirmed (the Handycam?). In the meantime, you can print out this couple of PDF’s and make it your bathroom reading matter for some weeks [Thanks Djraven for the links]:

K800 Whitepaper (includes complete comparison table with K750):

Bluetooth PAN to connect the phone to Internet using Bluetooth.

Image formats
VGA (640x480 pixels)
1 MP (1280x960 pixels)
2 MP (1632x1224 pixels)
3 MP (2048x1536 pixels) or
3 MP (2000x1500 pixels) with image stabilizer on.

- Photo key (upper/right): Camera mode: Camera scenes or Video Night mode / Standby mode: Camera album.
- Photo key (lower/left): Camera mode Camera or Video shoot mode / Standby mode: The most recent taken picture showed in full view.

Support [amont known others] for WMA music files and WMV and RealVideo video files.

UIQ 3.0 Product Description:

[Transition effects] A menu that slides on to the screen, instead of simply appearing on the screen, is an example of a transition effect; an icon that gradually blends in to the background and then disappears is another example. (…) UIQ also supports semi-transparent windows, which enables UI elements, like menus and dialogs, for example, to have rounded corners or to let the screen area behind the window shine through. (…)

The Memory Manager handles low memory internally. It asks background applications to gracefully close down in order to free up memory. No data or settings are lost since all applications save data before closing. (…)

UIQ supports both bitmap fonts and Unicode True Type fonts. (…)

Categories to organize contacts; a contact can belong to one or several categories. (…) Backup and restore functions for all the entries [contacts] to and from external memory cards. (…) If the end user has installed an Instant Messaging (IM) application that use the Instant Messaging Integration API (…) the end user can see status and presence information in the Contacts application and use a direct navigation link to the IM application.

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We missed this CeBIT report on time, but Olav from Esato.com did a pretty good job posting (big) photos and first-hand impressions of the new Sony Ericssons (and others) from Hannover:

Entry level phones J100, K310, K510, W300/Z530 and W810 [?]: Weighting only 70g makes [the J100] the lightest model ever by Sony Ericsson. (…) An untrained eye could have misstaken the Sony Ericsson K310 with a K700. (…) I was told the new M2 cards could be used with an adapter in older Sony Ericsson models.

Hands on Sony Ericsson M600: This is an exciting new feature found in M600, W950 and P990. The new spell checker. Once you start writing a word, the M600 list the best suggestions. The list of suggested words is based on the sentence content as well as word grammar. Very cool.

P990 showing very cool features: Joseph started typing “Dear ” using the stylus with handwriting recognition. The P990 responded with inserting “Sir” as a suggestion to the next word in the sentence. After clicking on “Sir”, a space was automatically inserted, and the next word “and” was typed. To finish off, P990 suggested “Madam” as the final word when this was typed in “Dear Sir and “. It did not need the “M” to suggest “Madam”. Impressive.

Sony Ericsson K800: The two buttons you see above the display is short cuts to common settings when capturing photos. The give you direct access to scenes and shoot modes

Hands on Sony Ericsson W950: The W950 should be equipped 4GB memory. The file explorer reveals that this prototype only have 64MB installed.

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Their photos are so good, and make the K790/K800 screen look so awesome, we wish they weren’t the size of an M2 card. But anyway Jorgen shares his love for the new products; a feeling I’m pretty sure is common around Die Messe.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the first real camera phone. Granted, Nokia’s N90 came close - but at 3.2 Megapixels and with stunning picture quality, the Sony Ericsson K800i blows the competition out of the water (…) One word: splendid. (…)

Although bested by the 8 GB Samsung SGH-i310, [the W950’s] 4 GB of flash memory should allow for considerably longer battery life - and despite its spacious storage and superb screen, the handset remains ultra-slim at 15 mm thick. (…)

Few phones harbour the kind of functionality offered by the P990i. The swiss army knife of business phones, it couples a luscious, high-resolution touch screen with a 2 Megapixel camera for video calling in conjunction with 3G as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for shorter-range options. Unfortunately, its thumbboard is a tad on the cramped side, but for the power user who needs every feature under the sun it’s a winner. Did we mention the Opera 8 browser also does landscape mode? Genius.

Read “The best of Sony Ericsson at CeBIT 2006″ at Infosyncworld

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Now this is how you do business. It seems like Sony Ericsson invested last year’s well earned profit in broadening their portfolio like we’ve never seen before. With todays 6 phones it’s already ELEVEN headsets unveiled in just the first two months of Q1 2006! Most of them being really intresting; some of them being certainly innovative, even revolutionary.

Revolutionary within the brand is the new K800/K790 combo, the first to sport the Cybershot brand (and features) from Sony, and the best camera ever seen in a SE: 3.2 megapixels with Autofocus, Xenon flash, image stabilizer, 16x digital zoom, auto red eye reduction, DPOF and PictBridge direct-to-printer connectivity, and BestPic technology, which takes 9 pictures in a time sequence (4 before and 4 after the actual image captured). The feature set of no less than the K750’s successor goes on: 2.0″ 320x240 pixel 262k color screen (also first timer in SE), 64mb internal memory, Memory Stick M2 slot, Radio FM with RDS, Bluetooth 2.0, Infrared, A/B buttons on top of the screen for horizontal gaming, integrated blogging and picture blogging powered by Blogger, integrated Google Search and RSS feeds. And of course, Walkman music player This bunch of great features need space, and that’s a weight of 115 grams (16 heavier than the K750) and a size of 106 x 47 x 18mm (6mm taller, 2mm wider and a couple mm’s thinner, although the lens cover area adds 4mm to those 18). The difference between K800 and K790? The K800 is UMTS/Triband GSM/GPRS (no EDGE) and has a frontal VGA camera, while the K790 is Triband GSM/EDGE with no 3G and no frontal camera. We’ll have to wait no more than Q2 this year to find them in stores, as K800i and K790i for EMEA, K800c and K790c for China Mainland (GSM900/1800/1900), and K790a for Americas (GSM850/1800/1900). All the official pics of the new flagship candybar and short summary of the rest of them after the jump, and info on the rest of the new products in a little while.

K800 Official Page
K800/K790 Press Release

UPDATE: Wanna guess who already published a review of the K800? With photos comparing it to a K750… OUCH!

Discuss this in the K800/K790 Forum Thread

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The latest spyshots of the K750 successor are getting seriously convincing, but before that, take a look at the picture above. Supposedly it’s a family shot of the 2006 Sony Ericsson portfolio, and I have enlarged the ones that haven’t been unveiled yet. K800/K750 successor on top right, Mulan/the entry level clamshell Walkman in the middle and… WTF? Anyone knows what the other two on the left side are? Something in the current lineup with faceplates I don’t recognize? Original picture.

There seems to be a press event as soon as this Monday, February 28th, and Mobileburn has first-hand info that at least one of the models being unveiled is going to use the one form factor Sony Ericsson hasn’t touched yet, and we haven’t seen a single spyshot/rumour of: a slider!

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