Riding on the success and momentum created by the shiny Z610, Sony Ericsson announced a 2nd mirror-finished clamshell model - the Z310.

The Z310 should be seen as a low-end phone targeted at the fashion concious and youth crowd. Besides the shiny finish, the phone is able to colour-code contacts. The front of the phone is polished to a perfect shine, with a screen (similar to the one found on the Z610) and new dedicated icons hidden discretely beneath the surface. Coloured light effects can also be assigned to contacts in the phonebook, allowing you to know who’s calling with a simple glance. To inject more fun into the phone, the Z310 also allows the user “…to set the look and feel of the menu and screen display to match the time of the day.” Other features include VGA camera, MP3 support, Bluetooth connectivity and Picture Blogging.

The Z310 is a Triple band/Edge/GPRS 900/1800/1900 handset and comes in Jet Set Black, Blush Bronze and Lush Pink. Expect to see it in stores from Q1 2007. [Via Kauppalehti and Golem.de]

Read the Z310 Press Release

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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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They’ve gone nuts: look what Sony Ericsson is preparing during the SE Championship Tour for the nights of November 9th and 10th in Madrid, Spain, as the first in a series around the world: black tennis court illuminated solely with UV light, 8 players wearing neon clothes, a bright ball and background live DJ music from no others than Groove Armada and Darren Emerson, as well as neon-wear catwalk fashion show from Ruben Gomez Navarro, all deep into the night. I’m not exaggerating a bit: in Darren Emerson’s words: “I’ve DJ’d in interesting places and situations and also weird ones, but this is going to be the most amazing of all”.

Free tickets are available to Spanish residents via SMS so if you’re going to be around the capital by next week, check out our spanish post on this topic for more details, or go to Nighttennis.es. No word on what is going to be the next city to welcome another Night of the Dancing Neon Mobile Phone Freak.

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Sony’s LocationFree concept makes it possible to stream your own living room’s TV to a PSP, a PC, and now your P990 too, through the (required) LF-PK1 LocationFree Base Station (pictured in the middle) that connects on one side to your TV and on the other one to your broadband network connection, to which you access from your remote device (through WiFi or 3G) no matter where you are. The press release claims that the Location Free Player for P990 is included in the default Memory Stick or can be downloaded from Sony Ericsson’s site (I haven’t found it in neither places though). What is particularily cool about LocationFree is that you can do way more than just watch TV. You can access virtually any device that can be connected to a TV: a videocamera for one-way videoconferencing or surveillance, a DVD player, a PlayStation… Okay maybe not the latter.

On my other point, back in March, Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld was in everyone’s mouths feeds and that’s the reason I made the Adriana at the time. But have you heard of this technology at all since then? I haven’t. Is the release of LocationFree for P990 another case of showcasing all the (latent) potential of SE’s flagship, or an attempt to distract us from the lack of DVB-H development news? Probably both.

Read the Press Release “Sony Ericsson’s P990 goes LocationFree”
Read Cnet’s Review of the LF-PK1 LocationFree Base Station

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187% increase in before-tax income compared to last year’s Q3, unit sales increase of 43%, sales increased 42%, and market share increased by an important whole one percent, reaching 8%. The average selling price increased to 143€, thanks, predictably, to the following:

Our strategy of using flagship products to give Sony Ericsson a lead position within a product category such as imaging with the Cyber-shot™ megapixel camera phone or music with the Walkman® line-up is creating a halo effect over lower-end models in the same category and encouraging new users to try our phones

Read the Press Release “Sony Ericsson marks 5th anniversary with record quarter”

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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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Celebrating the 5th birthday of the joint-venture, and all the achievements that made it possible to become the 4th mobile phone manufacturer in the world (and one of the most appealing), SE has started a new campaign featuring the “liquid entity” logo replacing the heart in many “I ♥…” phrases; in what could represent the first tangible result of Sony Ericsson’s recent adoption of Saatchi & Saatchi as their new Global Advertising Agency. It’s not confirmed that the skyscraper-high and suburb ads will make their way from Photoshop phase to reality, but the rest of them will appear on magazines and probably on the walls of the new Sony Ericsson exclusive store in Kensington High Street, London.

Sony Ericsson will do a public live webcast on October 12th to announce Q3 financial results. The host will be Miles Flint, the president itself, so it’s not crazy to think they could announce something else too (certainly NOT the Adriana ).

Read the Press Release “Sony Ericsson celebrates first five years with strong market position and stunning product portfolio”
Read the Press Release “Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Q3 Financial Results to be announced October 12th 2006″

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Lots of interesting stuff here today! The fact that Sony Ericsson has one of the most —if not the most— interesting mobile phone portfolios in the world is more unquestionable than ever. Let’s summarize it quickly because all these guys are coming in Q3:

W850: Sony Ericsson doesn’t hesitate to say it in the press release: this is one cool phone. Could we expect less from SE’s first slider? A 3G/GSM triband phone, the W850 will sell with a bundled 1gb Memory Stick Duo Pro card (not Micro) and 64mb internal memory, has a 2 megapixel camera with regular LED flashlight and no autofocus, supports Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP), the Walkman application now shows Album Art and TrackID, and the controls light up at the rythm of the music. Not sure about that after watching the animation in the official page, which shows that only a (otherwise useless?) orange bar below the screen does light up. They keep mentioning the 4gb Memory Stick Pro Duo cards but where are they? Anyway, a really great little brother for the W950.
W850 Official Page
W850 Press Release

W710: Aimed at the fit, sporty crowd out there, this Quadband/EDGE wearable clamshell may be —correct me if I’m wrong— the first mobile phone with an integrated motion sensor, for measuring your running speed, distance ran, or even the number of steps walked. The external screen is pretty big at 1.5″, and very useable with several buttons around while the phone is closed. It has a 2 megapixel camera with no autofocus or flash, 20mb internal memory, Bluetooth A2DP, and comes with a 512mb Memory Stick Micro card and the also new IAC-60 Stereo Headset with ear hooks to keep them in place while jumping about.
W710 Official Page
W710 Press Release

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What happens if you get too enthusiastic after net profit no less than tripling in Q1 of 2006? Your future looks too bright. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic to see Sony Ericsson sales growing at a faster pace than market growth, with their own expectations for 2006 being outpaced by about 30% (too bad LG keeps matching these results by means of some sort of sorcery, putting both companies at fourth position draw in the global market share competition).

But saying all mobile phones are going to have mobile TV in a couple of years, as Miles “Presi” Flint told Reuters, is being far too optimistic. They are testing the MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service) technology with operators in Sweden, although they don’t disregard DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) at all; Flint even thinks about using both at the same time. Haven’t these guys had enough of a hard time trying to keep 3G handsets compact? The thing is that even now, many years after the birth of UMTS, such mobile phones represent a very small percentage of the market, and a small portion of the company’s portfolio, too. How is mobile TV —an old form of one-way entertainment more than a more popular interactive communication— going to win all of our hearts where videoconferencing and broadband access didn’t? It doesn’t make sense to put a TV in every phone if few people actually want it, and even if many do, there will still be a need for handsets without it, just as there is a need for low end phones or handsets without cameras (and SE has proven to know this). If mobile TV is going to be free well… okay, but then again if I have understood it correctly, The President’s statement is not the most realistic.

Do you really eagerly await mobile TV in a future K900 or P1000 more than a 4megapixel camera with optical focus? I don’t.

Anyway, keys to this good results include the ever lasting success of the Walkman line (with already 8 models in the lineup) and will continue thanks to having a flagship in all three strategic areas: music (W950), imaging (K800) and enterprise (P990).

Read the Press Release “Greater depth in portfolio contributes to strong growth”
Read Miles Flint in Reuters in “Sony Ericsson sees market for TV on phones soon “

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For a mobile phone manufacturer, this is the advantage of having phones withouth exchangeable faceplates: you can release that phone with a new colour and call it a new model. That’s what they’ve done with this Walkman W700, a 100% W800 dressed in Titanium Gold with just a single change in features (same MSDUO Pro slot, 2mpx camera, 176x220 pixel 262k colour screen… but NO autofocus), and probably a very interesting price tag. Apparently a Soft White version will be available in some countries… that’s the same colour the W800 uses! It will come with a 256mb memory card and there’s an event in Spain later this month in which the first music album released first on a mobile phone will be presented, my guess is, on the W700. (Photo from MobileBurn’s W700 Live Gallery)

UPDATE: SharkyMark points out that the W700 supports Bluetooth 2.0, while as the W800 didn’t.

The Z525 on the other hand does add a little bit of juice to it’s Z520 clone by supporting Push To Talk (thus to be sold only in the US) as well as its known Quadband connectivity and compact clamshell form factor that has made it one successful Sony Ericsson in Europe so far.

W700 Official Page
W700 Press Release
Discuss this in the W700 Forum Thread

Z525 Official Page
Z525 Press Release
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This new entry level cameraphone is just average in every way. Not that this is bad, but compared to the rest of their Sony Ericsson brothers, who all seem to outstand in one or other field, the K310 is clinically well balanced. Feature-wise it reminds me of the old K500, but the K310 belongs to a lower category/price range now, and even adds Bluetooth to the package (Press Release says Yes Bluetooth, Official Page says No). So in the end it has a 128x160 pixel 65k color screen (with yet-to-be-checked-out Ultra Bright Color technology), a VGA camera with 4x digital zoom and interpolation to megapixel images, 15mb internal memory, HTML browser, RSS reader, Infrared and the mentioned Bluetooth, all in the same size (and almost the same housing too) of the K510: 101,5 x 44 x 17,5 mm and 82 grams, about 1mm taller, 2 narrower and 3 thinner than a K750. It’s GSM Triband for all markets: K310i, K310c and K310a (if you don’t know the diference between these, you’re reading the wrong website), and it will be available in colors Misty Silver and Shadow Blue in Q2 this year. Click on for the official pics.

K310 Official Page
K310 Press Release
Mobileburn’s K310 live gallery
Newmobile’s K310 live gallery

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If the W300 is the attempt to bring the Walkman brand to the budget market, the K510 could be the same for the Cybershot brand. Only it’s not Cybershot branded and the interface is the old (K700/S700/Z800…) one, but you get the point when you see a 1.3 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom in a handset that’s going to cost around 175€. Also with a 128x160 262k color screen, 28mb internal memory, Bluetooth, Infrared, HTML browser, RSS reader and USB 2.0, it makes you think about how rapidly the technology goes down the price range (just to refresh your mind, back in its day the then high end T610 had a quarter-VGA camera and 2mb internal memory). It’s also quite compact at 101,5 x 44 x 17,5 mm and 82 grams, about 1mm taller, 2 narrower and 3 thinner than a K750. It will be available in Q2 this year as K510i and K510c for EMEA and China respectively (Triband GSM 900/1800/1900) and K510a for Americas (850/1800/1900) in colors Midnight Black and Polished Purple, which has a neat vertical stripes pattern in the front cover (see detail photo after the link). Oh by the way, Mobileburn has some live photos of the K510, and so does Newmobile.nl.

K510 Official Page
K510 Press Release

Discuss this in the K510 Forum Thread

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This is Sony Ericsson’s approach to bringing the Walkman experience to the mass market. Apparently that wasn’t the W550/W600, with its better screen and camera (leave that stuff for Cybershots ). The W300 uses a humble 1.8″ 126x160 pixel screen with not-so-humble 262.000 colors, and as you know, the camera is just VGA without flash and 4x digital zoom (although SE’s VGA cameras can interpolate images to megapixel resolution without much quality loss). The external screen, while it is 101x80 pixels and monochrome, shows a cool orange on black background design rather than the old black on gray or blue. The star in the package (and advantage for music users against the W550/W600) is the Memory Stick M2 slot (up to 1gb cards available soon), and the 256mb card included in the box; the internal memory being just 20mb. The side volume keys integrate a play/pause music button, I wonder how tactile they feel; how easy or not is it going to be to press the actual key you want to press. Other features include Radio FM, MegaBass, Bluetooth (doesn’t seem to support A2DP), Infrared, EDGE, Quadband GSM connectivity, and the usual Walkman stereo headphones/handsfree, in either black or gray depending on the color of the handset: Shadow Black or Shimmering White. We’re all fearing that it’s going to be a brick, but despite the bulky looks, at 90 x 47 x 24 mm it weighs the same 94 grams and it’s “only” 7mm taller than the tiny Z520 (which in some way it’s replacing); same width and thickness. But the Z520’s loop antena was huge compared to the W300’s, making it look a lot smaller than in numbers, so let’s wait till Cebit comparison photos for the veredict. Not the most beautiful SE design lately, but it certainly doesn’t hurt anybody to see external memory support in a low/mid range handset, don’t you think? Available all over the globe from Q2 this year.

W300 Official Page
W300 Press Release

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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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How long have we been dreaming about this? It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s for real, Sony Ericsson has finally made a Bluetooth Stereo Headset in the shape of a couple in-ear headphones and a main unit with a display and keys for volume, track skipping and call answering, all weighing just 27 grams. Yes, there’s still some wires involved, but the main unit hangs lightly around the neck and the phone is in the pocket with no strings atached. The sound quality promises to be as outstanding as the HPM-70, and the battery life is not awful bad at up to 6 hours talk time or playback time, and 300 hours standby. Now here’s something interesting, if you check the compatibility list in its Official Page, isn’t every single Bluetooth phone since the S700 listed? Half the phones there didn’t support the A2D profile for stereo Bluetooth music streaming, did they? UPDATE: They corrected the list, now only the ones with A2DP (P990, M600 and W950 to date) are supported. The price is yet to be announced, but I really don’t care; when it comes out in Q2, I’m getting it no matter what. [Thanks Emil for the quick post]
Read the Press Release

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