It could be perceived that Sony Ericsson is trying to have its cake and eat it, by wanting the strategic advantage of owning its own smartphone platform but at the same time wanting other phone vendors to subsidise it. (…)

[Open sourcing] UIQ would also benefit from developments made by other phone vendors using the UIQ framework, lowering its operating costs. OEMs could then make use of these developments without sacrificing their own differentiation. A move to open source by UIQ would also put Nokia under pressure to re-evaluate S60 software licences and fees.

Read “UIQ: to open or to open source?”

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P.s: Yeah, we’re back

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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Created by Iris Experience, the campaign calls for users to upload their own remixes of songs, as well as listen to the work of others, at Zane Lowe’s official website. The site’s users will then vote for the best remix and winner (who created the track) wins the chance to play (remix) with Zane himself on the final night of the Sony Ericsson sponsored event, DJ Zane Lowe’s Home Taping Tour. Runners up wouldn’t go ‘home’ empty handed, either: they’ll get a brand new W950i. What’s almost cooler, ringtones and other contents will be available to the users at the gigs via Bluetooth. [Via BrandRepublic and Zane Lowe]

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“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:

[The starting of the camera sliding the lens cover is an action that lets us observe how neither phone is especially agile when it comes to powering it on — compared to a regular digital camera. In any case, the Sony Ericsson does it by over a second faster than the Nokia. (…)

As a curiosity, the Nokia lets you use the camera and many of its multimedia features without even having a SIM card in the phone, while the K800 will not work at all in the same circumstances [UCSE note: we’ve got Flight Mode, no?]. (…)

The N73’s screen is slightly bigger than its opponent, although both have a 240x320 pixel resolution. (…)

While the K800 surprises with its agility and continuity [during the application of digital zoom] —it almost feels like an optical zoom—, the Nokia struggles during this operation. (…)

The N73’s flashlight helps focusing the picture un low light conditions, an environment where the K800 finds more problems [UCSE note: in reference to the fact that it doesn’t have the K750’s LED flashlight, but a much more powerful Xenon flash instead, whose downside is that it can’t stay on steadily]. (…)

The specifications of the K800 mention an image stabilizer, but only jumping to video mode were we able to find such option.

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[Via Xataka and Boing Boing]

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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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The fashion show:

The matches:

The party:

The End:

Overall night video:

Match video with live sound:

Of course, Clubsonyericsson had to contribute with something, and it was McCoy’s perfectly environment-matching T-qualizer t-shirt:

More photos in the forum thread