Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video

While Sony’s been dealing with exploding batteries, PS3 craziness and now a recall for some Cyber-shot cams, the Japanese behemoth’s handset division is trying to expand into the mobile television sector by partnering with Ericsson. Already the two form a significant presence in cellphones with the Sony Ericsson brand, and they hope to continue that with television as well. Per Nordlof, Ericsson’s director of Product Strategy, said at a press conference in Stockholm on Thursday that a third of the world’s mobile phone users will be watching TV on their handsets on a regular basis by 2008 — something the folks at Qualcomm and others are thinking, too, with MediaFLO and the like. According to The Associated Press, the corporate duo is also working on a way to send clips from your living room’s TV directly to a handset. Of course, if you don’t want to wait until 2008, you could just buy a Slingbox or a Sony LVTV Box right now for the same effect.

Read - Reuters
Read - The Associated Press

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

When a single manufacturer accounts for an overwhelming majority of your license revenue, it stands to reason that said manufacturer might save a little dough in the long haul by acquiring you outright. And so it goes for the long, passionate relationship between UIQ and licensee Sony Ericsson; of the 13 handsets running the Symbian-based platform, nearly half — six in all — have been designed and produced by Sony Ericsson, with the remainder split between Motorola and Arima units that haven’t seen been met with nearly as much publicity. The Swedish company, currently owned by Symbian itself, will be transferred to Sony Ericsson (pending clearance of the typical bureaucratic stuff, of course) for an undisclosed sum but will continue to operate as an independent entity with the current management team in place. Though UIQ promises that its platform will continue to be available “on equal terms to all its licensees,” the move makes official what’s been known for years: that UIQ is to Sony Ericsson what S60 is to Nokia, an interpretation of the Symbian smartphone operating system to call its own. Will UIQ ever match S60’s popularity, particularly in the Symbian-friendly European market? Probably not, but with a committed partner now laying out the requisite cash, it does seem more likely than ever that UIQ’s here to stay — and as always, we’re all about choice.

[Via All About Symbian]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Home Entertainment, Portable Video

It looks like the Symbian Smartphone Show is shaping up to be a bit of a showdown betwixt placeshifters today, with both Sling and Sony announcing Symbian support for their respective products’ players. Unlike Sling, which announced both UIQ and S60 versions of its SlingPlayer Mobile, Sony is only going as far as UIQ support for its LocationFree on the wings of its fresh P990 smartphone — a very Sony-like (read: proprietary) move, considering Sony Ericsson isn’t down with the Nokia-backed S60 platform. Odds are Sony would’ve liked to have cut a version for its smartphones a year or two back, but the P990 is the first phone in the P series to rock data fast enough (via UMTS and WiFi) to handle the heavy-duty bandwidth requirements LocationFree — or most any other placeshifting tech, for that matter — requires. Sony Ericsson’s claiming immediate availability of the Symbian client, though it’s not yet live on the P990’s download site. Of course, a LocationFree player doesn’t do much good without the device itself, and a US release of the P990 is nowhere in sight, so just keep on toolin’ around with those PSPs until further notice.

[Thanks, Alex]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson, Cingular, GSM, GPRS

If you’re a Cingular customer and you’ve been jonesin’ for a Z520a with push-to-talk, your phone has arrived. Sony Ericsson’s Z525a is about an incremental upgrade as an incremental upgrade can get, offering the addition of PTT and that’s about it. As we mentioned before, EDGE would’ve been welcome, but for 20 bucks on contract with a mail-in rebate, we guess we don’t have much room to grouse about it.

[Via phoneArena]

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Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Reviews, Sony Ericsson, GSM, GPRS, EDGE

Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Others, Sony Ericsson, GSM, GPRS

So, if we were going to rip off a phone’s design, we’d probably do current-gen hardware (a la TechFaith), not played-out music phones whose successors are already starting to look a bit long in the tooth. Granted, we don’t know how long Fifth Media’s W800 rip has been floating around, but the last time we checked in on these cats, they were pumping out generic Windows CE 4.2 smartphones — we’ll let you decide whether they’re moving up or down in the world. Specs seem about the same as the real deal, so if you’re down with no-name hardware, you just couldn’t justify dropping the cash on that W800 last year, and the first knockoff wasn’t doing anything for you, well, here’s your chance.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Announced way back in October, that Sony Ericsson P990i just got tagged with the FCC’s good house keeping seal of approval. With that out of the way, we might actually see this tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 with UMTS (2100) handset with Symbian OS 9.1/UIQ 3 Stateside sometime in Q1, Q2, Q3 after the 2100MHz spectrum comes off the auction block and into the greedy little hands of your fave (or not so fave) provider. And with a 2.8-inch touch screen, 802.11b WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 2 megapixel cam, media player, QWERTY keypad, and suite of corporate email connectivity options, well, we’re guessing that even with all the delays, you still care.

[Via Mobile Whack]

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Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, Cingular, Symbian, GSM, UMTS

Filed under: Sony Ericsson, Misc

To follow up on our previous post about Nokia suing Telsda Mobile and Song Xun Da Zhong Ke Electric for copying their Nokia 7260 phone design, here's a gallery of some Telsda's other phones—strangely reminiscent of other phone manufacturers.

Not only is Nokia being ripped, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung have all been subject to the sincerest form of flattery. At least Telsda labels their phones with their own brand, instead of passing it off as a "Morotola" or a "Stony Erecsson". – Jason Chen

Nokia takes action against Chinese Cloners [Mobile Gazette]

Instead of having two separate screens on a flip phone—one larger inside and one smaller outside—this patent allows one larger screen to rotate to be displayed both on the inside and outside. This means possibly having the screen auto swivel so you can see the same UI when the phone is closed as you do when it’s open. It may allow you to dial just from the contact list when the phone’s closed, instead of having to flip open the phone to make a call.

The upside is that you can keep your phone closed more often, but it exposes the screen to the elements. Sony Ericsson is also shooting at a broad target with this patent:

“The mobile terminal of the present invention is not so limited and may find utility in other electronics devices and applications…a Personal Communications System (PCS) terminal that may combine a cellular telephone with data processing, facsimile and data communications capabilities; internet/intranet access devices; organizers; a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) that can include a radiotelephone, pager, internet/intranet access, Web browser, organizer, calendar and/or a global positioning system (GPS) receiver; wristwatch keypad devices; and a conventional laptop and/or palmtop receiver or other computer system that includes a display.

It’ll be interesting to see what develops. – Jason Chen

Patent Application [USPTO via Mobile Scraper via Mobile Mentalism]

Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson didn’t really strike us as too huge on the whole re-release that device in a new color strategy, but starting, well, last Saturday it would appear our UK pals can snag a lipstick red K750i from Carphone Warehouse. As for the rest of us, we’ll just have to live with what we’ve got now: the K750’s far more advanced successor, the K800.

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Filed under: Peripherals, Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson has took off the wraps off its quad-band GC86 EDGE PC Card, which will replace their tri-band GC85 card. The card promises up to 247kpbs when connected to GSM / EDGE networks, although the quad-band capabilities mean it’ll be all the easier to fall back on GPRS and stay connected — no matter how slowly — no matter where you are. While Sony Ericsson describes the GC86 as an “entry-level solution,” they don’t provide an actual cost, and as far as a launch date goes, Q3 is as definitive as Sony Ericsson’s willing to get for the time being. The card is also both Mac and Windows compatible, assuming you Apple users have a Mac with a PC Card slot, that is (you know who you are).

[Via I4U News]

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Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, GSM

Sony Ericsson keeps cranking out the high-style musicphones, and the V630i looks to be the latest edition to the line -- for UK Vodafone customers, that is. The phone, which eschews the Walkman branding used in other recent music-centric models, includes 10MB of internal memory, Memory Stick Micro support, a 176x220 display, 2 megapixel camera, trimode GSM support, and A2DP for Bluetooth stereo output. In sum, it reminds us a lot of another recent Sony Ericsson, the W810i, which has a similar feature set, but lacks A2DP (and that alone, of course, makes this one a new fave).

[Thanks, Goku]

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio

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Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Sony Ericsson, KDDI, CDMA

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Filed under: Handsets

Looks like these fakesters really went the extra mile in ripping off Sony Ericsson's W810i musicphone. Sure, the music playback is sluggish, the MP4 support is nonexistent, and instead of the advertised 3 megapixels the phone camera offers 1.3, but this sketchy device discovered in Hong Kong does include a little something extra: a touchscreen. We're sure Sony Ericsson would be proud.

Filed under: Handsets, Reviews, Sony Ericsson, GSM

align="right" src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/04/se_w810i.jpg" alt="" />As you can tell from Mobile Burn’s
title, "Review: Sony Ericsson’s Fabulous href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/04/sony-ericssons-w810i-walkman-cellphone-now-with-edge-and-quadba/">W810i,"
they obviously thought the device had something going for it. And frankly so did we; whenever we’ve picked it up, we’ve
hardly been able to put the thing back down. According to Mobile Burn the W810i’s incremental changes, like a d-pad
instead of a joystick (yes!) and 2 megapixel auto-focus camera might even make it a worthwhile upgrade for previous
Walkman phone owners. Still, the lack of A2DP support is
sure to annoy just about anyone (really,it is getting silly for a Walkman phone with Bluetooth not to have it in 2006),
but we can certainly see why they like it so damn much.

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Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson

We have a sneaking suspicion that it won't actually be called the SE123, but for those waiting for a decently specced Sony Ericsson clamshell (no, the P-series doesn't count), your wait may (or may not) soon come to an end. We don't know much of anything about the device itself outside the fact that it 123 could (should?) have a 1.3 megapixel camera, and that it appeared on Chinese site PConline, which claims SE could (should?) be having some product launches next month on the 11th and 18th. We'll have to wait and see, but in the mean time try not to get your hopes up too much, eh?

Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson, Symbian, UMTS

Yeah, we know it hurts that Sony Ericsson has no plans, at least as of right now, to ever release the P990 here in the States, but here's something that might make you feel better: the QWERTY keyboard on this phone is pretty crappy. To be fair, five minutes is definitely not enough time to make a proper assessment, but the impression we were left with after playing with the P990 at the Sony Ericsson booth is that the keys are way too small and not tactile enough for easy typing.

Anyway, to refresh your memory on the specs, the P990 runs Symbian OS 9.1 with the UIQ 3 software platform, and has a 2.8-inch QVGA touch screen display, built-in WiFi (802.11b), Bluetooth, a two megapixel camera with a "photo light," video calling, FM radio, MP3 and MPEG-4 player, and a keyboard (QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, or Russian) underneath the flip-down keypad. Click on for a few more pics.

Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson, GSM

It's not exactly revolutionary update, but if push-to-talk functionality was all that was holding you back from Sony Ericsson's semi-low-end Z520a, the Z525a should fit the bill exactly. The new model adds a PTT button -- well, more like, repurposes the camera button for PTT -- and nothing else. We're sure this will keep the Z520a purists happy, but we could've done with a bit of EDGE data or an improvement upon the VGA camera and 160 x 128 pixel display. Oh well, at least now we'll be able to complain in short annoying bursts.

[Via MobileBurn]

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio

That Sony Ericsson Walkman line-up just keeps growing and growing. Today, SE announces their 8th Walkman phone, the W700. Said to appeal to "lovers of classic and discreet design," the W700i throws-down tri-band GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio, a 2 megapixel cam, and ships with 256MB of Memory Stick Pro Duo'in storage. Expect these to ship in Q2 nought-six in both "titanium gold" and "smooth white." Hey, wait a second, other than being gold and shipping with a 256MB (not 512) MS Pro Duo card, there's nothing to distinguish this Walkman from the W800i released last year. Hell, it even sports the exact dimensions. A bit trivial for a full model number change especially when the addition of EDGE, an extra GSM band, and new controls only warranted a 10-point bump.

[Via GadgetCandy]

Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Sony Ericsson, GSM, GPRS

That Sony Ericsson Walkman line-up just keeps growing and growing. Today, SE announces their 8th Walkman phone, the W700. Said to appeal to "lovers of classic and discreet design," the W700i throws-down tri-band GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio, a 2 megapixel cam, and ships with 256MB of Memory Stick Pro Duo'in storage. Expect these to ship in Q2 nought-six in both "titanium gold" and "smooth white." Hey, wait a second, other than being gold and shipping with a 256MB (not 512) MS Pro Duo card, there's nothing to distinguish this Walkman from the W800i released last year. Hell, it even sports the exact dimensions. A bit trivial for a full model number change especially when the addition of EDGE, an extra GSM band, and new controls only warranted a 10-point bump.

[Via GadgetCandy]

Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson

It’s just a little bit obscure what’s going on in terms of specs and details over at Pocket Israel’s joint with the Sony Ericsson’s Z610i, but really, what do you need to know? Sony Ericsson’s following up their Z520 — which is a hot little number in and of itself — but we will, of course, fill in the blanks as soon as we can. It’s just nice to know what’s coming down the pipeline, right?

[Thanks, Goku & Harel]

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