After some heavy action from the Nokia camp this week, Sony Ericsson strikes back with several new and updated models such as the Sony Ericsson K320,Sony Ericsson Z558, Sony Ericsson W830, Sony Ericsson W958c and Sony Ericsson Z550a models.
Sony Ericsson K320
The Sony Ericsson K320 is a new compact budget-oriented member of the K-series. It would feature a 1.8" (128x160 pixels) 65K UBC display, a VGA camera, an Infrared port, as well as USB and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. The Bluetooth capabilities of the device are enhanced by a proprietary Sony Ericsson technology called Automatic Bluetooth Pairing which basically means that the mobile would pair with a compatible Bluetooth headset automatically without the need of entering a passcode. The device would support tri-band GSM/GPRS networks. It will be available on selected markets in Misty Silver, Graphite Grey and Light Brown color combinations from October 2006 onwards.
Sony Ericsson Z558
The Sony Ericsson Z558 is the first non-smartphone of the manufacturer that comes equipped with a touchscreen. The clamshell would offer a 1.3 megapixel camera, FM radio and a Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot. The 1.9" 262K color TFT touchscreen display with a 220x176 pixels resolution would allow for English handwriting recognition. Sony Ericsson Z558 also has an external color STN display with a resolution of 128x36 pixels. Connectivity features of the device include support for tri-band GSM/GPRS networks along with Bluetooth functionality. Besides the regular Z558i version it would have a Z558c one, designed for the Mainland China. The latter would have support for Chinese characters input. Sony Ericsson Z558 would be publicly available in 'Espresso Black' from October 2006.
Sony Ericsson W830
The Walkman-branded W830 is an EDGE version of the W850 and would be targeted at the Asian market. The mobile comes with a 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo card in the package and the music playing experience is enhanced by the stereo FM radio with RDS, the Walkman 2.0 music player and the PlayNow 3.0 direct music download service featuring Sony BMG artists. Besides all that, the device would have a 2.0" 262K colors TFT display with a QVGA resolution and a 2 megapixel camera. When it comes to connectivity the choice is also rather rich - W830c would have tri-band GSM networks support with EDGE, USB 2.0, and Bluetooth 2.0 with support for the A2DP profile meaning that you could listen to music on a stereo Bluetooth headset.
The final two mobiles are the Sony Ericsson W958c and Sony Ericsson Z550a. The W958c Walkman is targeted at the Mainland China market exclusively. It features a large 2.6" touchscreen TFT display and is based on the Symbian 9.1 OS with the UIQ 3.0 user interface. This is the second smartphone of Sony Ericsson after Sony Ericsson M608c and announcing it means that Sony Ericsson has obviously decided to cancel the previously announced Chinese version of the W950 model - W950c. The only difference is that now W958c won't have UMTS support.
Sony Ericsson Z550a on the other hand is an Americas version of the Z550 clamshell that is already available elsewhere. It would have quad-band GSM support with GPRS, Memory Stick Micro (M2) memory slot, FM radio, Bluetooth and a 1.3 megapixel camera.
Sony Ericsson MBW-100 watch
And finally, another interesting gadget has come up as a result of the joint efforts of Sony Ericsson and Fossil, the famous watch manufacturer. The product Sony Ericsson MBW-100 is a regular analog wrist watch but it comes enabled with Bluetooth functionality. It can connect to your mobile phone and show you discreetly on a small OLED display who is calling you. Further on, you can even cancel or mute any call with the help of a dedicated key. But the fun doesn't end here - you can easily command your phone's music player straight from your wrist - you can play, pause, or skip to the next track. Best of all, it would be almost impossible to loose your phone incidentally since the water-resistant wrist watch MBW-100 would warn you with an out-of-range alarm.
The arrival of such a device comes as a no surprise since Fossil has a history with clever wrist watches in their Tech Watches series. The range includes watches such as the Wrist Net one which supports the MSN Direct service and the Wrist PDA one which works with the PALM OS and comes with 8MB of memory. The Sony Ericsson MBW-100 will go on sale globally during Q4 of 2006 with a guideline retail price of approximately EUR 300.
