SonyEricsson is preparing an announcement in May; supposedly at least 2 handsets would be introduced, the Shinobu (above, left) and Nicole (above, right). These devices (and the W580i) would use a modified UI with a reorganization of keys, namely the addition of dial-hang up buttons. We enlarged the original pictures so that you can see the SonyEricsson watermark too, please excuse the pixelation. The 5 megapixels prototype we showed you might not be introduced just yet The messaging device(s) that we also reported might be released in the form of their variants, or at a later date.

Shinobu should be a 12.5mm thick HSDPA slider with a large 2.4″ QVGA screen and a 2megaixels fixed focus camera, it should be retailed at about €430 ($550).

Nicole should be a 13mm thick WCDMA candybar with a 2.1″ 176×220 screen and a 2megapixels fixed focus camera, it should be retailed at about €190 ($240). This could be the first phone released with the Sagem ODM deal. –Sam Chan

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Back in mid-March we brought you leaked pics of the SonyEricsson M610i series. Above is a leaked photo of the Elena model, another addition to the Sofia and Maria devices. The M610i will showcase a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, QVGA 2.6″ TFT display (320×240 pixels) and 160MB of internal M2 memory. — Andrew Dobrow

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The SonyEricsson K750 and W800 are one of the most readily seen phones on streets nowadays, they’re pretty good phones really, the Walkman and camera both work reasonably well. The biggest problem with SonyEricsson phones is that the “Fast Port” (for charger/data/headset connection) is not the most well-designed, since you’re attaching everything to same port, it tends to wear out so much faster than other brands that have separate plugs for headset and power for example. There has been immense discussion over user forums concerning this issue, different people tried different things: alcohol to swab the dust and rust off, or simply buying a new cable; fortunately the Fast Port is improved on newer phones. Earlier today we spotted a pretty smart tip on one of the Chinese forums, and it worked really well with our super worn-out w800i. The trick is to give the 2 delicate spring-metallic flaps (circled above) on the connector some push, once they’re warmed up and bounced back to their original positions, you’re good to go. Try that out and let us know if it works for you too. –Sam Chan

Discussion Forum [PC Online]

We’ve been hearing too much about what SonyEricsson has under its sleeves, rumor has been going on about the next announcement which could be as early as this week (if not up till CeBIT). This morning we spotted new non-photoshopped photos of an unannounced SonyEricsson Walkman-branded phone on a forum, so far no word on specification, but we are sure that the screen is QVGA and it takes up a large proportion of the width, which means that the specs won’t be too low. We would not expect any phones with a co-branding of Walkman and Cybershot. From what we can see from photos, the handset is quite metallic, the rim around the screen might point towards a non-candybar set-up, the fact that the photographer tries to avoid showing us what’s right on top or below the screen makes us postulate that this should be a 3G phone afterall. The user-interface is non-UIQ (this should not be any of the rumored messaging devices), it appears to be flash-enabled, with variable swirls of leafy patterns behind the icons (this would require some processing power), reminding us more of the good o’Z800i. More pics after the jump.

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“Mobiltillverkaren HTC, växer lika snabbt som Sony Ericsson. Bolaget är kund till Ericsson och i en intervju med di.se säger vd:n och grundaren Peter Chou att han gärna pratar samgÃ¥ende med Sony Ericsson” What is that supposed to mean? Yeah we wondered too, apparently the founder and CEO of HTC, Peter Chou expressed his interest in discussing a merger with SonyEricsson at an interview with a Swedish site. In case you don’t know who HTC is, HTC is the company that designed and manufactured your lovely iPAQs, Dell Axims, and almost all of the O2 PDA phones. So are we going to expect orangely funky WM6 products from SEHTC? Hmm, UIQ and WM6 from the same manufacturer doesn’t make too much sense to us. –Sam Chan

Interview [Di.se]

Just 4 hours after AU KDDI’s announcement, NTT DoCoMo announced the new WCDMA 703i series in Tokyo. Nothing out of our expectation as we wrote about before. Also announced are the SonyEricsson BRAVIA SO903iTV DMB phone and Mitsubishi’s double-internal screen D900iDS, both of which Gearfuse premiered on Sunday. The 703i series is the mid-low end of DoCoMo’s 3G portfolio, so don’t compare their specifications with that of the W5 series from AU KDDI. Take note that all these phones will only be available in Japan and Japan only, they will not be unlockable, and neither will other versions be released outside Japan as they are co-developed between NTT DoCoMo and the manufacturers. We have pictures and details of all these cool looking phones after the jump.

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Japan’s second largest operator AU KDDI announced 10 new EV-DO phones this morning for the Spring 2007 line-up. Including the W51SH which we showed you the picture way before announcement. To our surprise, the Pantech W51PT which was also leaked earlier has not been announced yet. The 10 phones include one from the AU Design Project- the Media Skin, 2 from Toshiba, and 1 from all Casio, Panasonic, Hitachi, Kyocera, Sanyo, SonyEricsson and Sharp. Out of these 10 phones, 6 of them will support the DMB One-Seg service. Take note that these phones are jointly developed beteen AU KDDI and the manufacturers, they will not be sold outside Japan and neither will they be unlockable. More details on each of these phones after the jump.

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Here are pictures of the 2 upcoming phones from SonyEricsson. One with a swivel screen, the first Bravia phone that supports DMB (One-Seg) the SO903iTV. The second one is the SO703i, looking like the Z610 outside Japan. Enjoy.

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We know that it is only in a matter of days before SonyEricsson would issue their first product announcement in 2007. So we spotted this W200i prototype floating around online. Supposedly this would be a low-end Walkman phone with Walkman 1.0 interface, Memorystick Micro (M2) slot, 176×220 CSTN screen (screen type to be confirmed), a basic VGA camera and FM radio. The most crucial would be its market price by the time it is released. — Sam Chan

Forum > Discussion [Esato]

We’ve seen straight phones and bi (dual hinge) phones, we’ve seen slider phones and swivel phones. Having informally stating that they’re giving up on swivel phones (not forever, hopefully), SonyEricsson is said to be working on yet another form factor. Supposedly the newly designed hinge will do what the W44S can do, i.e. landscape and portrait viewing, but shredding off some bulk. No, the 3″ screen will be retained (phew), the new hinge should first appear on the upcoming W5 series (W51S) for AU KDDI. According to our sources, who managed to predict the Toshiba TX80 announcement correctly, Most of the functions on W44S will be retained, the speed will be upped to EVDO Rev.A, DMB recording can now be done in VGA resolution. They got the fruits, we want the juice. Not far from announcement. Stay tuned.

– Sam Chan