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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We in Asia have to wait till 2007 for the iPhone to arrive, the recent report from FCC has shattered dreams of millions since the widgets were to be substituted by Cingular’s monopolistic services for the mean time, the sole support for 850 and 1900Mhz would make parallel import (or roaming) to most parts of the world impossible.

The Japanese aren’t waiting, so they wrote an iPhone theme for their super high-end Toshiba 911T phone… and unfortunately the whole package does look a lot more attractive than the iPhone itself. Think about it, a 3″ W-VGA screen (800×480 pixels), One-Seg DMB tuner, HSDPA support, a microSD slot with support up to 2GB (plus 1GB internal memory you get 3GB), a battery that lasts more than 40 minutes, an anti-shake 3.2MP camera with autofocus, removable battery (thank god), Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF document reader, bluetooth A2DP supporting streaming to HiFis, a slider with a real keypad, 3 shiny color variations… we can also pick up the Oakley A2DP sunglasses with headphones. If you live in Japan, forget about the darn iPhone. –Sam Chan

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Two months ago we saw a design mock-up of a funny swivel phone from Nokia, the tension built up when a source showed us a leaked marketing picture. This was proven to be legit at the company’s announcement this morning, and as we were told, the funky device in the early pictures was indeed the Nokia 5700 XpressMusic phone.

What we do know now is that the phone will run a Symbian S60 OS with a revamped music interface; the dedicated audio chip, support for up to 2GB MicroSD cards and the reasonably good 2 megapixels camera would make this a fairly capable mid-range multimedia UMTS phone. Shipment is due in the 2nd quarter this year, suggested retail price is 350Euro or 460USD. –Sam Chan
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We’re pretty sure that we’re really approaching an announcement now. This morning we found pictures of 2 unannounced phones from SonyEricsson being leaked on Chinese forums. The black phone shown above should be the rumored Sofia (code name, K850i) with a 5 megapixels CCD camera module and xenon flash. (CCD, as found on the Thai I-mobile 902, not CMOS). Pay attention to the newly introduced dial/hang up buttons right next to the 2 softkeys below the screen, the d-pad that merges with the number pad at the middle to fit a pretty large QVGA screen. Also check out the camera illumination icons similar to the K810i, that will light up in camera mode to act as camera option shortcuts. The photos are dated back 3 months ago, so it is possible that SE might make final touchups to the design, as experienced by the K750i and W800i in the past. The Sofia should be a WCDMA device due early Q2 this year, price will be significantly lower than Nokia N95.

Jump to check out the other leaked model: Maria M610i WCDMA messaging device with 3.2 megapixels camera.

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Japan’s largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo announced this morning that for the first time in the world, they have managed a 100% population 3G coverage with their WCDMA network. The last 2 villages with reception towers installed are both in Okinawa, where they don’t even speak proper Japanese. The towers will be powered up on Mar28. Take note that this is only population coverage but not area coverage, but you can expect that there’ll be 3G signals as long as there is a village. (We have no way to assess DoCoMo’s definition of a “village”) The company will continue to expand their coverage area (in rural areas) with the new 1.7Ghz band that they obtained from the government, on top of the ongoing HSDPA upgrading. You can call NTT obsessive for building towers in places where nobody uses cellphones anyway, but don’t forget that a lot of so-called developed countries don’t even have a satisfactory 2G coverage, cough ATT cough Vodafone. –Sam Chan

Press release [NTT DoCoMo]