HANDSETS

SONY ERICSSON BONANZA!
The fashion conscious, the photographer and the music lover...

XPERIA X1i

Keep your eyes peeled for this seriously designer piece of kit. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1i is all about combining the mobile web with entertainment, placing the user at the forefront of mobile convergence.

This is an outstanding arc slider phone designed to address the growing need for a premium, converged mobile experience. It combines a three inch wide VGA display and a full qwerty keyboard within a quality metal-finish body.

With Windows Mobile inside, the XPERIA X1i lets the user choose from a dynamic range of activities, anytime and anywhere; from enjoying favourite entertainment content to working efficiently on the move.

It is touch panel display, with panels that can be tailored for each users’ personalised easy access. Extra space between keys has been utilised to make typing simple.

This little hottie has HSDPA and HSUPA capabilities for a serious fat pipe experience, plus has WiFi support.

C905

Yes, it is another Cyber-shot handset. But this one is Sony Ericsson’s first Cyber-shot slider and its most advanced camera phone yet. The focus of this handset is the fact it is a heavyweight 8.1 megapixels.

The new C905 Cyber-shot allows consumers to capture and share vivid photos whatever their needs, photography skills or budget. Whether it is a compact camera phone with prestige good looks, or a real alternative to a digital camera, is up to the user.

This handset, which stole its looks from a digital camera, has got a real Xenon camera flash and offers the picture quality to match. It has face detection auto-focus, smart contrast and image stabilizer, a 2GB Memory Stick Micro, plus USB adaptor (CCR-70) provided inbox for easy transfer of photos to and from the PC.

Sony Ericsson is plugging the C905 as a viable alternative to a digital camera, and for the gadget minimalists or stone-broke people out there, it can be.

W902

As part of the whole Sony Ericsson ‘music is reborn’ lark, here comes the W902. To coincide with the Walkman phone’s third birthday, this phone is now making its debut on the market in the UK.

The W902 features superior sound quality, encouraging users to plug into their device and listen to music play the way it should be heard: true to original. It is also a mobile phone for those that want it all, with a five megapixel camera and great video capturing and sharing capabilities and a healthy an 8GB Memory Stick Micro for storing more than 8,000 songs.

And to top it all off, it is another fat pipe lover, being UMTS,HSDPA 2100 and EDGE ready.

Ed says: Sony Ericsson has got three really diverse, consumer-ready handsets here ready for autumn, covering the fashion conscious, the photographer and the music lover. Despite the mess it has made of its financials over the past few months, Sony Ericsson has once again shown us that it is one of the top handset manufacturers for the consumer in the multimedia and entertainment space. Let’s hope it can stop its pants from falling around its ankles come the next quarter’s financials report.

AND THE BEST OF THE REST… From luxury to snap happy to mobile TV….

Mobiado Lucido

O.M.G! This is a nice phone, isn’t it? Or is it? Well, at first glance it looks a retro remote control, or perhaps a device the Terrahawks might use to flip the top off a mountain before jetting off to go and stop Zelda taking over the earth, again. But after a bit more staring, we have decided it is indeed a beautiful thing.

The Lucido, which was made available in the UK on 28 August retailing at £1,600, is a highhigh end phone, for the most discerning of customers. This is well beyond the Dior, Dolce and Gabbana and other designer handsets; this is serious tackle that deserves some respect.

It has a CNC machined, hard anodized aluminium body, a Sapphire crystal screen and camera window, a unique machine engraved and hand painted keypad and battery cover, and there is only 200 of them in the world. The Lucido is 3G – of course – and has a two megapixel camera plus supports up to 2GB of expandable, microSD memory.

And it is very nice. We really want one of these. (Is anyone listening?) The Lucido is available from UK distributor, Bamford and Sons.

Motorola ZN5

Motorola has teamed up with Kodak to create this, the MOTOZINE ZN5, the first product to come out of this pairing of businesses. The ZN5 combines a high quality phone and camera experience to help content craving consumers get their fix and share their fetish with the world.

ZN5 delivers an easy and immersive mobile imaging experience. It is the first mobile phone to combine Motorola’s ModeShift Technology and Kodak Imaging Technology. With Kodak Easyshare Software and easy access to Kodak Gallery1 or other web sharing sites, pictures are easily moved off the device, allowing consumers to print, share and enjoy their favourite photos whenever they want.

ZN5 puts image capture first, with a high resolution landscape screen and an ultra fast five megapixel camera with auto focus, a Xenon flash, 4GB of optional external memory and optimised settings for low light environments. Another good camera phone, this one, given extra cred for taking technology from the experts at Kodak.

Nokia N96

The Nokia N69 is designed to enable users to completely immerse themselves in entertainment, watching news, sports, comedy or live TV, listening to tracks, and keeping a bearing on where on earth they are at the same time. Users can enjoy their favourite music tracks with superb sound, control playback with the easy to use media keys, and discover new tunes with podcasts, FM radio and internet radio. This handset is also optimised for watching mobile TV and video on demand, with a nice bog screen. The N96 has a strong focus on mapping, allowing users to discover and explore their surroundings with Nokia Maps, with an optional upgrade to voice guided car and turn by turn pedestrian navigation. Excellent for those that get lost regularly. This mobile has a serious memory for all that fun to be stored in; it has a 16GB internal flash memory, space for 40 hours of video or 12,000 tracks, plus a microSD card slot. This is another HSDPA handset, and is DVB-H ready for when the UK finally gets going with mobile TV. But we doubt users will still be using this one in 2012….