ericsson

Twenty-four hours after teasing us with news of a major product announcement, Nokia officially took the wraps off its mystery smartphone on Tuesday at the Nokia World 2008 conference in Barcelona, Spain. And despite some close guesses, no one got it quite right, so without further ado, let us introduce you to the Nokia N97.

Part of the company's high-end N series of multimedia computers, the N97 trumps all previous models with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard and a tilting 3.5-inch touch screen (anyone else reminded of the AT&T Tilt or Sony Ericsson Xperia X1?). Yes, there's the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, but the N97 includes phone capabilities and is designed for the "needs of Internet-savvy consumers."

For example, the smartphone provides easy access to a number of social-networking sites, and the Web browser supports streaming Flash videos. The N97 also introduces something Nokia calls "social location," which uses the capabilities of the integrated A-GPS sensors and electronic compass to automatically update users' social networks, or let them share their location via photos or videos with friends.

The Home screen can be personalized with widgets of favorite Web and social-networking sites. Finally, the N97 is fully compatible with Nokia's Ovi Internet services, which include the Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, and the N-Gage gaming platform--though these services have yet to fully launch in the United States.

The Symbian-based smartphone also features a music and video player, a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and a whopping 32GB of onboard memory that can be expanded with a 16GB microSD card.

The quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) world phone is HSDPA-capable handset, but it currently supports only the 900/1900/2100MHz bands (AT&T's 3G network runs on 850/1900MHz, while T-Mobile runs on 1700/2100MHz). There is integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, however. … Read more

Social networking finally reaches its most underserved niche: the hobos. Look for Tom to officially join the Hobo Nation any day now. In other news of the day, Caroline McCarthy joins us for a rollicking discussion of The Washington Post's war on spam, and Molly most likely gets herself fired from CBS and kicked off TWiT in one fell swoop. So, learn to love Caroline. She might be sticking around.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 makes date with U.S.: Black Friday for $799.99 http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/12/sony-ericsson-xperia-x1-makes-date-with-us-black-friday-for-79/… Read more

You're hearing it here first, folks: The long-awaited Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 will be available in the United States on November 28 for an unlocked price of $799.99 through Sony Style stores. Go ahead, we'll give you a second to catch your breath from the sticker shock.

Yes, these are the official details as given to us by Sony Ericsson on Tuesday. The highly anticipated Windows Mobile smartphone, which was first announced at GSMA 2008 in February, won't be coming to a U.S. carrier for now, but it will be available for preorder starting November … Read more

Sony Ericsson has just announced its final phone of the year--the W705 Walkman. It's an aluminum-crafted slider with HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, and a 3.2-megapixel camera and LED flash.

In terms of form factor, it's got the typical Sony Ericsson haven't-we-seen-this-a-dozen-times-before look and feel, combined with the usual 2008 run-of-the-mill specs: a 240x320-pixel screen, a 4GB Memory Stick Micro M2 card to complement a meager internal memory, a fixed-focus camera lens, an LED flash, and stereo Bluetooth.

But it's sure as hell a pretty melon farmer, and we applaud Sony Ericsson for injecting Wi-Fi and GPS … Read more

Sony Ericsson has never been one to shy away from the high-powered camera phone. Its Cyber-shot series, which includes the Sony Ericsson K850i that we reviewed earlier this year, offers a solid set of handsets that excell both at taking pictures and making calls. One of its newest Cyber-shot models in the series is the Sony Ericsson C902, which we just reviewed. Sony Ericsson introduced the C902 at the GSMA World Congress last February.

Though we've had to wait a long time to review it, the C902 is an appealing camera phone with a sleek design and a loaded … Read more

Last February we took our first trip to the GSMA World Congress. While in Barcelona we saw a gallery of new snazzy cell phones that put to shame most anything we see in the United States. And while we were excited to see them, we knew that it would be a long time before they arrived in the United States. Fortunately, that time has come, as the first GSMA model, the Sony Ericsson W980, arrived on our desk this week.

Like other Walkman phones before it, the Sony Ericsson W980 promises a full media player, but it offers a unique … Read more

AT&T gave us a bit of good news today when the carrier announced it would add the Sony Ericsson W760a to its lineup. The W760a is the North American variant of the very excellent, and CNET Editors' Choice winner, Sony Ericsson W760i, which we reviewed earlier this year.

Features are the same between the two devices, but the AT&T version adds support for unique carrier services including AT&T Navigator and AT&T Mobile Music. The eye-catching design is also the same as the W760i, and AT&T will offer the W760a in … Read more

With Sony Ericsson's inaugural Windows Mobile device set to be launched in the coming days, the handset maker has revealed that it had to convince Microsoft to embrace plans to make the Windows interface more user-friendly.

Sony Ericsson hopes that the Microsoft device, first announced at the Mobile World Congress event in February, will appeal to "fast living" professional types who want to be able to use their device for work and play. The Xperia X1 will be released first in the U.K., Germany, and Sweden.

To take the device beyond Windows' traditional business roots, Sony … Read more

Mobile phone company Sony Ericsson announced Tuesday that it will launch a new music service called PlayNow Plus, which will feature unlimited music downloads.

As first reported by CNET News, the new service will be powered by British music-download firm Omnifone, and will feature music from all four of the largest recording labels, the company said in a press release.

PlayNow Plus will compete with Comes with Music, the music service launched by Sony Ericsson rival Nokia earlier this year. And out of the gate, PlayNow can offer a more complete music library than Nokia's offering. EMI has yet … Read more