Mass mobile launch from Nokia and Sony Ericsson

Nokia and Sony Ericsson have launched a total of 13 new mobile handsets in a flurry of activity on the same day.

Nokia unveiled seven phones at simultaneous events in Finland and Singapore. Not to be outdone Sony Ericsson showed off five new handsets as well as a PC card that combines Wi-Fi with 3G/UMTS and global quad-band GSM/EDGE/GPRS.

Earlier in the year Sony Ericsson admitted that its aging handset range was holding sales back.

"Sony Ericsson's decrease in average selling price was partly due to general market conditions, but also because the product line-up was mature and few new products were launched during the period," said the company in a statement.

The firm is hoping that the five new models, the J210, Z520, K680, S600i and W600a, will revive its fortunes. The latter device is Sony Ericsson's second music phone and has been branded with the Walkman logo. It comes with an FM radio and 256MB of storage, although it lacks support for removable media.

Other notable models include the S600 gaming phone, which comes with a version of the classic 1980s game Gauntletand the K608, a lightweight 3G handset with a camera, FM radio and digital music player.

Meanwhile Nokia's latest models include the high-end Nokia 6280 3G handset which has both a 2-megapixel and a VGA camera for videoconferencing, and the tri-band 6270 slide phone.

Both of these handsets, as well as the 6265, 6060 and 6111, are built around Nokia's Series 40 operating system, which has recently been augmented with improved developer tools and support for Java.

Lee Epting, vice president of Nokia's global developer support programme, said: "By incorporating advanced Java technologies and support for larger screen sizes and higher resolutions, the new platform will provide an advanced mobile experience to consumers and business users."

The 6265, along with the 2125 and 2255, can be configured for the US market, addressing a key weakness in Nokia's handset line-up which until recently has been dominated by phones for the European and Far Eastern market.