Sony Ericsson unveils very smart phone

The first smart phone running on the Symbian OS v7 operating system will be shipped by Sony Ericsson later this year.

The P800 multimedia device will be the first phone to carry the joint brand, and is aimed at businesses and consumers. It has a colour touch screen, built-in camera and internet access facilities, and can run on GSM and GPRS networks.

The handset can also download video clips, function as an organiser, and view Powerpoint, Word or Excel files. Its browser can access HTML and xHTML, i-Mode and wireless application protocol content.

Sony Ericsson said that the Symbian operating system allows the phone to download applications based on Java and C++ so that users can regularly update the handset's functions.

It will also use the UIQ pen-based user interface that runs on top of Symbian OS v.7.0 and is designed for media rich mobile phones. The P800 can also connect wirelessly to a Bluetooth-enabled headset or PC.

"Symbian OS v7.0 is a major release and the announcement of the P800 shows how Symbian is assisting shorter development cycles by including the functionality its customers want," said Symbian vice president Mark Edwards in a statement.

The P800 can take digital pictures, view them on the 208 x 320 pixel colour screen, store them in the photo album or send them as an email to a PC or as a message to another phone. It can also show a colour picture of the person who is calling.

No pricing has been set for the phone, which is due to ship in the third quarter of this year.

The P800 will be previewed at the Symbian Developer Expo in April where developers will get software development kits for the UIQ user interface which Symbian said will encourage the development of applications ready for when the P800 becomes available.

Nokia has already announced a similar device, the 7650, which will also include a digital camera and multimedia messaging functionality. It is due to ship in the second quarter of this year.