Sony Ericsson announces the M600 phone and messaging device and revealed a host of unannounced applications and entertainment content features for its P990.

M600 is the second Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 enabled phone in the Sony Ericsson portfolio offering users great customisation opportunities. New push email applications, remote synchronisation and expandable memory give owners a UMTS phone and email connectivity in a device that easily fits in their pocket. The multitasking software platform allows the user to browse the Internet and to make a voice call in the same time.

The M600 has an 80MB onboard memory for storing email attachments and multimedia content. An additional 64MB Memory Stick Microâ„¢ (M2â„¢), which is a new ultra-small recording media designed for highly compact mobile devices, is provided in the box. The M600 is the first Sony Ericsson product to feature this new memory card.

The M600 is available in Granite Black and Crystal White and starts shipping during Q2 2006. The different regional variations of the M600 are M600i, for Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas, and M600c, for Mainland China.

Some of M600′s characteristics:

QVGA 2.6’’ display

262K colours TFT

Video playback 30 fps

Online picture sharing

SMS, MMS, POP3 e-mail

Push e-mail

Keyboard variants: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian

Dual function keyboard

Typing corrections and word completion

Handwriting Recognition

Touch screen

Media Player (support for MP3, AAC, ACC+, E-AAC+ and m4a)

Streaming Audio/Video

3D games, Java MIDP 2.0

40 Polyphonic ring tones

Symbian 9.1 and UIQ 3.0

Stereo Bluetoothâ„¢ support

80 MB internal user memory

Expandable Memory Stick Microâ„¢ (M2â„¢)

Full HTML browser Opera 8

PC Synchronization

The applications and entertainment content features for the P990 are: details on supported push email partners, anti-virus/firewall and VPN clients for secure corporate business, business card scanner.

The P990 comes after P800, P900 and P910 smartphones and is based on the same proven concept and recognisable form factor. It is designed to offer all the benefits of UMTS including video calling, high-bandwidth multi-media downloads and the ability to browse the Internet with full HTML pages. These are viewed in landscape on the new Opera 8 browser.

Sony Ericsson has partnered with McAfee to offer McAfee VirusScan and Firewall Mobile to further strengthen the P990’s email and web browsing security. The P990’s 2 Megapixel with AutoFocus camera was turn into a Business Card Scanner, using character recognition software to convert the scanned information from the card to Contacts.

The P990 will be commercially available in Q2 2006. The variants will be: P990i for Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and P990c for Mainland China.

Some of P990′s characteristics:

2 Mega pixel camera with AutoFocus

2.5 x digital Zoom

Video Telephony application with dual cameras and MPEG4 support

Camera light

Streaming video and playback of video (30 fps QVGA)

Touch based Picture editor

2.8 inch QVGA (240 x 320)

Touch screen with 262 k colours

Stereo Bluetooth support

Music player: dedicated access button, play lists support (m3u) and MP3, AAC ,AAC+ and E-AAC+ and m4a support

FM RDS radio with Clock radio

80 MB internal memory

64 MB Memory Stick PRO Duo in the box. Memory Stick PRO Duo support up to 8GB

IrDa

WLAN 802.11b

High speed UMTS modem (384 kbps)

PC synchronisation software

Business card scanner

Backlit thumb keyboard available in 4 hardware keyboard variants: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian

Opera 8.0 web browser

Flight mode (Activate WiFi )

Multi tasking

Security: anti-virus and firewall (McAfee); encryption (Pointsec)

VPN support

Symbian 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 software platform

Size – 114 x 57 x 25

Weight – 155g with battery and flip keyboard