Sony Ericsson on Tuesday unveiled two stripped-down candy-bar phones.
The J110 and the J120 do not come with embedded cameras or many other frills found in higher-end phones. Instead, they focus on talking: large keys for easier dialing, a central navigation key, and one-click access to commonly used features, such as the text messaging menu, ring volume, and alarm clock. Both offer roughly nine hours of talk time.
The J110 will be available in cream, gray, and purple; the J120 will only be sold in black. The latter phone includes an FM radio. Both phones are scheduled for release in the second quarter and are expected to target emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. Pricing was not disclosed.
But it's not all basics at Sony Ericsson: It also unveiled Tuesday two new Walkman phones, the W880 and the W610. At 9.4-mm thick, the W880 is the company's thinnest phone. It comes with a 1-Gbyte memory stick for storing up to 900 tunes and software for downloading music from a PC. The less-expensive W610, which has many of the same features, stores approximately half the number of songs on a 512-Mbyte memory stick. Both phones include cameras.
The W880 offers up to 20 hours of music playing and 6-1/2 hours of talk. The W610 includes up to seven hours of talk and 25 hours of music time. Both phones will only be available in selected markets. The W880 is set to ship in the first quarter, while the W610 is scheduled for release in the second quarter. Pricing was not disclosed.
Sony Ericsson is a joint venture between consumer electronics company Sony and telecommunications company Ericsson. According to Gartner, the handset maker is the fourth largest in the world.
