Sony-Ericsson Z610 Walkman-influenced 3G phones
updated 10:00 am EDT, Tue August 22, 2006
Sony-Ericsson Z610 Phone
More Sony news arrives today in the way of a cellphone announcement. Though the company has taken advantage of its partnership with Ericsson to create a line of Walkman phones, its design influence is extending to more modest phones today with the unveiling of the Sony-Ericsson Z610. It borrows the reflective surface from Sony's A1200 digital audio players, including the 'stealth' external OLED screen. As a phone it gives UMTS mobile broadband, a sizeable 2 megapixel camera, and Bluetooth. Storage is relatively small at 16MB of internal memory and a Memory Stick slot (a 64MB stick is included), but music is not the primary focus here. The main obstacle to the Z610 is its likelihood of arriving in North America soon. In the form set to arrive in Europe by the end of this quarter, the phone connects to tri-band GSM phone networks but not the 850MHz band used by American GSM carriers. Since many Sony-Ericsson phones do receive slight upgrades that enable broader network support, it's entirely possible a variant of the Z610 will appear here before long.
