Handset major, Sony Ericsson launched five new mobile handsets as part of its new hi-tech range aiming to gain a bigger pie in the growing smartphone market in the country.

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson's Vivaz falls into its entertainment series of handsets. the same range populated by the Yari, Aino and the 12.1 megapixelSatio camera phone that we reviewed last year.On initial inspection the phone has the appearance of a budget handset, as it's very light with a very thin and flimsy removable plastic backing that takes up the whole of the rear of the mobile and doesn't evoke the image of a quality phone. This is bound to pass through many peoples' minds as they first remove the backing plate to place in the SIM card and battery. Look past these initial doubts, as looks can be deceiving, seeing as how this actually is a midrange handset with redeeming qualities. With the weight of the handset being only 97grams, it is one of the lightest handsets we've seen, and it also has a reasonable size at 107mm by 52mm and only 12.5mm at its thickest point. It's not too absurdly small, nor is it too large to fit in the palm of the hand and operate comfortably.The key feature of the Vivaz is its camera, there are no two ways about it. It's not that it's anything special, as it's only an 8.1 megapixel camera and that MP rating is quite common these days. It is the video capture quality that is its redeeming feature. Don't get us wrong, the picture quality is good and the image is fairly sharp but the video is of a much higher standard than is usually seen on 8.1MP camera phones - it's HD quality.The quality of the video recorded is very good indeed, as expected with the 720p HD media at 24fps. There is a slight lag when recording video, where unless noted the record button can be pressed again whereupon the video abruptly stops recording. After this learning curve is surpassed video capture is very smooth indeed, with a very responsive camera-to-screen link with little lag observed between them. Movement is captured on video very well too, as shown in an example video at the end of this review. The volume button also doubles as a zoom button while recording, which is preferable to using the touchscreen as it isn't that responsive. There is even continuous auto-focusing whilst recording, which isn't commonly seen on mobile phones capable of video but is rather a feature of camcorders.

Game Developers Conference 2010 saw display of photographic series of Sony's PlayStation Move launch. This week's conference was glittered by Sony's PlayStation Move motion controller. This event was full of new announcements and launches of products which came in queue or the Sony customers. The conference week also witnessed Independent Games Festival Awards, including indie projects, many of which are expected to be made available on Xbox Live, PC downloadable games and iPhones.

PlayStation Move game controller has been reported to provide platform for four players equipped with complete configuration on PlayStation 3 console, by Gizmodo. PS3 therefore can be connected to four Move controllers or two pairs of Move controller with Subcontroller simultaneously.


Introduced at the Conference, the new PlayStation Move controller has 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis accelerometer for accurate exposure of the controller movement with high-precision motion sensors for sensing movement. For connection, move controller and Subcontroller make use of Bluetooth interface, seven of which are supported. It has been revealed by a copyright legal filing that power emissions, radiation emissions and peak output levels for WLAN modules and Bluetooth were being tested.

Introduction:

After a long time of making fans wait for it, Nokia has finally launched its 8 Megapixel phone in the market - the Nokia N86 8 Megapixel. The phone has been a force to be reckoned with everyone hailing it as the best non-touchscreen smartphone that you can buy today. Sony Ericsson couldn't have come up with a better competitor. The W995 has combined the best of both Sony Eric
sson mobile phone worlds, the Walkman and the Cyber-shot along with a bevy of features making it incredibly talented all-round feature phone. Both phones manage to match each other almost completely on the spec sheet with the only major difference being the presence of a full fledged smartphone OS, Symbian S60, on the N86. We often have people asking questions on which phone is better. They usually don't care for smartphone functionality which makes their choice even more difficult. So, to make their life easier, we set out on this mission to compare and find which one of these two multimedia juggernauts is worth their hard earned cash.
Design and Construction:

Let us start with their form factor. Both the phones are essentially sliders, however, the N86 goes a step ahead and slides both way. Underneath the other side are a set of music keys. This has been around since the N95 and has been pretty much useless until the N-Gage functionality came along which made good use of these keys. The W995 has none of these and uses a standard slider design. The music controls, a rarity before on Sony Ericsson phones, find their place on the side of the phone.
 The front side of both the phones are pretty much common, with the speaker, camera and light sensor placed above the 2.6" display and the navigation and Call/End keys placed beneath. Both phones use scratch resistant protection glass over their displays. The one on the N86 extends over the entire front surface which is good but, it also increases the area attracting fingerprints.

The sides on the N86 are far less cluttered since the buttons and ports are all placed elsewhere. The W995 gets tiny music keys on the sides along with the camera and volume keys. The N86 has its speakers placed on the sides. On the left side, the N86 gets just the keypad lock key while the W995 has the Walkman key and the Fast Port connector. Both the phones have their memory cards slots placed beneath the battery cover. But isn't too much of a big deal as the N86 has built-in 8 GB memory while the W995 comes with an 8 GB memory card. So, you won't be changing cards much with either of these phones.
On the top, the N86 has the power key, the 3.5mm headphone/TV out jack and the microUSB port. The N86 also supports charging over USB, something which the Sony Ericssons have been managing to do since ages. On the W995, there is only a 3.5mm headphone jack and the left stereo speaker. The W995 is the first Walkman phone to sport a 3.5mm headphone jack. It does not have TV-out though. The right stereo speaker is placed at the bottom of the W995.

On the rear side, you'll see that the N86 has a more simplistic design. The cover extends all around the rear. The W995 cover is made of metal, the only metal bit on the phone, and only covers the centre of the rear side. To open the rear cover, you need to flip the kickstand up, slide a button beneath it and then the cover can be opened. This arrangement is much better than the 'pry-it-open-with-your-nails' approach of the N86 battery cover. It must be mentioned, however, that the letters '8.1 Megapixel' that was printed on the cover started to erase by just scratching your fingernails on the it.

The lens of the N86 is protected with an active lens cover. The one on the W995 has been completely left exposed. The W995 also has a single LED flash compared with the dual flash on the N86. Both the phones have a kickstand at the back. The one the N86 is made of plastic and is a bit flimsy while the one on the W995 is much more solid. However, the N86 has an active kickstand which can be set to open any application of your choice when you open it, something that the W995 cannot do.

Previous N-Series and Sony Ericsson phones were far from being perfect in the build quality department. However, that's not the case with these two. The overall build quality of both the phones is very solid, almost exemplary. The N86 uses metal along the sides with high quality plastics used elsewhere while the W995 is content with having plastic everywhere except the battery cover. The N86 is the heavier of the two, the downside of using all that metal, but not unpleasantly so. Both the phones fit perfectly in hand and sliding them open is easy as well. The W995 has a faster sliding mechanism with a nice click sound at the end of the travel, however, there is a slight roughness in the motion. The N86 on the other hand has a smoother, softer mechanism with a muted click at the end but requires a bit more effort to slide open. We have been using both the phones around a month now and the sliding mechanisms have held well so far.

The designs, well, is a matter of personal preference. However, I preferred the simpler and more mature design of the N86 better looking than the W995 which was quite handsome looking as well. However, the shiny chrome bits were overdone. I also could not understand why the battery cover had a different (brushed metal) finish than the rest of the rear side (matte) as it did not blend in.

Speaking about the respective bundles of the phone, the supplied accessories on both the phones are more or less the same. The N86 has a remote control built-in to the headset and for once comes with good quality pair of earphones for a Nokia phone. The W995 lacks the remote but comes with a neat little portable speaker that snaps on the phone and runs on the phone's battery. The N86 also has a carry case provided but no TV-out cable.

SMARTPHONE ANNOUNCEMENTS show no sign of letting up at the Mobile World Congress today and Sony has joined the action by launching two high-end models.

Sony claims that it's "challenging the norm" with its Xperia X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro smartphones by combining high-end features with a version of Sony Ericsson's powerful User Experience (UX) software specifically designed for smaller devices. The X10 Mini and Mini Pro are shrunken versions of Sony's high-end Xperia X10 smartphone that it launched at the tail end of last year.

Both are expected to use Sony's Timescape that puts all social networking communications into one package and will have a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, 3G and quad-band EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 2GB microSD card.

The two Xperia Mini models will ship in a range of colours. The Mini will ship in black, pearl white, lime, pink, red and silver, while the Mini Pro features just black and red. There is a minuscule size difference between the two models, and the Mini Pro features a QWERTY keyboard.

According to Sony, both will run the Android OS with signature applications and its customisable UX software framework. Sony is also throwing you to the Android market store to help give it a wider platform to rival Apple's App store, Intel's recently announced Atom apps and what we can only guess Microsoft will do for Windows Mobile 7.0.

"There has been an enormous buzz around Xperia X10 so it is really exciting to be already unveiling compact versions of this powerful proposition," said Rikko Sakaguchi, EVP and chief creation officer at Sony Ericsson. "With the X10 mini and X10 mini pro we have pushed the boundaries of what is possible with smaller devices and are giving consumers exactly what they want; two high performance mobile phones with a fully customisable user experience platform and a stunning ultra-compact design."

Sony hasn't announced details about a UK release date but Engadget has grabbed a press release that you can see here. �