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The Sony Ericsson Kuraru was expected to be announced at MWC next month but an accidental leak (which has now been removed) gives us more details on the handset, ahead of time. The phone will be launched as Vivaz and feature the same specs as revealed last time. That includes an 8.1 megapixel camera, 3.2 inch touch screen and Symbian 60 5th Edition. The handset is due to be released in April in the UK and Asia following later. It’ll retail for around $670 to $750 and be available in four colors, Cosmic Black, Moon Silver, Galaxy Blue or Venus Ruby.

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The Sony Ericsson Satio may be back on shelves after the firmware update, but many problems still persist. Here I’ll post the known issues and whether they were patched in the update.

• Media limited to 3000 files – Fixed in latest update. Not sure if the limits been removed completely or increased, but I’ve found no problems so far. However, media files are now loading slower after the update.
• Screen is blank when a phone call is received – Problem still persists after update. When I receive a phone call, the display stays black and so I can’t see who is calling me.
• Phone vibrates 5 seconds before ringing – May not be an issue to some, but is causing problems for others, as is counted as a couple of rings from the callers end.
• Lock and unlock – Phone locks and unlocks after the update.
• Pay as You go customers get a zero balance – When using Google Maps, the phone says you need at least x amount of credit to use GPRS (minimum price dependant on network, am using O2 myself). Phone needs to be restarted for the balance to become correct again (have rang up before restart and told I have no credit, upon restart and a balance check, my correct balance shows).
• Facebook App still missing.
• Phone crashes or freezes when certain apps/games are launched. Never had an app make the phone crash or restart but am still having apps freeze the phone for a good minute.
• Home Screen theme – Only the Sony Ericsson home screen themes shows correctly. With the latest firmware, it appears to still be an issue. However restoring all your settings on the phone, should fix it with the latest firmware. Because it didn’t fix it without resetting the settings the issue may crop up again.
• Calls from one contact from different numbers still show one icon, so is unknown where the caller rang from.

After the recent announcement from Sony Ericsson about the Idou, Ubergizmo – who shared the news -  have had a chance to snap some photos of the upcoming device.

The Idou, as it’s currently called, may when it’s released go by a different name according to the screenshots. Further information about the Idou has also been released, including information about the shipping date. It is expected to be released within the second half of 2009. As well as it’s impressive screen size, it’s also confirmed that the screen is actually a touch screen, allowing ease of use when it comes to the multimedia features.

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Sony Ericsson have announced at Mobile World Congress that they are to release a phone combining both the Cybershot and Walkman features into one device, the Idou. The Idou will feature the next leap in the Cybershot category and have an impressive 12.1 megapixel camera. The phone will feature a 3.5 inch display with a 16:9 resolution, giving you a great viewing experience of your photos and videos. As well as the great camera upgrade, it will feature all the capabilities of the Walkman range. Idou also falls into the smartphone range as it’s powered by Symbian Foundation.

It was also hinted that this device could be very good with mobile gaming, with reference to their “legacy”, which UberGizmo take as a reference to the Sony PS3 and Playstation Portable. The device will also be able to connect to other devices with it’s DLNA connectivity. DLNA is found on PCs, network storage, set top boxes, as well as the PS3 and PSP.