Earlier in the week it was revealed that Sony Ericsson were no longer planning to use the Symbian operating system on it’s future mobile handset releases. The company fully intent to take the Android OS and run with it, hoping to become a major player in the Android handset market (no comment from this Xperia owner). Now SE have announced that they are planning to release a Windows 7 based mobile phone and that it may not be all that far away from release.

Both Jan Uddenfeldt and Aldo Liguori from Sony Ericsson have stated that the company has no further plans to work with Symbian systems in the future with Mr Liguori confirming as a spokesperson for SE that, ” We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system”.

So, that seems to be the end of Symbian phones from Sony Ericsson and now Microsoft’s head of marketing in the UK Oded Ran has confirmed that Sony Ericsson are actively working on a WP7  handset, at least one handset actually.The Microsoft statement ties in with a comment recently made by Mr Uddenfeldt himself stating that a, “Windows 7 Phone  is on the roadmap”.

It appears that the future is looking rosy for Windows 7 in the SE camp and we feel that it won’t be very long before Sony Ericsson are releasing specific product details for their own Windows 7 powered handset. Hopefully they won’t forget that Android update along the way though.

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Although Sony Ericsson had never confirmed the release date for the updated version of the Android operating system used on it’s Xperia X10 hansdets, the company has now moved to announce on it’s official blog that the update is not imminent and will not arrive before October 2010.

The Xperia X10, the Xperia X10 Mini and the X10 Mini Pro all run on the Android operating system currently and are using the 1.6 version of the Google OS. Whilst other handset manufacturers have pushed out their mobile phones with Android 2.1 or 2.2, the Xperia range has sadly been left behind by the reluctance of Sony Ericsson to update the firmware to a firmware that many users desire greatly. Sony Ericsson have never actually explained why there is such a delay to update and the latest announcement could see some Xperia users leave their Sony Ericsson handsets behind and move on to brands such as Samsung, HTC and Apple.

Running on an outdated firmware such as 1.6 Android is slowing the development of Android applications and games for the Xperia range and with the upcoming release of another Xperia handset, in the form of the Xperia X8, the Xperia phone range is left unable to play many games and applications available on the Android market because many applications are created with 2.1 or 2.2 compatibility in mind. This is a shame for Xperia owners who paid a healthy sum for their handsets and are struggling to get the best use out of their phones.

Hopefully Sony Ericsson are a big enough company, with enough care about their customers to resolve the updating issue sooner rather than later. They certainly aren’t a company that lets their customers down regularly so fingers crossed that Android 2.1 arrives soon.

Official SE blog

Sony Computer Entertainment America’s senior marketing vice president has put an end to rumors of any possible release of the PlayStation mobile phone in 2010.

Speaking to the Seattle Times, Peter Dille simply stated that they are no plans to launch any mobile this year:

Does this talk about the PlayStation brand signal more products coming soon — maybe a new mobile device?

“No new mobile launches this year.”

The PlayStation Android OS based mobile phone was rumored to be due for an October release. Perhaps we will hear more from Sony before the end of the year about hopefully a 2011 release.

Here is some good news for all those communicator fans. Sony Ericsson is allegedly developing an Android device which is similar to the Nokia Communicator. The device will feature a 5.5 inch screen and will have a sliding QWERTY keyboard.

The device is more of a miniature netbook than a smartphone because of its relatively large size.

This image was posted on It168 by reliable sources. The above shown device is a prototype and is currently undergoing the early stages of testing.

It will run the Android 2.1 version and is expected to be unveiled in Q3.

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Sony Ericsson is planning to launch a new phone in the Walkman series. The company is developing a Walkman phone on the Android platform and plans an official announcement sometime this month.

The phone is rumored to have similar specifications to the X10 Mini. It will have the same 2.6 inch touchscreen as the Mini.  It will also have the same 5MP camera without LED flash. Other specs include 3G, Bluetooth and GPS. The phone will have a 600 MHz processor. There is no news on whether the phone will run on Android 1.6 or Android 2.1.

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