Probably the most anticipated phone from Sony Ericsson for years has been the new Xperia X10, and now it has a baby brother and sister in the form of the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro. The only differences between the two are that the Pro has a slide out qwerty keypad, is slightly larger, and is available in Black and red rather than all the other colours for the regular mini shown below. First hands on tests show this phone is fast and pretty much good to go (click here for a hands on test video). These two touch screen Android phones feature Sony Ericsson’s new signature application Timescape™ which brings all communication together in one place so users can see at a glance text messages, missed calls, and Facebook™ and Twitter updates, without having to open lots of different applications.  The interactive music player also uses an “infinite button” to pull together all music content from the music store and YouTube™ – a smart way to search for new tracks from a favourite artist. The phones will be available for release in the second quarter of this year. Personally I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these. If they live up to the hype the X10 range will be the phones that secure Sony Ericsson’s future as one of the world’s top handset manufacturers.   Main Specs:

• Android 1.6 operating system, with 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor
• 5mp camera.
• 4 Custom corner shortcut keys
• 2.5-inch QVGA touchscreen
• WiFi, Bluetooth (A2DP),
• Micro USB connector and 3.5mm headphone jack
• Sony Ericsson Timescape™, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync®,
• A-GPS, Android Market™, Google Talk™, Google Voice Search™
• 128mb built in memory, 2GB microSD™ memory card inc in box

For the full Sony Ericsson press release click here 

Sony Ericsson’s global Hopper Invasion campaign is well underway and thought it about time to give you an update on it (I first wrote about it here). The campaign promotes their new Entertainment Unlimited range of phones, namely the Satio, Aino and Yari. It all started a few months ago with a teaser site allowing people to create their own personalised online hoppers and a promo video showing 500 hoppers being let loose in Barcelona. They then did an online flash mob by taking over the yahoo.co.uk site for an afternoon using the personalised hoppers created by users online. (click here to see that) Next they created a fun interactive concept using twitter (with a unique hashtag), a warehouse full of deflated hoppers hooked up to pumps, and a dedicated website showing live video feeds from the warehouse. The general idea is that each time anyone on twitter types #pumpt the tweet is picked up at the warehouse and a hopper is given a burst of air in real time, all visible on the hopper website. The warehouse will stop pumping up hoppers on the 6th December and in the meantime Sony Ericsson are asking participants to tweet ideas for what to do with them. They will then pick the best one and make it happen. So far its becoming a great success, over 240,000 online hoppers have been created, and after just 7 days over 400 hoppers in the warehouse have been pumped up, and the #pumpt hash tag has been a trending topic on twitter. To follow the Hopper campaign on twitter click here, or to see the hopper live feed click here. (They also have nice Facebook and Picasa profiles set up)

  Great Print campaign for Sony Ericsson’s new W705 Walkman phones featuring “Clear Audio Listening” technology. The ads all feature people listening to music peacefully on their W705’s and showing their noisy background environments smothered in sound insulation. Great work by Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt/Bucharest

**UPDATE: (01 June 09) NEW SONY ERICSSON TOUCH PHONES PICS AND REVIEWS**

I’m a huge Sony Ericsson fan, the first phone I ever had was an Ericsson T10s in 1999 and ever since I have stuck with them and never had any issues. I have tried other brands often as I love gadgets but always go back to Ericsson, I think its just the simple UI and the way that even when I have dropped my phones into puddles they always work again after a quick drying session. Their latest creation is the Idou, the name is going to change but basically its their first official blend of a Walkman and Cybershot phone, with touch screen goodness.The basics so far are:

• 12.1 megapixel camera with Xenon flash
• Wi-Fi
• A-GPS
• 3G HSDPA 7.2
• 3.5” screen 640×320 nHD
• Touch screen with touch feedback
• Symbian Foundation software with a custom Sony Ericsson UI
• Bluetooth 2
• Thinner than the C905

More info to follow in early spring (USA spring)

Hat tip: Engadget where you can also find more pics of the phone.