Sony Ericsson unveils the M600i

It was cellphones galore in Singapore at the annual CommunicAsia 2006 industry show last month where handset manufacturers and technology providers showcased the latest mobile applications and phone models.

At Hall 4 of the sprawling Singapore Expo pavilion, Sony Ericsson showcased its latest phones for the world market, including the company’s newest messaging phone – the M600i.

Soon to be available in the Philippines, the M600i is Sony Ericsson’s newest offering for the enterprise segment. With full messaging functions such as SMS, MMS, Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS), voicemail, Internet and push e-mail, it is also big in connectivity and productivity applications, including PC synchronization, Bluetooth, infrared and USB, QuickOffice and PDF or almost everything that a mobile worker needs in a handset.

On top of these, it is a handsome phone with BlackBerry capability.

In a briefing with reporters covering the Singapore technology show, Ericsson executives bared a study by Frost and Sullivan showing that more companies now have a mobile workforce and this new working nomads are not just corporate executives and business travelers but middle managers and more often than not the entire sales force, roving teams, blue collar workers, and telecommuters or those who work at home or in remote stations.

Steve Walker, Sony Ericsson vice president and product marketing head, said the M600i is specifically focused on messaging or what the mobile workforce needs most.

However, unlike the top-of-the-line Sony Ericsson P910i, this new Sony Ericsson model is not equipped with a camera and is tailor-fit for users who have no need for a camera on their handsets.

This may as well be in line with what Walker described as "unique differentiation for niche markets," or specific kinds of phones for specific needs or lifestyles.

Currently, the Sony Ericsson brand is represented in all segments of the mobile phone market – from the low-end to the very high-end, although Jan Wareby, corporate EVP and sales and marketing head, said the company remains focused on its strength in the mid- to high-end market.

"All (phone) capability has some costs," Walker said. "As long as we can see opportunity, we can go there."

In the camera phone segment, Sony Ericsson is set to launch the K800i CyberShot phone, which capitalizes on the technology and strength of Sony’s CyberShot cameras. This 3.2-megapixel camera phone, according to Wareby, has a distinctive camera template for avid camera phone users.

It has been Sony Ericsson’s value proposition to draw from the strength of its parent companies – Sony Corp. of Japan and Swedish telecom solutions provider Ericsson.

Sony Ericsson also has 10 Walkman phone models, which leverage on Sony’s Walkman brand and technology. In 2005, the joint venture company sold 35 million phones, three million of them Walkman phones and the rest, MP3-enabled handsets.

"We have about 35 or 40 models at any given time in different regions," said Lennard Hoornik, corporate VP and head of the Asia-Pacific region.

In the Philippines, Sony Ericsson models available in the market include four Walkman phones – the W800i, W550i, W810i, and W900i; top-of-the-line smartphones P900i and P910i; and standard phones K300i, K500i, K508i, K600i, K608i, K700i, K750i, Z520i, and Z800i.

"In general, we see a continuous strong market with new subscribers in new regions and an equally strong growth in the replacement market," Wareby said.

Amid this wide product portfolio, he said Sony Ericsson has a unique design language although it continues to be innovative as well.

"We stay within the general form factor for people to recognize the phone and the brand," he said.

Walker, however, said they select the form factor depending on the general value proposition of the product.

In the case of the M600i, the form factor was designed specifically to fully support messaging functions.

Messaging with the M600i

Push e-mail, or e-mail that is sent to the phone as it arrives on the POP3/IMAP server, is M600i’s banner offering and main competitive advantage among an array of smartphone features that include PDA functions, color screen, multimedia capabilities, wireless connectivity, and data storage.

In the Philippines, it is the second phone from Sony Ericsson that is fitted with the innovative push e-mail technology of Canada-based Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry service.

In a wireless world, the BlackBerry handheld has become the most ubiquitous gadget to send and receive e-mail and connect to the Internet if you are not carrying a desktop PC or a laptop computer.

This makes it easy for mobile workers to stay connected to their home office or base stations while out in the field or to remain productive while traveling.

The BlackBerry wireless e-mail service is unique in the sense that you don’t need to connect to the Internet or through WAP to send and receive e-mails. The e-mails that arrive in your PC inbox are "pushed" by a remote server to your handset and you can read and answer them from there.

A BlackBerry user can register up to 10 e-mail accounts and the remote server will push e-mails received from these 10 e-mail addresses to the phone.

Despite the advantages of this tech innovation though, most people are not attracted to the standard BlackBerry handheld. It was pretty big back then; it still is comparably speaking with other mobile phones that are getting smaller, slimmer, and prettier by the day.

Recently though, it has become possible to enjoy the BlackBerry service on an increasing number of smartphones, such as the Sony Ericsson P910i and now the M600i, that are not only fashionably in with the tech crowd but loaded with other multimedia features as well.

There are advantages though of using the Blackberry wireless e-mail service on a non-BlackBerry handheld.

One of the plus factors is in the area of aesthetics. The M600i, for one, is a compact phone measuring only 107 x 54 x 15mm and weighs 112 grams with battery. It definitely looks like a standard slim and stylish 3G phone available in granite black and crystal white.

While the usual BlackBerry device and other BlackBerry-capable handsets are generally a lot wider to accommodate a QWERTY keyboard, designers of the M600i have tremendously cut its width through the adoption of a dual-function keyboard. Each key has two characters each on the lower and upper parts. To select a character, one shifts through the key by pressing ALT, just like when you shift to upper or lower case on a PC keyboard. Complementing this is a virtual keyboard that you can tap using a stylus.

Tech-savvy mobile phone users will, however, notice a slight delay in response time with the M600i. When you open an e-mail, an MMS or an SMS, it may take the phone some time to read the data, especially if it is a big file, and the same goes for sending messages. Give the phone an allowance though to adjust to the many features loaded onto it. Even for a gadget, multi-tasking is not an easy feat to pull off.

A word of advice from the technical support team of the service provider: turn off the phone to reboot the system if it turns slow or gets stuck, just like a PC. It also helps to free up the memory in the internal storage and memory stick by routinely deleting old files that are no longer in use.

For a hardworking phone that can do a lot of things, another downside is its short battery lifespan. For moderate usage, you have to fully charge the battery every day. This can be remedied though by carrying an extra battery during a long journey such as when you need to be in the field for a whole day or a number of days.

Hoornik said though that a new Sony Ericsson travel charger is coming out in the third quarter so people can have a good full experience of their high-end gadgets.

In wireless company

Going wireless is a form of liberation. Instead of sitting behind a desktop PC in an office or carrying a notebook PC in a café with a wireless hotspot to check your e-mails, you only have to carry your handyphone, which in itself is a complete office.

The ease with which messages are sent and received in the M600i is largely due to the interface. When you create a new message, for example, you’ll be asked what type of message you would like to send – an SMS, an MMS, or an e-mail (and at what e-mail address you would like to send it).

Since the address book features comprehensive information on listed contacts such as mobile phone and landline numbers, e-mail addresses, and Web pages, it instantaneously gives you a choice of how best to contact the person.

Since the entry allows you to input other information as well such as the job title, company, address, birthday or even the photo of a person, it comes in handy when remembering business contacts you meet some time ago, especially when you are sifting through an address book that has thousands of entries. The address book entry also functions as a calling card and can be sent as Vcard via SMS, MMS, infrared or Bluetooth.

These, however, are standard features of 3G phones but nevertheless make the M600i such a useful gadget to own.

As the contents of the phone, including pictures, music, sound recordings, video and other digital files, can be synchronized with a desktop PC or a laptop via Bluetooth or USB cable, you are assured that you can easily and seamlessly switch to your PC anytime. The phone then becomes a functional gadget in support of a true mobile lifestyle.

Transferring music from your PC playlist to the phone, for one, is a cool feature. Since the M600i is not a camera phone, the same applies to digital photos and video files. You can download multimedia files from the Internet on your PC and transfer them later to the phone.

Overall, the M600i is a nice new phone on the block with comprehensive features that would be a joy to discover over time.