Sony Corp is to buy full control of the Sony Ericsson mobile phone venture from its Swedish partner as it seeks to boost its consumer products offering and to catch up on smartphone and tablet makers such as Apple and Samsung

via Sony buys Ericsson out of mobile phone venture | Reuters.

It’s about time, isn’t it? If anything, it’s rather late in the day. I’d have liked to have seen what Sony would have done with the company 1-2 years ago. Still, I’m excited at the possibilities. Now, perhaps, we will see truly a suite of truly integrated consumer (and mobile) electronics? Come on Sony!

This week we reminisce about the devices we’ve owned and loved over the years. We highlight a few we think were real ‘market changers’, a few lemons and speculate about who might make the next game-changer. Rafe also lets slip the secret of his magic drawers.

Amongst the devices we discuss this week are the:

• SonyEricsson P800
• Sony CMD Z5
• Nokia 6210
• O2 XDA (HTC)
• Nokia N95
• Nokia E61 and E61i
• Nokia N82
• Blackberry 7230
• iPhone 2G
• Orange SPV / HTC Canary
• Nokia 1011
• Motorola RAZR
• Nokia 5110 and 3210 with Xpress-on Covers
• Original Sidekick
• Treo 180

Episode 7 is also available on Soundcloud.

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Well, here I am… Rafe filmed me doing an intro to the device here:

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

And for anyone who’s interested in the phone, we also got the Sony Ericsson chaps to take us on a walk through of it, here:

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

I would seriously consider getting one of these ‘for the weekend’. I particularly like the ‘Pro’ which comes with an integrated QWERTY keyboard…

The company is making the camera the USP of the phone, highlighting that it is “so perfect, this whole page was shot on the mobile itself.” Apparently, C905 has the ability to reproduce high quality prints at any size.

Check out the advert on the Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Use it on your visor or keep it on your dashboard, it’s a great device for the big/small family car.

Here’s what the sent in:

With the longest talk and standby time on the market, the Bluetoothâ„¢ Car Speakerphone makes staying in touch with friends, colleagues and family on the move even easier.  With superior audio quality and stylish design, this latest car accessory gives you a premium handsfree experience at an affordable price. 
  
London, UK Ã¢â‚¬â€œ September 16, 2008 Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Unveiled today, the Bluetoothâ„¢ Car Speakerphone HCB-108 has a sleek Nordic design and lets you talk conveniently when you are on the move – attach easily to a car visor with no wires, no fuss and no hassle. The speakerphone offers market-leading talk time and can be easily switched between vehicles, if you’re used to jumping between a company and family car, or simply use it in the office as a conference speakerphone. Just unclip the speakerphone, swap it over and off you go.

“The new Bluetoothâ„¢ Car Speakerphone HCB-108 is ideal for those who need to keep in touch on the move, and we are thrilled to be able to offer consumers a product with such unrivalled talk time.” said Jacob Sten, Head of the accessories division at Sony Ericsson. “The new Bluetoothâ„¢ Speakerphone HCB-108 is our most affordable car speakerphone in the range, but without compromising on the premium feel and stylish design that you can expect from Sony Ericsson.”

With the impressive 25 hours talk time and a standby time of up to one month, theBluetoothâ„¢ Car Speakerphone HCB-108 lets you enjoy crystal clear conversations and superior true duplex audio quality with echo reduction, noise cancellation and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) for longer than ever.

The Bluetoothâ„¢ Car Speakerphone HCB-108 will be available in selected markets from early Q4 in the colours Black and Silver. It will be showcased at the Paris Car Show, in conjunction with Saab, from October 4, 2008.

Read more about other car accessories at www.sonyericsson.com/car

The Bluetoothâ„¢ Car Speakerphone HCB-108 at a glance

Accessories
In-Box:

• Bluetoothâ„¢ car speakerphone HCB-108
• Visor clip
• Cigarette lighter adapter CLA-61
• User guide/Bluetoothâ„¢ warranty leaflet

Facts and Figures 1)2)

• Size: 119 x 61 x 14 mm
• Digital Signal Processing DSP
• Noise cancellation
• Echo reduction
• Bluetoothâ„¢ 2,0

• Weight: 93 grams (inc clip)

• Colours:
• Black
• Silver

• Talk time: Up to 25 hrs
• Standby time GSM/GPRS:
• Up to 700 hrs

Availability and versions

Available in selected markets from early Q4 2008.

The framework will give all of the company “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms” for licensing each other’s essential patents. The deal will also make sure that those involved can’t charge royalties that are more than a single digit percentage of the sales price of phones using their patents and for embedded LTE modems, the maximum level will be a “single digit dollar amount”.

Getting the patent regime – and particularly the pricing – for using patents agreed before anyone starts using them is a simple but very clever idea. Perhaps if Nokia and Qualcomm had set up a similar agreement they could have saved themselves a truckload in legal fees.