The main competitor is Nokia’s S60 (which also sits on top of Symbian) and it looks like the Finns have won the user interface race, though there’s still a chance someone may buy the UIQ unit, though it’s looking unlikely especially as Symbian is being made open source.

Nokia is trying to regain it’s market position in the smartphone/touchscreen market – and their phones run Symbian/S60. They just need to ensure they keep it advanced enough so it can compete with Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberries.

Dark room – check.
Loud music – check.
Zero access to product or service – check.
Underground / no signal – irrelevant… no product to test.

Yes… it must be a handset launch.  And it’s a shame, because the excellent people at 3mobilebuzz had made a massive effort to get us there with Three’s PR team… Thanks to them at least for that – it is appreciated guys.

On the plus side, I do have a device now and initial testing is positive.  It’s a not a smartphone, but it’s slim and feels well built.  The software is nippy and UI is stylish.  Particular kudos to the Three people who have added their brand customisation, but have integrated it really well with the device both in use and style.  The highlighted feature is the ability to upload video to YouTube directly from the handset and then text the link to friends…  It’s nothing that Shozu hasn’t been able to do for the most part for a long time, but the execution is slick and makes this the most normob-friendly implementation of this I think I’ve seen.

Free with a contract from as little as £17 per month for 18 months, I expect this to have great shelf-appeal for people looking for an attractive low-cost phone with the appealing Walkman music playback features plus the lightweight content-creation option.  The ‘Darkside’ experience we ‘enjoyed’ (OK, it was quite fun) tonight will be travelling around Student Unions for the next few month – it will sell in bucket-loads there.

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As ever we’ll be giving the device a work-over and giving it away in the not-to-distant future.  Don’t say we don’t treat you people nice…

Sony Ericsson is not new to the music store scene and currently has it’s own Music Store service called PlayNow. PlayNowPlus is set to be first released on SE’s W980, and this for me is the key difference between the two offerings. Nokia is targeting the much lower end handsets in comparison SE will launch initially on one of its high end devices. I think that Nokia has gone for the correct market in this instance, however SE does have one major advantage as it has access immediately to Sony BMG’s catalogue.

You would have thought that with the strong walkman brand on its phone and close links to Sony BMG, Sony Ericsson would have launched something like this years ago?