Mobiles Review

Sony Ericsson today unveiled what it claims is the world’s slimmest business UMTS device, the M600i. Measuring just 15mm thick, the new touchscreen-enabled offering is the second handset in the company’s upcoming lineup to feature Symbian OSflash memory card addition to the Memory Stick family. 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 (after the earlier-announced P990i). It is also the first device from the Swedish-Japanese joint venture to support Memory Stick Micro (M2), the new ultra-small

Upside
The key feature of the M600i is clearly its connectivity optionssmart phone is just 15mm thick. While not as thin as the Moto Q which measures 11.5mm, the M600i represents an emerging class of slim smart phone form factor that we have also seen in the upcoming Nokia E61.. Like the upcoming P990i, the new triband candy bar supports UMTS (=3G), Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3.0, in addition to the standard suite of USB, Bluetooth and infrared options. The only difference here is that the M600i is a lot more compact. According to Sony Ericsson, the

In an effort to keep the size of the M600i to a minimum, Sony Ericsson has included a super-tiny Memory Stick64MB cardLCD supports QVGA resolution and can display up to 262K colors. is bundled as part of the standard package. The 2.6-inch touchscreen Micro slot on the device for memory expansion, on top of the in-built 80MB memory. A

Besides multimedia players, push-email and the Opera 8 browser, the M600i comes with whole suite of business applications that include PowerPoint, Word and Excel editors as well as a viewer for PDF files. The slim smart phone also supports VPN clients, audio/video streaming and Java MiDP 2.0.

Downside
We were surprised Sony Ericsson has opted not to include a camera on the M600i. After all, the camera has become a standard feature on most phones these days. However, while some may gripe about the lack of imaging tools, business users working in sensitive industries may find the omission of a camera a welcome move.

Taking a closer look at the keypad, we have our doubts about Sony Ericsson’s dual function buttons. By assigning dual characters on each button, it requires careful pressing of the edge of the key for the desired character in QWERTY mode.

We like Sony Ericsson’s move to adopt the tiny Memory Stick Micro format, which we’d expect to see in other upcoming Sony products. However, as with all new flash formats, we’d expect the new media to come in smaller capacities and at a premium price.

Outlook
One week to 3GSM in Barcelona and Sony Ericsson has already fired its first warning to competitors in the form of the M600i. Expected to be out in the second quarter of 2006, we expect the new smart phone to do well not just for its sleek stylish design, but also for its multiple connectivity options and strong business utilities. Final comments will have to wait till we get the commercial unit for review closer to launch.