(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Sony Ericsson unveiled eight new phones aimed at helping the world's fourth-biggest mobile phone maker make inroads into emerging markets in India, China and Latin America.
The company, a joint venture between Stockholm-based Ericsson and Japan's Sony, is already well known for its high-end line of phones, including the ubiquitous Walkman that plays music, as well as its camera phones.
While four of the new models the company unveiled in London had fewer features, it said they still packed enough to lure new customers.
Sony Ericsson also unveiled its W880 and W888 3G phones, products designed to take on Finnish rival Nokia and Illinois-based Motorola in the high-end market.
The UMTS phone, just 9.4 millimeters thick, can store as many as 900 songs on a one-gigabyte memory stick and has a two megapixel camera for taking photographs. It comes in a stainless steel finish and is expected to be available before spring.
The company also released its latest Walkman phone, the W610, a candy bar style phone that can store as many as 470 songs on a 512-megabyte memory stick. Like the W880, it has a camera but also features TrackID, that lets the user record a sound clip of a song and have it identified by name, artist and album.
The phone will use the EDGE network, meaning it will work most anywhere in the world. It's expected to be released during the second quarter of 2007.
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