uiq
Latest
Sony Ericsson "Lizzy" to follow up M600i?
It's hard for us in the new country to get too worked up over the successor to a phone we never got in the first place, but alas, we still wouldn't mind putting Sony Ericsson's creative text entry system through its proper paces. This here is allegedly the "Lizzy," successor to the M600i UIQ smartphone that's been kicking around overseas for a while now. We're digging the looks, but with HSDPA and a camera both still missing in action, the internals seem to be only marginally upgraded at best. If this is all legit -- and it looks legit enough for Sony Ericsson's latest round of offerings -- we can apparently expect it to drop later in '07.
Sling announces Symbian SlingPlayer, partnership with 3
Believe it or not, in some countries personal broadcasting to mobile video is actually encouraged, and Sling's about to capitalize on that more democratic "wireless dialtone" trend. (Verizon, Cingy, we're looking at you.) Paired up with 3, they've announced their SlingPlayer Symbian client for UIQ and S60 alike. At least the N73 and W950 have officially now been shown running the new client it as a part of 3's X-Series initiative, aimed at making mobile internet, well, useful to customers without fear of reprisal for data usage. (Verizon, Cingy, we're still looking at you.) UK residents will be able to get their hands on X-series gear come December 1st, but the rest of us may have to wait some undetermined amount of time before the Symbian client is released for mass consumption.
Sony Ericsson pwns UIQ (literally)
When a single manufacturer accounts for an overwhelming majority of your license revenue, it stands to reason that said manufacturer might save a little dough in the long haul by acquiring you outright. And so it goes for the long, passionate relationship between UIQ and licensee Sony Ericsson; of the 13 handsets running the Symbian-based platform, nearly half -- six in all -- have been designed and produced by Sony Ericsson, with the remainder split between Motorola and Arima units that haven't seen been met with nearly as much publicity. The Swedish company, currently owned by Symbian itself, will be transferred to Sony Ericsson (pending clearance of the typical bureaucratic stuff, of course) for an undisclosed sum but will continue to operate as an independent entity with the current management team in place. Though UIQ promises that its platform will continue to be available "on equal terms to all its licensees," the move makes official what's been known for years: that UIQ is to Sony Ericsson what S60 is to Nokia, an interpretation of the Symbian smartphone operating system to call its own. Will UIQ ever match S60's popularity, particularly in the Symbian-friendly European market? Probably not, but with a committed partner now laying out the requisite cash, it does seem more likely than ever that UIQ's here to stay -- and as always, we're all about choice.[Via All About Symbian]
Sony Ericsson P990 gets LocationFree support
It looks like the Symbian Smartphone Show is shaping up to be a bit of a showdown betwixt placeshifters today, with both Sling and Sony announcing Symbian support for their respective products' players. Unlike Sling, which announced both UIQ and S60 versions of its SlingPlayer Mobile, Sony is only going as far as UIQ support for its LocationFree on the wings of its fresh P990 smartphone -- a very Sony-like (read: proprietary) move, considering Sony Ericsson isn't down with the Nokia-backed S60 platform. Odds are Sony would've liked to have cut a version for its smartphones a year or two back, but the P990 is the first phone in the P series to rock data fast enough (via UMTS and WiFi) to handle the heavy-duty bandwidth requirements LocationFree -- or most any other placeshifting tech, for that matter -- requires. Sony Ericsson's claiming immediate availability of the Symbian client, though it's not yet live on the P990's download site. Of course, a LocationFree player doesn't do much good without the device itself, and a US version of the P990 is nowhere in sight, so just keep on toolin' around with those PSPs until further notice.[Thanks, Alex]
SlingPlayer for Symbian gets official
The packing materials of Sling's new round of placeshfters foretold it, we just didn't know when or how it was going to go down. It turns out that they've selected London's Symbian Smartphone Show to announce SlingPlayer Mobile for the Symbian platform, surprisingly choosing to support both S60 and UIQ-based devices. We haven't seen the software in the flesh ourselves, but we'd expect the experience to be roughly on par with its Windows Mobile sibling, and we're hoping it comes out of the gate with the same attractive introductory $0 price tag. Expect to see it start to find its way onto Nseries devices (among others) in Europe and Asia starting this quarter, followed shortly thereafter by a US launch.
Sony Ericsson P990i review roundup
Impressive -- just six short months have elapsed from our initial hands-on of Sony Ericsson's latest superphone to the first set of honest-to-goodness reviews rolling in. Obviously, we kid; most every UIQ fan east of the Atlantic has been clamoring for this thing for a while now, but only recently have production units begun finding their way into loving homes. Delays aside, All About Symbian and phoneArena were more than happy to take delivery of the shiny new handsets in the name of putting them through their proper paces. All About Symbian seems to have come away with the more positive impression of the two, suggesting that the device is among the best PDA / phone combos currently on the market; phoneArena liked the keyboard and camera less, but thanks to freezes and crashes aplenty, both sites agreed that the P990 could've used a couple extra firmware revisions before getting pushed out the door.Read - All About SymbianRead - phoneArena
SlingPlayer Mobile heads to Symbian?
Well, lookey here: a Symbian logo hiding out in a little, out-of-the-way corner of the box for Sling Media's new Slingbox AV. If we had cash riding on it, we'd guess this means an S60 version of SlingPlayer Mobile is getting ready to roll. Don't get us wrong, a UIQ client would be cool too, but seeing how S60 handsets outnumber their UIQ counterparts by, like, a bazillion to one, we don't want to get our M600 pals too fired up until we get the full scoop.
Sony Ericsson P990i dropping this week in UK?
Yes, we know that Expansys' release dates tend to be, shall we say, moving targets. Call us optimistic, but their UK site's currently showing an estimated 4 days to availability, possibly putting units into the hands of patient British technophiles as early as this week. As a refresher, Sony Ericsson's latest top-of-the-range smartphone is currently in the process of pulling a BenQ P50, having been announced nearly ten excruciating months ago. Be that as it may, the P990i will still be the best way to get yourself to the tippy top of the UIQ hill and we don't put it past an American or two to import the thing -- despite lacking both GSM 850 and UMTS 850 / 1900.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Sony Ericsson M600i shipping in UK
Like memory card standards, we get a little tired of tracking all the me-too text input methodologies floating around, but it's very hard to dislike Sony Ericsson's new flagship UIQ 3.0 piece, the M600. The "i" variant that Expansys UK now appears to be shipping is intended for Europe and sports triband GSM with UMTS 2100 -- not the most useful setup for us poor, smartphone-starved Americans, but we're not naïve enough to believe that'll stop every last one of you from importing this beauty for the £415 (roughly $766) Expansys is asking. If you get your hands on one of these, be sure to drop us a note on the key layout, ya hear?[Thanks, Soven]
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Mobile 2.0 arrives in beta
If you haven't found an anti-virus solution yet for your Symbian phone, and the mere thought of a piece of malicious code wreaking havoc on your contact list or private pics sends you spiraling into despair, then you might want to give the new Kaspersky Anti-Virus Mobile 2.0 a look-see. Along with your everyday virus blocking, the software works to stop SMS and MMS spam, and can receive regular updates via WAP or HTTP. Currently in beta, the software runs on S60 phones with 6.1, 7.0, 8.0, or 8.1 versions of the OS, but UIQ and Windows Mobile versions should be out for the second beta.
