Sony Ericsson unveils the P800, a multimedia smartphone with inbuilt camera

Tuesday, March 5 2002

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications today unveiled the P800, a multimedia smartphone for world-wide communications. It has a large color touch-screen, in-built camera, access to the Internet and runs on triple band GSM and GPRS networks. Based on the open Symbian 7.0 platform, this is a fully featured mobile multimedia product, and the most advanced phone that has been announced in the GSM-industry.

“The P800 symbolizes what we mean by mobile multimedia products, a phone that will change the way people communicate and that will help people create new ways of expression and interaction”, says Katsumi Ihara, President of Sony Ericsson.

With the P800 it is possible to take digital pictures, view them on the 208 x 320 pixel color screen, store them in the photo album and send them as an e-mail to a PC or as an MMS-message to another phone. The P800 can also show a color picture of the person who is calling, for that personal touch.

The P800 offers the possibility of downloading and viewing video clips such as a sequence from a sports event, music video or movie trailer. The P800 is also an organizer, it can handle daily operations such as calendar, e-mail, address book and to-do-lists. All these features can easily be synchronized with the most common office applications on a PC. The P800 enables to take notes and view files such as Powerpoint, Word or Excel. Thanks to Bluetooth™wireless technology, the P800 can be connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth™ headset, a PC, or other Bluetooth™-enabled gadgets.

The P800 runs on the latest version of the open operating system, Symbian OS v7.0 and incorporates the recently announced UIQ pen-based user interface. As the P800 is open, one can download applications, such as games, based on Java and C++. This opens up possibilities in several applications areas and it means that consumers will be able to update their handsets regularly with new applications and content.

“The P800, built on the open, advanced functionalities of Symbian OS v7.0, is living proof of Symbian’s vision for mobile communications,” says Mark Edwards, Executive Vice President, Symbian. “We look forward to seeing some of the Symbian community’s innovative applications and services being used on this phone,” says Edwards.

The P800 is open in more ways than one. Its integrated browser can access the web (HTML and xHTML), c-html and WAP. Furthermore, the P800 can be used across five continents and in around 160 countries as it runs on GSM 900/1800/1900. For the Chinese-speaking markets, the P802 and the P800c also handle Chinese character text input.

The P800 will be available during Q3, 2002.

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB offers mobile communications products for people who appreciate the possibilities of powerful technology. Established in 2001 by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and Sony Corporation, the joint venture continues to build on the success of its two innovative parent companies. Sony Ericsson creates value for its operator customers by bringing new ways of using multimedia communications while mobile. The company’s management is based in London, and has 3,500 employees across the globe working on research, development, design, sales, marketing, distribution and support.