Sony Ericsson Joins the Windows Mobile Camp!

You smell that, folks? It's the excitement coming out of Barcelona and the Mobile World Congress. First up: we have a new manufacturer in the Windows Mobile camp, and it's Sony Ericsson! The picture above is the Sony XPERIA X1 (do we really have to capitalize it like that?). The X1 is a Widows Mobile 6 Professional Slider - a combination of a Touchscreen and a slide out QWERTY keyboard is nothing new. But check out this pic of exactly how it slides out - it arcs:

Shiny, no? They've added some interface tweaks on top of WM too, some ZuMobi-esque “Panels” that you can slide around to you heart's content. There's also the “optical joystick” that we panned on the Samsung SGH-i780. Thankfully there's also the standard 5-way on there as well.

Specs are hotness too:

• HSDPA/HSUPA (Quad Band, too), WiFi
• aGPS
• 3.2 Megapixel Camera
• 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm
• 145 grams
• “VGA” Screen

Read that last one again, why don't you? That's “VGA” (Sony's term, not ours, thanks for the correction tferrill!), as in 800x600. It should be arriving “second half of 2008” in “selected markets.” Select us! Select us!

More photos after the break! Also after the break, a fancy video commercial snippet that will show you the new panels interface

Note - the device doesn't show its face until a full minute in.

Engadget is reporting that the XPERIA X1 is actually manufactured by HTC. Hunh.