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Sony Ericsson has unveiled the highly anticipated Symbian-based P900 smartphone, the follow-up to the successful P800 model released last year. The new model, which is slated to be available in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2004, but before that in other areas, including Europe, is smaller and faster than its predecessor. It works on GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 networks.

The P900 measures 4.5 x 2.25 x .95 inches and weighs 5.6 ounces. The company claims the inclusion of a video recorder is the most significant addition to the multimedia capabilities of the P900. The P900's VGA camera uses the QCIF picture size with MPEG4 video compression for video clip recording, the standard supported by 3GPP. A P900's video clip recording can be inserted into MMS messages. In addition, video streamed to the P900 from other sources can also be inserted into MMS messages for the user's convenience.

As a QuickShare device, a picture can be taken with two clicks and sent locally over Bluetooth, Infrared or cable, or across the mobile phone networks with MMS or e-mail. The P900's 208 x 320 pixel touch screen has improved color depth, with 65,536 colors compared to 4,096 colors in the P800, and images can be viewed across the full size of the screen and in wide-screen mode. The keypad folds down to has a removable keypad which flips down so you can use the full screen.

The smartphone also includes a 5-way Jog Dial for navigation and gaming. As a Symbian device, the it can run Java applications, including games, as well as many other Symbian application currently available.

Memory has been increased from 32 MB in the P800 to 48 MB (16 MB available to the user). Additional storage space is available by using Memory Stick Duo. A 32 MB Memory Stick Duo is included with the P900 and Memory Sticks up to 128 MB capacity are supported. Home videos can be scaled down using Packet Video recorder on a PC and a MP3 music player is included.

The P900 Opera browser supports HTML, WAP and cHTML content types. When viewing Internet content through this browser, pages are reformatted to fit inside the screen width, eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling.