Sony Ericsson's BST-33 Li-Polymer batteries swelling into a lawsuit?

We've seen plenty of swollen and exploding batteries 'round here, but this is the first Li-Polymer battery (a technology generally assumed to be more stable and less prone to swelling and fire than Li-Ion) that we can recall ballooning into such a possible danger. Reader Christian sent us these pics of what's normally a 4-mm thick battery (pictured right) inside his W880i handset now swollen to a full 7-mm. The BST-33 sits at the heart of a long list of SE phones, a list we've included after the break along with one more picture. Do let us know if you're seeing similar issues.
List of compatible sony ericsson phones: C702, G502, K530i, K550im, K800i, K810i, M600i, P1i, P990i, W300i, W302, W595, W610i, W660i, W705, W850i, W880i, W950i, W960i, Z320i, Z530i, Z610i, Z750i

• Sony Ericsson's C903 Frances gives us a rear view, xenon flash?
• Sony ericsson 's F305 gets mauled by Hello Kitty

Sony Ericsson's F305 gets mauled by Hello Kitty

It's actually tough to tell whether or not this Hello Kitty "inspired" handset is real or fake, but at least Mobile-Review is claiming that the HK-adorned F305 will go on sale in Russia this March. From what we can gather, this is a rather standard F305 outside of the flamboyant exterior, boasting a two megapixel camera, M2 card slot, Motion Gaming and a ringer that only knows how to meow. We've no clue how costly this little beauty will be, but you can go ahead and bank on the fact that you'll be buying one for the Cosmo Girl in your life.

• sony Ericsson's T700 gets dressed in two exciting new colors
• Sony ericsson 's XPERIA X1 gets firmware update

Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 gets firmware update

XDA-Developers forum member PavelX1 has posted up info on a pile of xperia x1 updates he glimpsed on EMMA (Sony Ericsson's official service software). ROM version has migrated from 1.02.936.3 to 1.03.936.6 and is labeled as R2A. Of course, there's no word on what the official changes are but first reports say the X1 now boots quicker and attaches to network faster. Apparently the SEUS (Sony ericsson Update Service) isn't quite telling the truth when users are attempting to grab at the update, but proceeding through and updating anyway seems to be doing the trick. Usual cautionary advice from us is to read before attacking this as an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of cure.
[Thanks, Deniz]

• Sony Ericsson posts XPERIA X1 user guide for your perusal
• T-Mobile G1 and Sony ericsson X1 seen side-by-side, molten lava hangs head in shame

Sony Ericsson's C903 Frances gives us a rear view, xenon flash?

We got eyes-on with the C903's other side a couple days ago, so it was only fitting that we throw this up to complete the picture. We have to admit, the blurriness threw us briefly because if you squint hard enough, that 5.0 on the backside can sorta come off like an 8. Of course, that's not the case, but the joy here -- if you take joy in this kind of thing, which we know you do -- is what may be a xenon flash lurking in the rear of the C903 Frances' housing. That's it for new-ness, but maybe more news will trickle before the handset's unveiling.

• ericsson to cut 5,000 jobs
• sony 's MHS-CM1 and MHS-PM1 Webbie HD cams teach your kids to upload

Ericsson to cut 5,000 jobs

Wireless equipment maker ericsson said Wednesday it will cut 5,000 jobs after a 31 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits year over year. The Swedish company cited a dramatic drop in sales in its handset unit, sony Ericsson, and restructuring charges for the cuts. Overall, net profit fell to $465 million (3.9 billion kronor) from $672 million (5.6 billion kronor) in the same quarter a year ago. The job cuts represent about 6 percent of the company's 79,000 employees. "It remains...difficult to more precisely predict to what extent consumer telecom spending will be affected and how operators will act," said Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson. "To date, our infrastructure business is hardly impacted at all, but it would be unreasonable to think that this would be the case also throughout 2009." Still, Ericsson's core equipment business, along with a weaker kronor, helped quarterly revenue increase 23 percent to $8 billion (67 billion kronor) from the same quarter a year ago. The revenue figures beat analyst expectations, sending shares of the equipment maker up more than 10 percent in early European trading. For the year, profits fell 48 percent to $1.3 billion (11.3 billion kronor), while sales grew 11 percent to $25 billion (209 billion kronor).

• Keepin' it real fake, part CLXVI: the Sany Ericssan X1 with Wyndowz Mobil
• Sony ericsson 's W705 Walkman and MBS-900 bluetooth speaker slide onto the scene

Sony Ericsson's T700 gets dressed in two exciting new colors

The T700 is one of those handsets we wish sony ericsson had bothered to launch in North America, and now they're just rubbing it in. Well, maybe not with that red and gold abomination, but the all black setup really suits the ultra-thin candybar well -- granted, it strays from the T610 heritage the phone was designed to carry forward, but let's not get hung up on the past, alright? No word on when or where you'll find these, but if you guessed the US, go ahead and dock yourself five points. Actually, on second thought, go read a couple years' worth of Sony ericsson history and come back to us when you're good and ready.

• Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1a prodded by the FCC
• Sony Ericsson's Walkman Xmini for Japan is awesome, but not for the usual reasons

Sony Ericsson gets real with PlayNow Kiosk mobile entertainment service

Sony ericsson is trying just about anything to garner revenue during these less-than-stable economic times, but we just can't imagine this one gaining any sort of traction worth gloating about. Nearly a year to the day after PlayNow Arena broke cover, SE is officially rolling out PlayNow Kiosk in the Asia Pacific region. Put as simply as possible, these kiosks will be situated in over 80 sony ericsson stores in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia (during the first wave of rollouts), and users wielding SE handsets can plug in to browse / download TV shows, games, ringtones and music. Details around exact content choices and pricing are still being kept under wraps, but so long as our favorite EMF tracks is on there, you'll see nothing but smiles from us.

• Sony Ericsson's new ad shows off the C905's camera and absolutely nothing else
• Sony Ericsson's X1A surfaces in Best Buy's inventory

Sony's NWZ-1000 Walkman PMP handled on video

It looks like if you want to get a hands-on with Sony's latest Walkman, the touchscreen NWZ-X1000, you've got to do two things: travel to Japan, and seriously glad-hand the product. Despite our efforts in Vegas, the sony crew wouldn't let us snag the player from under its glass housing, but the Stuff team gets to toy with the OLED-faced PMP in this video. From the looks of things, sony is at pains to recreate something akin to Cover Flow, but the rest of the UI looks sadly like a whole bunch of Windows CE-based devices we see coming out of Asia on a daily basis. Of course, this might be an early iteration of the interface, so we'll hold our final judgments till we get a thorough hands-on with the PMP. The player is set to come in 16GB and 32GB iterations, and will launch sometime this Summer. For now, enjoy the video after the break.

• XPERIA X1 gets demoed in Sony Ericsson webcast
• FCC approval ensures American Sony Ericsson X1 users aren't bandits

Sony OLED Walkman NWZ-X1000 eyes-on

We've been trying to get a legitimate hands-on with Sony's OLED-infused Walkman since we first caught the device on Wednesday, but security's been super tight in the sony booth and we couldn't distract anyone long enough to unscrew the casing. So we can't get an actual hands-on with the Walkman, but we don't need to touch it to know that the OLED is seriously gorgeous and the UI looks super crisp. Sony's reluctance to pull this out of its casing seems to show the player's not ready for primetime, but we'll keep trying to get something a bit more gratifying.
Update: Engadget Spanish got a video of the device in action, so check after the jump if you wanna see more and learn a little espanol.

• VAIO P in-depth impressions
• Manufacturing delays said to be slowing XPERIA X1 sales

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G3 WiFi camera reviewed: wait for generation two

WiFi cameras are far from new -- over the past couple of years, we've seen P&S after P&S arrive with minimal functionality that would allow it to sync pictures with one specific online photo portal (or similar). Sony has stepped up the game for cameras to come with the Cyber-shot DSC-G3, which is the first of its kind to include a web browser for logging into pay-hotspots and uploading to practically any photo sharing site on the web. Popular Science got to handle one for a few weeks, and in the end, they were in love with the idea but hesitant to praise the execution. The T700-turned-wireless took satisfactory pictures, but the browser experience was less than awesome. You can hit the read link for all the dirty details, but unless you're willing to deal with "agonizingly" slow load times, you're probably better off waiting for the next revision. Or for some other company to whip out a bona fide competitor.

Sony Ericsson's W715 Walkman is all -- and only -- about Vodafone

Sony Ericsson and Vodafone's W715 Walkman arrived a bit late to the CES party, but we're always happy to talk about a new Sony Ericsson set. The W715 looks to be the twin of the previously announced W705, but with a color change, and a bit of frequency shuffling. Lifting up the hood we see that this new and exclusive to Vodafone slider boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, aGPS, WiFi, DLNA certified, 120MB memory, quad-band GSM, and 900 / 2100 HSDPA. Shipping seems set for Q1 2009 and we expect we'll hear something on pricing real soon now.

HTC said to be dipping into Ericsson's silicon for 3.5G chipsets

Digitimes claims that HTC intends to launch a 10-strong mix of WinMo and Android handsets in 2009 -- sounds about right, if we had to guess -- and not all of 'em will be Qualcomm powered. Apparently, HTC's HSPA devices will employ guts from Ericsson's Mobile Platforms group, and as lucrative contracts go, the HTC's chipset contract going into a serious Android year has to be at or near the top. Funny how HTC makes the X1 for Sony Ericsson and Ericsson makes chips for HTC, but business is business, eh?

Sony Ericsson C510 Cyber-shot hands-on

Sony Ericsson, while dwarfed by big brother Sony's launches at the show this year, did at least show a couple sets today. The Cyber-shot C510 will be released in a triple-band GSM single band HSDPA version for Europe, a quad-band GSM triple-band HSDPA, and a triple-band GSM version for China. Feature list includes a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, Smile Shutter technology that detects a smile a immediately grabs the shot, Snapfish, and YouTube for quick video uploads. The C510 has a seriously sturdy feel to it, button feedback is good, and it balances in-hand comfortably. We'll do our level best to hunt down some info on pricing and release date, but, no promises.

Sony's MHS-CM1 and MHS-PM1 Webbie HD cams teach your kids to upload

Tired of seeing your child come home from school in tears, only to find that all the cool cats in the playground were telling him / her to get a real pocket camcorder if they wanted to join the clique? Never fear, as Sony has just introduced two new Webbie HD cameras for giving your youngsters the chance to capture spontaneous moments in glorious high-def. The MHS-CM1 and MHS-PM1 both grab live action video in 1,440 x 1,080/30p and take stills at 5 megapixels; uploading the MP4 results are said to be a snap thanks to the embedded software that handles most of the hard work. They're available in two designs and three "stylish" colors (eggplant, orange and silver), and while the CM1 (available now for $200) gets gifted with a 2.5-inch swivel LCD and a 5x optical zoom, the four-ounce PM1 (ships in April for $170) goes screenless and sticks to a 4x digital zoom.

Sony Ericsson W508 Walkman hands-on

Also on-hand -- and in -- tonight was Sony Ericsson's newest Walkman set, the W508. This clamshell, which is a bit of a departure for Walkman devices, features quad-band GSM and single-band HSDPA, and a W508a variant that has quad-band GSM and triple-band HSDPA for our shores. Other notables include a 3.2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, video calling, and Exchange Activesync for some enterprise mail access. Engadget Mobile has a gallery up, so feel free to wander over and browse.

Sony Ericsson C905 gets reviewed -- all 8.1 megapixels of it

When you're reviewing a phone dominated by an unusually weighty image sensor that dominates the spec sheet, you can bet that cam is going to get an extra-thorough rundown. MobileBurn put Sony Ericsson's beastly C905 slider through its paces, and as you might expect, it produced some pretty awesome pictures -- as cellphones go, at least -- with a full-featured camera interface that seems to throw some validity behind the handset's Cyber-shot branding. There was some weirdness with vivid colors that seemed to be a fault of the review unit, and the geotagging functionality didn't really work, but if you just want to produce decent images that you can blow up and plaster to a dorm wall, this sucker should do the trick. A xenon flash, HSDPA, and serviceable signal and sound quality all conspire to make it a workable choice dubbed "Highly Recomended" by the site. Alright, yeah, count us in.

UIQ out of money, liquidation imminent

The writing's been on the wall for most of 2008, but it's now very, very official: UIQ is dead. The company's parents are unwilling (and / or unable) to pump any additional money into the failing software outfit, and considering that S60 has inherited the throne within the Symbian Foundation, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have abandoned the platform, and all of its employees have been warned of impending layoffs, there's really nothing left for UIQ to do than sell off its assets piecemeal to the highest bidders. We'd still give our right arm for a shot at a Paris, and with this fire sale coming on at UIQ HQ, who knows -- we might just have that shot after all.

Sony Ericsson's C510 Kate caught lookin' fly on camera

Pardon us a second while we fan away some of this sweat, but Sony Ericsson's C510 Kate is looking mighty, mighty fine. DailyMobile has graciously hosted up a gaggle of hands-on images, and we're not sure if it's the brushed aluminum or the brushed aluminum, but something about this thing definitely has a hold on us. Swoon over the images yourself -- they're waiting for ya right there in the read link.

Sony Ericsson W595 headed to Europe in Sandy Gold hue

If you're looking to sprinkle just a pinch of Mr. T into your life, there's hardly a better way than to pick up Sony Ericsson's forthcoming Sandy Gold W595. Reportedly, the only thing changing is the color, and Europeans enamored by that can get their jollies next February.