Sony Ericsson has unveiled a phone that I’m sure will give second thoughts to those already set on upgrading units this Christmas. The company announced earlier this month the coming availability of the Sony Ericsson K660, a phone that the company said was engineered for the mobile Internet.

The phone will only be available early next year so you might want to postpone your Christmas phone upgrade by a month or two.

FUNKY COLOR FOR A COOL PHONE. The lime on white version of the Sony Ericsson K660i, an HSDPA-enable phone that has been engineered for the mobile Internet. Click on photo to enlarge.

The K660, which will be marketed as the K660i in the Asia-Pacific region, is an HSDPA-enabled phone. The phone can access so-called “mobile broadband” networks that offer higher connection speeds. This not only makes browsing on the phone faster, it also makes it a good laptop accessory—as mobile modem.

I don’t know how wide HSDPA coverage is in Cebu but in my previous experience with PLDT WeRoam, I got strong and consistent HSDPA signals within downtown and mid-town Cebu City areas. I got a consistent GPRS speed at home in Lapu-Lapu City but this was a few months back. I suspect things have improved since then, based on my wife’s experience with using her Sony Ericsson K800i as modem.

The phone was engineered for mobile web browsing. Martin Winkler, head of web marketing at Sony Ericsson, said the company’s ” vision is to offer ‘Generation Web’ a mobile Internet experience that’s rich, user-friendly and satisfying.”

It offers landscape browsing, an option that allows you to view and navigate pages sideways, to make use of the wider screen. It comes with Google Maps for Mobile and I might work with the My Location service, a really cool service that places you in the map by using triangulation of the cellphone towers being used by your phone. I tried the service in my K750i and my wifes K800i but both phones don’t work with the service.

The phone, as with any multi-media unit released in the market today, also serves as a media player. It comes with e-mail and instant messaging clients. I also comes with a camera with a two-megapixel resolution. In my experience, this picture quality will do for online publishing. It has Bluetooth connectivity and serves as a USB mass storage when connected to a PC. It can record both audio and video.

It comes in a funky color “lime on white” or the so-so “wine on black.” It got me in “lime.”

Will I be upgrading to this unit? Nah, I’d wait for the latest in the K750i, K800i line to have a lime on white model.

Max Limpag

Max is a journalist and blogger based in Cebu. He has written and edited for such publications as The Freeman, The Independent Post, Today, Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, Philstar Life, and Rappler.

He is also a mobile app and web developer and co-founded InnoPub Media with his wife Marlen.