While the free-market works pretty well when, uh, left alone to be free, sometimes it needs a push from a visible hand. Case in point, phone chargers, at the moment some 30 different types of chargers are used on handsets throughout Europe. Today, the European Commission received industry backing of its phone charger standard that relies on a micro-USB socket. The standard is now backed by all the majors (representing 90% of the European mobile market) including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Apple, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments with compatible devices starting to appear in Europe next year. Or course, the micro-USB charger standard already has the blessings of CTIA, OMTP, and GSM Association which implies a broader adoption beyond Europe, someday. One charger for any mobile phone... where's the catch?

As recently as May Sony has itself stated that a PSP phone "could happen," and now a report from Nikkei business daily states that Sony is planning on putting together a team as early as next month to build product that would act as a combination of a PSP and a Sony Ericsson handset. It makes plenty of sense, both as a differentiation from Nintendo and as a confrontation of the looming iPhone threat -- and hey, it might also act as a decent salve over the lukewarm reception of the pricey PSPgo. Unfortunately, if Sony is just about to get started on this, we likely wouldn't be looking at any resulting product for a while to come. Sony declined comment according to Reuters, which doesn't mean a whole lot, but it's worth keeping in mind that we've been hearing this sort of rumoring since back when the N-Gage (as a product) was still almost relevant.

[Via Mac Rumors]

Sony Ericsson's pushing its Walkman and Cyber-shot sub-brands harder than ever these days, but there's still plenty of good stuff in the regular range, too -- take this T715, for example. The newly announced slider features a 3.2 megapixel camera with "photo light" (don't call it a flash), sunlight-viewable 2.2-inch QVGA display, 3G, an impressive claimed 20 days of standby time, and a compact shell -- SE says it's the size of a credit card when closed. Launched alongside the T715 is the VH310 headset, available in your choice of silver or black with three different earpieces and two loops to fit your screwed-up head perfectly. Look for the phone to launch in Galaxy Silver and Rouge Pink (isn't that a contradiction?) in the third quarter -- and yes, both global and North American 3G versions will be available.

Better late than never, right? Some sixteen excruciating months after its announcement, Sony Ericsson's WinMo superphone -- the mighty XPERIA X1 -- has finally come to Rogers as expected. Considering that the X1 is still very much one of the world's premier smartphones (on paper, anyhow), the on-contract promotional price of CAD $249.99 after discounts seems reasonable enough -- of course, whether you feel the same way after three years of mobile marriage is another story altogether. Staying within the Sony Ericsson realm, the C510 has also launched, an attractive candybar with 7.2Mbps / 2Mbps HSPA and a 3.2 megapixel cam; it's all yours for CAD $79.99 on contract.

[Via Howard Chui]

Read - X1
Read - C510

Yeah, we can probably safely leave this one in the file we found it in: you know, the one marked "never going to happen." Regardless, when we spied this little dude on Unwired View, we thought we'd pass along the weirdness. Unearthed in a Sony Ericsson patent application mysteriously dubbed "Mobile Terminal," what we have here is a bracelet mobile phone concept, sort of reminiscent of LG's infamous GD910 watch phone. This one's got some added fun in the form of keys on the side of the wristband for a fuller typing experience. Like we said, it's never going to happen, but that won't really stop us from hoping.

Look, we're not going to stop you if you insist on staying up until 4:30AM ET tomorrow morning to see what Sony Ericsson has in store at its CommunicAsia press conference, we just don't want you to walk away with a broken heart if nothing cool happens there, alright? Xperiancers is now reporting that the show will be little more than a recap on the company's recent announcements -- chiefly the GreenHeart stuff, the Satio, and the Aino -- which means the X2 may not be happening for a while yet. That's disappointing, yes, but no one's exactly calling the X1 a slouch in the spec department just yet, so maybe this is a strategic win for Sony Ericsson -- particularly with a big Rogers launch just around the corner.

We figure that the Sony Ericsson X1 is destined for Rogers any day now -- just around the same time that we suspect the X2 will be announced, ironically -- and now we're starting to get an idea on pricing. A tipster writes in to tell us that this CAD $499.99 you're seeing here is for an upgrade customer with no data plan, which would be crazy high for a new lad coming in off the street and signing up for a three-year deal, we hope, but it gives us a good picture of what current customers might have to gear up for. Excessive, perhaps -- but then again, some of us will go to the ends of the Earth for WVGA.

[Thanks, cell143]

Nokia certainly took its launch lineup seriously ahead of CommunicAsia's grand opening in Singapore this week with the launch of the 5530 XpressMusic and E72, and considering that, we're willing to bet that Sony Ericsson would want to make a similarly big splash when it holds its press conference on Wednesday -- but what could it be? The Satio and Aino are already out there, so it seems like the odds-on favorite for announcement here would have to be the well-leaked XPERIA X2. If the leaks turn out to be spot-on accurate, we're definitely not sold that the phone's any better-looking than the X1 it replaces, but then again, it'd be awfully hard to argue with an 8.1 megapixel cam and OLED display running Windows Mobile 6.5, even if you're not a WinMo kinda person. The action kicks off at 4:30PM Singapore time, which works out to a torturous 4:30AM for you New Yorkers -- so just how badly do you want to see it possibly unveiled, eh? And more importantly, how peeved will you be if it isn't?

[Via WMExperts and Electronista]

Reaction to the rumored X2 pictures leaked this far has been lukewarm at best, but hold up -- it's looking a whole lot different (and arguably better) in silver. We can certainly buy that this is dead-on real, since... well, it looks real, and also because the X1's also available in both shades. We're still not convinced it outshines its predecessor for sheer sex appeal, but an 8.1 megapixel camera upgrade is hard to argue with, isn't it? Anyhow, with this many units seemingly floating around in the wild, let's hope we're not too far off from an official announcement.

[Via Daily Mobile, thanks Daniel]

We couldn't make heads or tails of that thumbnail image we got sent a couple days ago alleging to be Sony Ericsson's X1 replacement -- it's not that we necessarily didn't buy it, it was just to friggin' small and weird to figure out what was going on. Well, when it rains, it pours, because a forum member over on fanklub.se has given up the goods in the form of a couple significantly better shots. We can already sense that there'll be a fierce debate brewing over whether this looks better than the phone it's destined to succeed, but the X2 definitely ups the specs with an 8.1 megapixel cam, flash, and what could be an extraordinarily usable keyboard (final judgment on that will have to wait until we play with a unit, but you've got to admit, anything would be an improvement over the first model). Still no word on when this might come to market or even be announced, unfortunately. Peep another shot after the break.

[Via CoolSmartPhone, thanks Gears]

Remember that "Elle" we mentioned in the leaked roadmap this morning? Whatever it is, it's destined to replace the somewhat homely TM506 -- which makes this here TM717 a prime candidate (especially considering that "Elle" was the T707's internal codename prior to launch). The handset looks to be little more than a T707 rebrand with AWS 3G thrown in for good measure, which would make it just what the doctor ordered to pick up where the TM506 left off, especially since it'd have a 3.2 megapixel cam versus the older model's 2. If the roadmap's close to correct, we have a few months left to wait for this one -- but it's not the end of the world since the CS8 is the Sony Ericsson that we're really waiting for anyway.

Granted, most of the pizzaz in Sony Ericsson's Naite GreenHeart phone is within, but there's still something special about peering at the exterior of a phone and just envisioning all that tree-hugging magic that's going on within. We know the full-on teardown will happen soon enough, but 'til then, feast your eyes on the gallery waiting in the read link.

Hear about the green feel-good bandwagon? Yeah, well Sony Ericsson's on it, straw hat and all. Meet the first GreenHeart products bent on sustainability: the Nait and C901 GreenHeart candybars, MH300 GreenHeart headset, and EP300 GreenHeart charger. The GreenHeart label means reduced packaging, recycled plastics, waterborne paints, and an electronic in-phone manual instead of a paper booklet. The Naite even includes an Ecomate application with Carbon Footprint Calculator that shows how much CO2 you're saving while walking your fields of organic tie-dye ink. As for the phones, the C901 brings a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with Xenon flash and smile shutter tech when it lands in Q2 (hey, that ends this month) supporting GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSPA 900/2100 frequencies. Naite scales things back with a 2 megapixel camera, a 2.2-inch 240x320 pixel display, and GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS HSPA 850/1900/2100 band support when it hits in Q3. And hey, if they make lousy phones you can probably just smoke 'em.

It looks like Sony Ericsson is taking a page out of Apple's book for the launch of its app store, bundling the service in with the very same platform it already uses to distribute music and movies. PlayNow arena -- which was originally designed for music distribution and whose movie rental functionality is going live this month in a handful of locales -- is now being expanded to incorporate applications as well, initially coming to 13 countries and some 38 Sony Ericsson models. Conveniently, PlayNow arena is already well-plumbed to support a variety of blling methods which should make the transition to paid apps a pretty seamless one for the company, devs, and users alike. Submissions from developers for inclusion in the store will kick off July 1, initially covering Java and Symbian before being expanded to cover "additional platforms" (Android, anyone?) later in the year; there's no word, though, on exactly when end users will be able to get in on the action.