Photos: Sony Ericsson's musical messenger

Sony Ericsson plans to release the M600 in the U.K. sometime in the spring. The company is touting its push e-mail capability and its support for Microsoft's ActiveSync, RIM's BlackBerry Connect and scaled-down versions of Microsoft programs such as Excel, PowerPoint and Word, as well as security software. Although the phone doesn't feature a camera and Sony Ericsson is not billing it as a smart phone, the M600 does include a music player and a simple, thin case design.

Unlike the M600, Sony Ericsson's P990i will be marketed as a full-featured smart phone. It handles push e-mail, video calling and messaging, business-card scans and RSS feeds. The device also includes a 2 megapixel camera and 80MG of memory. Announced some time ago, it has not yet been released for sale.