Sony Ericsson Idou Full Touchscreen Phone. The handset will be one of the firm's first to be based on pure Symbian instead of UIQ and will use a custom touch interface with an emphasis on media playback. Appropriately, it will also have a 3.5-inch, 16:9 ratio display and appears to rely solely on the screen for keyboard input. Sony Ericsson can also claim to be the first with a 12-megapixel camera onboard a phone and will give the device both a xenon flash and a retractable lens cover.
The Idou name is currently a placeholder for the phone, which has little extra confirmed information and will get more details sometime in the first half of 2009. A formal launch isn't expected until sometime in the second half of the year. Adding the Idou is crucial to Sony Ericsson, which was one of the earliest members of the Symbian Foundation and whose decision helped shut down UIQ and force a change in mobile operating systems. The company so far only has the XPERIA X1 as an alternative to competing touchscreen phones from Apple, LG, Samsung and RIM and typically prices the X1 out of the range of its rivals. The absence of capable high-end devices in general has helped contribute to a 27 percent yearly sales drop at the company as well as a tumble in average sales prices.
