So this is what we've been waiting for: a mobile phone that can smoothly take, send and receive photos. If that's the aim, then the Sony Ericsson T68i has accomplished it - making this handset the one the kids should be crying out for this Christmas.
But beware of the costs. Off the shelf, the T68i is £279, with the CommuniCam camera attachment another £99 - or you can get the package for £199 along with a T-Mobile contract.
That's not the end of it: the ability to send pictures will cost another £20 a month on T-Mobile, for roughly 350 of the handset's screen-sized shots, and fewer larger-sized photos. The T68i is an upgraded version of the tasty T68, the unique selling point here being the CommuniCam, which snaps on to the end, and shows streaming views on the handset's colour screen.
A click on the phone's tiny central joystick ("joystub" is more accurate) takes a snapshot, which can either be saved or sent, via multimedia messaging service (MMS) or email as a JPeg file.
Sending pictures to a similar phone is obviously the most fun - this has the potential to replace SMS for the teenage nation's "r u there?" message of choice. To older phones, the MMS arrives as a text message, pointing users to a website and login, where they can view the photo.
There's a great novelty value in being able to send photos so easily, which may wear off. But it is great fun in the meantime, and as more handsets support MMS, the more ubiquitous these will become.
The only caveat is that the CommuniCam feels fragile, and requires a disconcertingly rough push to dock it with the handset. But it does come with a cute little cover to protect the lens.
Like its predecessor, the T68i supports GPRS, infrared and Bluetooth. Its SyncML capacity lets users synchronise contacts over the air, which makes setting up the new phone simple for personal digital assistant users.
The phone carries one of the first Wireless Application Protocol (Wap) 2.0 browsers available, with support for XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language). Its wireless transport layer security class 3 provides for safe mobile commerce transactions.
The Trium 110 is an attractive dual-band, pocketable phone, which, at 90g, is lighter than its immediate predecessors and now comes with a built-in antenna.
For the youth market, the main attraction will be enhanced messaging, downloadable games and its 30 embedded melodies includ ing 10 polyphonic ringtones. They include classical tunes as well as melodies from Carmen or the Four Seasons. But, beware, you may not know if your phone is ringing, or whether you are still hanging on for a call centre.
It has a good hands-free mode, can send messages with images and store up to 250 names. Its pre-pay price is expected to be £99, and the recommended retail contract price should be £9.99.
