As the Mobile World Congress nears, more and more new mobile phones make their appearance on the Web, getting ready to be launched or announced at the great show in Barcelona, next week. One of these new devices that have recently been spotted over the Internet is Sony Ericsson's Hikaru, and today we have the first image of the handset available in the wild.

The new Sony Ericsson Hikaru was heard about four or five months ago, and now we learn that the mobile phone maker plans to make the new device its Walkman flagship phone. Hikaru presents itself as a rather nice-looking slider, though it doesn't seem to feature any out-of-the-ordinary characteristic.

According to SEMC Blog, the handset you can admire in the image to the left is the Sony Ericsson Hikaru, a phone that somehow resembles the W910. The new device is also reported to include a 2.6-inch display and an 8 megapixel camera, as well as 8GB of internal storage space.

Given the fact that this will be the company's Walkman flagship phone, specific features have also been included, and we can count here a 3.5mm headset jack and Walkman player 4.0, coupled with stereo speakers, as well as special music keys that can be found on the right side of the Sony Ericsson Hikaru.

The dedicated music keys and the large internal memory will be able to please music enthusiasts to a great extent, as they will be able to carry with them a lot of their favorite songs. For the time being, these are the only details on the handset that have been made available, but we'll learn more about it as soon as the company officially announces it at the MWC show, on the 15th of February, 2009. No info on the availability or price of the device is available either at the moment.