Sony Ericsson R300 was recently approved by FCC, hence it's ready to be commercialized in the US, much to the joy (I guess) of mobile users who need a basic handset with advanced radio features.

First presented at the beginning of 2008, together with the R306 model, the R300 comes in a candybar form factor and it's both tiny and lightweight, being suitable even for the smallest pockets users might have. Part of Sony Ericsson's Radio series of phones, the R300 offers dedicated radio speakers and dedicated keys (on the back case) AM and FM frequencies and 3D audio enhancements, all for a good mobile radio experience.

Although the FCC's documents only mention the 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz GSM version of R300, Sony Ericsson also announced a 850 / 1800 / 1900 MHz version for the American networks.

Besides the radio-related features, the R300 also offers GPRS, Bluetooth, a 1.8 inch display with 128 x 160 pixels and 65K colors, a VGA camera, TrackID music recognition, Image viewer and editor, handsfree, Music player, WAP 2.0/xHTML browser, email capabilities, USB, 8MB of internal memory and no microSD slot. Well, considering the fact that the handset is intended to be a "radio" and not an MP3 player, we could say the lack of external memory card slot is not actually a drawback.

Measuring 101 x 46 x 12 millimeters and weighing 75 grams, the radio phone comes with a battery capable of providing a talk-time of up to 9 hours and a stand-by time of up to 400 hours (theoretically at least).

Sony Ericsson R300 will most probably be available across the US (as R300a) soon, although there are no details for the moment about which carrier will officially offer it. The radio phone's price is not known either, but its features tell us it can only be an affordable one.