There's something weird about Japan, in the way that a lot of made-for-girls mobile phones get to be released there. The half-Japanese Sony Ericsson is among the latest handset manufacturers to launch such a device, called SO706i and available soon from NTT DoCoMo, the largest mobile operator in the Asian country.

The new SO706i from Sony Ericsson is a clamshell that comes in three basic color versions (white, golden pink and black) as well as in lots of other girly-colored versions. Also, the handset is packed with countless wallpapers that have floral motifs.

The features of SO706i include: a 2.8 inch TFT internal display with 262K colors and a 240 x 427 pixel resolution, external LEDs for incoming calls, messages or emails, GSM and HSDPA connectivity (the GSM one is only for global roaming, as Japan doesn't use these frequencies anymore), mobile TV, advanced email and Web capabilities (Flash Lite 3.0 support included), Google Maps, Google search integration, a 2 Megapixel camera with auto focus and video recording, pre-installed games and lots of other useful applications. The internal memory of the handset is not known, but we do know that it can be expanded with a microSD card, up to 2GB.

Sony Ericsson SO706i weighs 98 grams and, when closed, it measures 105 x 49 x 13.4 millimeters, hence it's pretty slim for a clamshell. The battery packed in the new Sony Ericsson can provide up to 3.6 hours of talk-time, up to 290 hours of stand-by time and up to 100 minutes of continuous TV viewing.

NTT DoCoMo and Sony Ericsson will launch the new SO706i on the 4th of July, for a retail price of 40,000 Japanese yen - the equivalent of about $380 or 240 Euros. Like most of NTT's handsets, the SO706i will probably never get to see other markets except the Japanese one.