Sony Ericsson recently unveiled its W580im handset, a new version of the W580i music phone released by the Swedish-Japanese company last year. The W580im packs all the features the original phone has and also brings i-mode compatibility for high-speed Internet access (first launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo, i-mode is a wireless Internet service that became popular worldwide and is now offered via carriers that partnered with the Japanese company).

Sony Ericsson W580im comes as a quad-band (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) GSM device with EDGE and GPRS connectivity and it's a slim, nice looking slider that measures 99 x 47 x 14 millimeters and weighs 94 grams. Among its highlights, we must mention the music features that make it a proud Walkman series phone: Walkman 2.0 player, TrackID music recognition, PlayNow for fast MP3 downloads, MegaBass, Flight mode, FM radio with RDS, Music tones and Polyphonic ringtones. Furthermore, we have Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, built-in handsfree, Voice memo and Memory Stick Micro 512 MB card included.

The i-mode compatible Sony Ericsson also features a 2 inch 240 x 320 pixel TFT 256K colors screen, a 2 megapixel camera with video, NetFront browser, e-mail capabilities, RSS feeds, Java MIDP 2.0 and a standard Li-Po 900 mAh battery that should provide up to 9 hours of talk-time and about 370 hours of stand-by time.

Sony Ericsson W580im will hit the market during February, for an unknown price, probably in the same color options as the W580i model: Style White, Boulevard Black, Urban Grey and Metro Pink. For the moment, the phone's availability is confirmed only for France, but it will surely be launched in other European countries where the i-mode service is provided, like the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland or Russia.