For a starting price of 1,000 Euro

Nov 1, 2007 08:58 GMT  ·  By

Sony Ericsson M610i Lizy has been approved by FCC back in May, its leaked photos have been around the internet for some while and everyone's expecting it. Despite this, the smartphone didn't hit the market yet. Not in an official way at least, and not released by Sony Ericsson, as these days a prototype Sony Ericsson M610i Lizy appeared on sale via eBay Germany. It's sold through an auction, and the starting price is 1,000 Euro (about $1,440). Quite a lot, isn't it? But this "a lot" will not stop those who want to be among the first to own the long-awaited handset.

Sony Ericsson M610i Lizy is a 3G UTMS 2100 triband GSM 900/1800/1900 handset that provides a QWERTY keypad. Not in the classic way the mobile phones have QWERTY keypads, but in an innovative way, used by Sony Ericsson for the M600 model too: M610i Lizy's QWERTY keypad coincides with the number buttons, hence every button is "split" in two for the letters.

M610i Lizy operates on Symbian OS and has lots of features: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Media player, FM Radio with RDS, Handwriting recognition, Memory Stick Micro (M2) card slot, Jog Dial Navigation and so on.

The phone's dimensions are 106 x 55 x 17 millimeters, it weighs 116 grams and provides a QVGA 262K Color Touchscreen with a 240 ? 320 pixel resolution. Perhaps the phone's single drawback is that it doesn't come with a built in camera. I can't explain why exactly the producer didn't put a camera too in the handset, especially if we think that today even some low-end phones provide this feature.

We don't know when Sony Ericsson decides to officially launch the M610i Lizy smartphone, but until then, those interested in the handset can bid on the auction. I'm sure that if someone really really wants it, the buying price won't matter.