At a CES 2009 press event in Las Vegas, Sony Ericsson showed us its two newest mid-range phones. While neither phone has been officially announced for the U.S. market, both the Sony Ericsson W508 Walkman phone and the Sony Ericsson C510 Cyber-shot phone will feature support for AT&T's high-speed 3G network, in addition to all the features from their respective product families.
The Sony Ericsson C510 Cyber-shot phone
 The Sony Ericsson C510 features a 3.2-megapixel, auto focus camera hidden behind a retractable lens cover on the back of the phone. Sony Ericsson's most recent Cyber-shot designs all find cool ways to hide the lens, then spring to life with camera features when the lens is opened. The Sony Ericsson C510 doesn't use the touch icons of the Sony Ericsson C902, but it gets smile shutter technology to snap pics as soon as the subject flashes those pearly white. The phone will also be able to upload pics directly to Snapfish, and videos can be sent directly to YouTube.
We had a few minutes to play with the Sony Ericsson C510, and we found it to be pretty average, but this wasn't surprising. Budgets and the mid-range will be the call words of the day for many days to come, so the Sony Ericsson C510 is surely trying to pack in some Cyber-shot basics into an affordable package. The design isn't inspired, but it is clean with a definite Cyber-shot feel to it. Likewise the interface, which was icon-based, but a bit more polished than a basic carrier-driven UI.
The Sony Ericsson W508 Walkman phone
 The Sony Ericsson W508 is a Walkman phone in the vein of the Sony Ericsson W980, another Walkman clamshell phone with external music controls. The Sony Ericsson W508 is a bit more mid-range, so it lacks features like the 8GB of internal storage or the FM transmitter on the W980, but it still retains the Walkman DNA, and that's good, because the Walkman music player has always been one of our favorite mobile music apps. The Sony Ericsson W508 does get the shake features from the Walkman family, so you can skip to the next music track just by shaking the phone.
The Sony Ericsson W508 has a 3.2-megapixel camera, which is a nice addition. To keep things personal, Sony Ericsson will offer some color print faceplates for this phone, though we actually liked the device in the steely grey color the company had on hand. With its blue accents, it was a nice, slick phone. Nothing to write home about, but certainly worth a look for a mid-range, music-centric clamshell. Again, we have no release info, and Sony Ericsson isn't claiming we'll see this stateside, but with U.S. 3G support, we think this might be a contender for AT&T's lineup.
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