Following much ado over the company's Microsoft-to-Nokia smartphone platform switcheroo, the first smartphone from British manufacturer Sendo has finally been announced.
Read infoSync World's preview of Sendo X.
UK based mobile phone manufacturer Sendo today announced its new smartphone based on Nokia's Series 60 platform, the Sendo X. A tri-band GSM/GPRS 900/1800/190 MHz candybar affair, the Sendo X incorporates a number of Sendo enhancements to the Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60 software, including the ability to synchronize the full suite of PIM applications with a desktop computer.
 | Sendo's new smartphone offers more features than any other Series 60 phone currently on the market
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At 108 cc and 120 grams, the Sendo X is both small and lightweight, and features a 16-bit TFT display capable of displaying up to 65,536 colours at a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels - similar to the resolution of Siemens' repeatedly-delayed SX1 smartphone, based on the same platform. Of a total 64 MB of Flash memory, approximately 32 MB is available to users, which is up to 8 times more available memory included with other current Series 60 devices. Additionally, the Sendo X also supports hot-swappable MMC and SD memory card expansion.
Having made several modifications to the Series 60 platform, Sendo's first alteration to greet users of the X will be its Sendo Now! screen, a customisable main screen which bears similarity to the concept employed in Microsoft's Windows Mobile for Smartphone platform. This concept offers a certain level of personalisation, and also enables users to place shortcuts to favourite web pages, documents and frequently used application on the main screen.
According to Sendo, the X also features specific improvements in the audio and video departments through its SoniX and GraphiX engines. SoniX has been created to boost overall audio performance and enable playback of polyphonic ringtones, MP3 tunes and other sound effects through the dual acoustic chamber speaker system of the handset, while the aim of GraphiX is to improve video and gaming performance. Combined with support for J2ME MIDP CDLC Java with Bluetooth, gamers will also be able to draw on the steadily growing repository of both native Symbian OS and J2ME games for entertainment. The Sendo X also comes with two games bundled: Sendo Pinball and Funny Farmer.
The Sendo X also features an integrated still/video camera which offers a resolution of up to 0,3 megapixels with 4 x digital zoom and an integrated flash with automatic red-eye reduction. This enables users to take snapshots and record video, which can then subsequently be viewed and played back along with video in other formats including H.263, MPEG4 and RealVideo, courtesy of the embedded RealOne player.
In an integrated Photo Album application, photo editing features have been included, giving users the possibility to personalise pictures with captions, clip art, morphing and frames. MMS support enables users to share pictures and videos with friends and colleagues, and the handset also comes with a pre-loaded set of 30 images, 20 animations and 50 sound files for MMS creation purposes.
Other features of the Sendo X include Bluetooth connectivity, as well as support for fast infrared and USB connectivity to desktop PCs. Internet connectivity is provided courtesy of GPRS, but the handset can also connect utilising its built-in 14.4 Kbps CSD and Fax modem. Once connected to the Internet, the Sendo X allows browsing of content utilizing HTML 4.2, Frames, WAP 2.0 and XHTML MP, and supports security features such as SSL and WTLS. According to Sendo, its browser also offers on-the-fly resizing of web pages to eliminate the need for horizontal scrolling.
E-mail connectivity extends up to six POP or IMAP accounts and, unique among Series 60-based phones, the full PIM suite of applications - including e-mail - can be synchronised with a PC over Bluetooth, Infrared and USB using Sendo's PC Connect software. In addition, OTA (over the air) synchronisation is possible for contacts and calendar using SyncML. Sendo also includes several 3rd party document viewers with the smartphone, with support for Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint and ZIP pre-installed. Additionally, more than 30 other document viewers can be found on the accompanying Companion CD.
Speaker independent voice recognition and voice memo software is also included with the Sendo X, enabling rapid dialling of the entire phonebook and access to several functions, without the need to record voice tags.
A range of optional accessories have been designed for the Sendo X including a desktop USB Sync Station which also charges the phone and a second battery, a foldable QWERTY thumbboard, a Bluetooth headset with up to seven hours of talk time and a Bluetooth car kit.
Sendo said it expects to ship the Sendo X in some territories before the end of the year, but refrained from disclosing any specifics as to which markets and to what price.
An additional hi-res picture of the Sendo X is available on the following page.
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