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Sendo music phone aimed at T-Mobile, rivals Microsoft design

Both Microsoft and Sendo were showing prototype "iPod phones" at 3GSM this week. They are aimed at the serious white earphone market, and have a spookily similar set of extra features - forward, back, pause and fast-forward - on the side of the phone.

By no coincidence at all, T-Mobile has been telling its staff that it is going to launch a special smart-phone later this year, with a set of extra controls along the side with music playback in mind.

NewsWireless did ask T-Mobile's receptionist here at 3GSM in Cannes who might be able to discuss this competition, but the staff blandly stated that "there is nobody here authorised to talk to the Press..." and that, implausible though it may seem, was that.

The Sendo X2 is pretty similar to the original Sendo X - which was the first smartphone Sendo produced after splitting up from Microsoft in a welter of (still unresolved) lawsuits. It's a Series 60 (Nokia licensed) phone, with extra features.

It's also smaller (thinner) and rather prettier, say the experts.

On a private boat moored in Cannes harbour, Sendo founder and CEO Hugh Brogan demonstrated the phone, still in pre-production form, playing back through good quality speakers, and claimed it was "noticeably higher quality" than the Apple iPod.

"We expect to have this for sale well under £150 off our own Web site store by May," Brogan said, "and you might estimate that networks would want to have it offered to pay-as-you-go customers for under £100."

It's a lot of phone for a hundred pounds, and it includes a 1.3 megapixel camera of pretty decent quality, which also functions as a video camera (for small format display!) even in very poor light indoors.

"All the music is done in software," Brogan said; "there's no sound card. The exact battery impact isn't certain, but we're promising 12 hours of play time, continuous, into headphones - which compares with around three to four hours talk time."

Disappointingly (not, however, surprisingly) the phone is GSM only - no 3G version till next year.

Quote from the product manager, Ron Schaeffer: "Phones haven’t really been credible alternatives to dedicated digital audio players until now. The Sendo X2 changes all that. It’s got the music format support that both consumers and operators want, memory that’s expandable to over 1GB and rich, high quality sound powered by Sendo’s custom-designed SoniX system."

As to which network actually announces it first, and whether we'll see both the Sendo and the Microsoft version from the same operator, remains to be seen. Orange is a prime candidate beside T-Mobile to be first with a Sendo X2, but Brogan was not prepared to help speculation about either network's interest.

"What I can say is that I expect this to be available globally," he said cryptically.

A sample of Microsoft's HTC-designed music phone was on view at the show, but was locked in a glass case. It was shown with white earphones, however... and T-Mobile was rumoured to have a working sample available for VIP guests.