Birmingham, UK - Sendo today announced its new highly featured multimedia smartphone, the Sendo X. The Sendo X sets itself apart from other multimedia smartphones with a number of innovations, specifically in the area of video, audio, camera, connectivity and internet functionality.

Hugh Brogan, Sendo's CEO, stated: "We believe that the Sendo X has the best combination of advanced multimedia and internet capability of any phone available on the market today. True to Sendo's business model, we have made the Sendo X extremely customisable for both the operator and the user. Innovations like the Sendo Now!™ screen mean that both network operators and consumers can now adapt the phone to the way they want to use it."

It is first and foremost a compact, stylish high-end small and light GPRS tri-band phone in a real phone form factor using high quality materials such as aluminium in its finishing. In addition to its great form factor, the Sendo X incorporates a number of Sendo enhancements to the Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60 software.

Series 60 licensor, Nokia Mobile Software's Jukka Riivari, Director of Sales added: "Within less than a year of our licensing agreement Sendo brings to the market an impressive smartphone. With the Sendo X, Sendo also leveraged the flexibility of the Series 60 Platform in product differentiation by adding many unique innovations to the phone, all packaged in a very light, small and stylish product."

"The Sendo X demonstrates that Symbian OS is the ideal platform to enable customisation for mobile operators," said David Levin, CEO of Symbian. "Sendo has exploited the powerful capabilities of Symbian OS and its strong support for open standards to bring to market a compelling offering for both operators and consumers."

Sendo X - what sets it apart

Great phone

First of all, the phone is very small and light at 108cc and 120 grams. But more than that, it is the first phone in the world to offer the revolutionary Sendo Now! screen, a fast and easy to use, customisable, personalisable, and expandable home screen, allowing users easy access to network operator value added services. The Now! screen also allows users to have quick access to their favourite web pages, documents and to get easy access to their frequently used applications on the phone, giving them the ability to get more out of the Sendo X more often.

Video

The Sendo X features a 176x220 TFT display with up to 65,536 colours. It has a built-in camcorder function with more than half an hour of recording of quality video and audio. Sendo has incorporated new mobile graphics technology, GraphiX™. The GraphiX™ engine ensures faster and smoother playback of leading mobile video formats. The Sendo X also includes a RealOne Player with H.263, MPEG 4 and RealVideo formats, which allow users to watch film clips, music videos or news.

Camera

The VGA still/video camera is highly specified. It offers 4 x digital zoom and an integrated flash with automatic red-eye reduction. By utilising the GraphiX co-processor, the Sendo X boasts a smooth real-time viewfinder. Sendo has also added enough memory for the user to store up to 1000 high quality photos in the phone. In the integrated Photo Album application, photo editing features have been included, giving users the possibility to personalise pictures with captions, clip art, morphing and frames. By using the in-built MMS or MMS Video functions, users can share their pictures and videos with friends and colleagues in a very easy to use way. An added bonus is the incorporation of MMS Fun Content in the Sendo X. A set of 30 images, 20 animations and 50 sound files allow users to create fun and entertaining MMSs.

Audio

All of us want great audio performance. The Sendo X has been designed to offer best in class performance, with a 64 voice polyphonic capability, the Sendo X delivers among the most realistic ring tones of any phone available today. The phone even offers the possibility to record personal ring tones wherever you are, on the fly. In addition to this, Sendo has incorporated its SoniX™ technology, which offers a high-quality scientifically designed dual acoustic chamber speaker system, delivering superb sound quality from the in-built MP3 player. The Sendo X also comes with a RealOne Player, which lets the user enjoy songs as they were meant to be heard. The extensive memory allows users to store a whole music album on the phone.

Connectivity

Connectivity is an important part of any advanced telephony device. Consequently, the Sendo X offers a complete range of connectivity solutions. It is a triple band GSM phone, usable on nearly all GSM network around the globe. It has GPRS, allowing faster internet access and data download to and from the network. It also has built-in Bluetooth™ connectivity, which lets users connect wirelessly to a wide range of peripherals. It comes with infrared and USB connectivity. Once connected to the internet, the Sendo X can support a full range of browsing options, including HTML 4.01, Frames, WAP 2.0, XHTML MP and Security (SSL and WTLS). Internet pages are resized and laid out on the fly in a friendly view that completely eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling. The phone can also connect utilising its in-built 14.4Kbps CSD and fax modem.

Synchronisation

Internet compatibility extends to up to six email accounts and unique among Series 60-based phones, the full PIM (including email) can be synchronised with a PC over Bluetooth, infrared and USB using Sendo PC Connect (included on the Sendo X Companion CD). In addition OTA (over the air) synchronisation is possible for contacts and calendar using SyncML. A large number of document viewers are included: Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint and ZIP are delivered on the phone, ready to use. More than 30 other document viewers can be found on the Companion CD, which comes with the Sendo X.

Java

The phone will be introduced with J2ME MIDP CLDC Java with Bluetooth including the APIs to support Bluetooth, Messaging and Multimedia, as well as the Nokia UI APIs.

Gaming

The Sendo X offers superb special effects as a gaming device with the dual acoustic chamber speaker system for the highest quality sound and the 65k colour display for high quality graphics. Enhanced gaming experience is further guaranteed through the SoniX and GraphiX capabilities. Two games are included: Sendo Pinball and Funny Farmer. The Sendo X incorporates the Symbian OS and Nokia's Series 60 software. Therefore all games available today for these platforms will seamlessly play on the phone. Games can also be downloaded from the worldwide web or configured at the factory.

Memory

To ensure that users have sufficient memory to store their favourite photographs, videos, audio files, games and data, the Sendo X comes with 64 MB of Flash memory, of which approx. 32 MB is free to users. This is up to 8 times more available memory than what is included in competitive offerings today. For users who want even more memory, the phone also supports hot-swappable MMC and SD cards, offering nearly unlimited memory expansion possibilities.

Control

Speaker independent voice recognition and voice memo software is included The voice command feature enables quick dialling of the entire phonebook and access to many functions, without the need to record voice tags.

Accessories

A complete range of optional accessories have been designed for the Sendo X including a desktop USB Sync Station that also charges the phone and a second battery, a pocketsize keyboard that unfolds to offer a full QWERTY keyboard experience, a high performance Bluetooth headset with up to seven hours of talk time, and a professional Bluetooth car kit.

Sendo expects to ship the phone in some territories before the end of the year.