Sony Ericsson begets skinny Blackberry squasher

What do you get if you cross Sony Ericsson’s flagship smartphone and its slimline K series? This unfunny but very exciting 3G smartie called the M600.

The latest Blackberry botherer certainly brings some panache to the smartphone wardrobe – it’s just 15mm thick and available in both granite black and crystal white.

What’s really impressive, though, is its aping of the business-suited P990’s mobile e-mailing talents. It’s a Symbian OS 9.1 affair with the same UIQ operating system, which means multi-tasking – web browsing with Opera 8 while chatting – will barely trouble its grey cells.

There are impeccable mobile e-mailing credentials, too, with a QWERTY keypad and support for several ‘push’ applications including Blackberry Connect. The display is 2.6in QVGA touch-screen affair, a touch smaller than the P990’s.

To help it achieve the slimline waist the M600 also uses a new Memory Stick Micro card. That gives you an extra 64MB of memory to add to the decent 80MB onboard stash – enough for some MP4 video which it can play back at 30 fps.

There are two big omissions. Although you get Bluetooth to back up the 3G connectivity, it sadly lacks Wi-Fi and a built-in camera.

Still, we’re looking forward to seeing it in the flesh and, luckily for us, that’ll only be a few hours – look out for a hands-on verdict first thing tomorrow. That should set you up nicely for a small pining period prior to its spring/early summer release.