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Sony Ericsson introduced its most recent smartphone, the P910, over a year ago. The handset, the most successful Symbian OS UIQ interface model around, is getting a little long in the tooth for a market that advances and changes so quickly.

According to the Internet rumor mill, a follow-up to the P910 is finally in the works. Images of the device, codenamed Hermione (with P950 and P1000 as possible model monikers when the handset ships) have been leaked. And the handset was even confirmed by a Sony Ericsson representative to the Engadget blog. The rep also said the device would feature one gigabyte of memory.

The pictures of Hermione look a lot like the P910, but with one important change: the QWERTY thumb-keyboard no longer resides on the reverse side of the numeric keypad flap. Instead, when you flip the flap down, you find the keyboard is integrated right into the smartphone (see above images).


P910 Flap Down with Keyboard on Back

This appears to result in less screen real estate, as the Hermione display takes up space previously reserved for the P910's screen. The Hermione display runs at a 240 x 320 pixel resolution, however, higher than the 208 x 208 pixels available when the P910's flap is up and 208 x 320 pixels when it is down.

Additional purported features of the GSM/GPRS smartphone is support for UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), a WCDMA 3G broadband technology, for 400 to 700 Kb/s data transfers. There is also Wi-Fi, a camera and a Memory Stick slot.

We'll report more information on Hermione as it becomes available.