measuring  104.3 x 45 x 18.9 mm the aluminium effect K600i has an unusual design with the screen seeming to be framed by the almost tube like phone facia, although not the most attractive phone we've clapped eyes on but in a kind of purist way it does look classy.

Supporting GSM 900, 1800 and 1900 this 3G mobile isn't the big beastie that we've come to expect for the third generation of handsets, in fact the dimensions are very closely matched to that of the best selling T610. If on its UK release in the autumn of 2005 it manages to emulate the success of the T610 and indeed the T68i before it Sony Ericsson would be very happy.

But beauty in mobile phones is only skin deep, under the wrapping the K600i presents a 176 x 220 pixel 1.8" LCD screen capable of displaying 262k colours making it ideal for imaging and multimedia applications, which is handy as the back of the "dual face" K600i houses a 1.3 mega pixel camera. Sony have managed to produce some of the best imaging phones on the market to date and with this phone they keep the bar high with not only a high mega pixel camera but also the ability to use the images in MMS messages and to export them via USB.

This is just as well because the K600i does not poses the external capabilities of the bigger Smartphones and lacks the Sony memory stick, this means the rather small 37mb of internal memory becomes the limitation on the multimedia functions. So Sony concentrate on the 3G streaming video rather than recording video clips, the forward facing camera housed above the screen enables video calling which the networks want to push as the main use of 3G.

The reality of 3G is that it is mainly used for its higher speed downloads and access to media rich content, here the K600 uses both cHTML and WAP to display content plus there is a whole plethora of PIM applications which make the device a useable business phone.

The battery should give 2 hours talk time on the power sapping 3G connection and 7.5 hours, with 12 days standby on a standard GSM link. External wireless connections are provided by Sony's robust implementation of Bluetooth allowing the phone to connect to headsets, car kits and Bluetooth enabled PDA's and laptops.

At last it looks like a 3G phone that isn't the size of a brick or plain ugly will make it to market and while the K600i isn't a ground breaking device it is clearly a 3G mass market phone, which should cheer up the networks who are paying for their licenses day after day.

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