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Sony Ericsson is slowly catching up on its competition. This is generally thanks to Google’s Android mobile operating system that allowed Sony Ericsson to move forward and compete in the mobile market. So it is no surprise that Sony Ericsson’s new flagship phone represents the manufacturer’s next step in its quest for Android dominance.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is faster, sleeker, and lighter coupled with multimedia inclusions from Sony, that gives it a strong entertainment credential.

You really can’t deny Sony Ericsson’s knack for style and design – even with its previous handsets. The Xperia Arc has certainly benefited from this. Its front is dominated by a large 4.2-inch screen, beneath which sit three narrow physical buttons for back, home and menu. The chassis itself is mostly black plastic, which makes it a shiny, eye-catching phone. The fact that it is constructed mostly out of plastic means that it’s extremely light, weighing in at just 116 grams. It’s also one of the thinnest smartphones available, which is accentuated by its stylized, curved back panel.

Carrying the Arc around in your hand or pocket is an absolute joy. Most likely, you’ll often forget that you’re carrying a 4.2-inch smartphone.

The Arc’s display is an 854×480 Super LCD panel that’s fitted with Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine. It’s designed to help out with tasks like contrast enhancement, image sharpening and noise reduction in videos. This isn’t something that’s apparent all the time, and even when it is noticeable, the Bravia Engine’s effects are quite subtle.

The Arc has a variety of small, fairly low-profile buttons positioned around its chassis. Sony Ericsson also included a physical camera button on the Arc. This is extremely useful since the Arc’s 8-megapixel camera is one of its major selling points.

The Arc’s notification light is located on its right side, next to the micro-USB port, which blinks when notifications are pending even if it’s plugged in and charging.

On the top of the phone lies its microHDMI port, which is protected by a plastic cover. Sony Ericsson has provided a HDMI cable in the box, allowing you to connect the phone to your HDTV. This feature is very easy to set up. Once the phone is hooked up to a TV, it locks apps in landscape mode, and mirrors everything that appears on its screen, at 720p resolution.

As for hardware, the Xperia Arc is powered by a 1GHz second-generation Snapdragon CPU and 512MB of RAM. Not too fast, but fast enough to run most applications. A lot of people would probably think twice once they know that there are several similar phones that are shipping with dual core processors and 1GB or more of internal flash memory. Comparing the Arc to these phones can be a problem for Sony Ericsson.

As mentioned, the Xperia Arc ships with Android 2.3.2. This is not the latest version of Android, but it still Gingerbread. Sony Ericsson has promised timely OS updates for its 2011 Xperia phones, so we can expect a boost to version 2.3.4 and beyond in the future.

As with other Sony Ericsson phones, a custom UI runs on top of the Android OS. Compared to previous incarnations, the UI is now a lot faster and more streamlined. On the whole, the look and feel of the UI matches the aesthetics of the Arc’s physical design.

Many of the Arc’s apps are simply stock Android offerings, re-skinned to match the rest of the UI. The browser, calendar, clock and messaging app aren’t all that different from stock, aside from a few visual changes. Even the Arc’s on-screen keyboard is pretty similar to the stock Gingerbread keyboard, although the keys are slightly larger, and the option to hold down on the top row of keys to type numbers is no longer present.

As for its camera, the Xperia Arc boasts one of the best camera on any smartphone. This isn’t very surprising as Sony Ericsson has grown leaps and bounds with its camera technology. With the Arc’s 8-megapixel shooter, both still shots and video recordings look great, and the camera app offers features of use to newbies and more experienced users alike. Image stabilization is a particularly welcome addition, eliminating that shaky-cam effect from videos recorded on the phone, and also helping to prevent wasted, blurred still shots.

For battery life, the Xperia Arc appears to be on par with other similar device out in the market today. That means you shouldn’t have any trouble getting a day’s use out of a single battery charge as long as you’re not doing anything too hardcore.

IDC is predicting some big growth figures for smartphones over this year and towards 2015.

According to the company’s latest market forecast, smartphone shipments will climb to 472 million units in 2011, which will be 55% up on the 305 million shipped last year.

Extrapolating their data further to 2015, the IDC analysts expect 2011′s figure to double up, reaching 982 million by the close of 2015.

This year the smartphone market will expand at four times the rate of the overall mobile market, as smartphones become gradually more affordable and cheaper data plans are brought out by network operators.

Kevin Restivo, Senior Research Analyst, commented: “The smartphone floodgates are open wide. Mobile phone users around the world are turning in their ‘talk-and-text’ devices for smartphones as these devices allow users to perform daily tasks like shopping and banking from anywhere.”

“The growth trend is particularly pronounced in emerging markets where adoption is still in its early days. As a result, the growth in regions such as Asia/Pacific and Latin America, will be dramatic over the coming years.”

Turning to operating systems, IDC doesn’t really need a functioning crystal ball to predict the further decline of Symbian, the OS which Nokia has eschewed in favour of Windows Phone 7 for the future.

And the prediction that Android will grow and stay clearly at the top isn’t a hard one to make either, with IDC reckoning that Google’s platform will account for 40% of the smartphone market in the second half of 2011.

More interesting was IDC’s view on Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry and iOS. The analyst firm is cautious about Apple’s OS, stating that “after an initial explosive growth period, iOS is expected to grow at a more modest pace throughout the latter half of the forecast as the smartphone market matures and diversifies”.

It’s pretty much the same prediction for BlackBerry – its market share will remain roughly the same, with a slight decline through to 2015, even though shipment volumes will continue to increase.

And while Windows Phone 7 is most definitely floundering now, IDC thinks that as Nokia support comes into play along with the Mango update for the operating system at the end of the year, Microsoft can expect a small market share to get much larger.

In fact, by 2015 IDC predicts that Windows Phone 7 will be the second place OS behind Android and will have a market share in excess of 20%.

Sony Ericsson has announced a pair of new smartphones, the Mix Walkman and txt pro.

The Mix Walkman is, unsurprisingly, a music-focused handset with features that include a karaoke function which when activated automatically lowers the vocal on any track so you can sing along (Lord preserve us).

There’s also a “Zappin” key (as seen on other Sony music players) which unfortunately doesn’t pulse out a laser beam to strike down friends making a very bad job of karaoke, but rather plays a preview of the chorus of the next song up when pressed.

You can then decide whether you want to listen to it. Not exactly revolutionary, but we guess you might find a use for it.

The Mix Walkman’s specs comprise of a 3 inch 400×240 display, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a microSD slot, bluetooth and wi-fi, plus of course a media player and other integrated apps such as Facebook.

The Sony Ericsson txt pro, as the name suggests, is just the right handset for avid texters who can’t be bothered with capital letters.

Basically, it’s got the same specification as the Mix Walkman, more or less, but with a full slide-out Qwerty keyboard for nippy messaging.

Sony Ericsson’s Global Product Marketing Manager, Quentin Cordier, commented: “We wanted to take advantage of our extensive Facebook fan base when announcing these phones, bringing the fans closer to both our products and brand.”

“We are really pleased that consumers liked them for their music and social media functionality and expect them to become great additions to our overall portfolio of entertaining phones.”

Both handsets are set for a third quarter launch, although there are no pricing details as yet. We’d expect they’ll be competitively pitched.

The HTC ChaCha is now available to purchase from Phones4u.

The social networking oriented handset which features a dedicated Facebook button will set you back £300 on PAYG (pricey compared to other pre-order tags we’ve seen).

Although only contract deals are currently available on the Phones4u site. These start at £20 per month on Vodafone, with the smartphone free, and a package consisting of 100 minutes and 500 texts.

The ChaCha has a compact 2.6 inch display with a full Qwerty keyboard nestled beneath it, along with a 5 megapixel camera (with LED flash), A-GPS, bluetooth and wi-fi. It runs Android 2.3.

Orange has launched a “connected” contract deal whereby a customer can pick up both the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 on the same monthly tariff.

The two year deal secures you a smartphone and tablet with 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 2GB of data allowance across both devices.

And the cost? For a 16GB iPhone 4 and 16GB 3G iPad 2, there’s an up-front fee of £149, with a monthly fee of £65. The total outlay comes in at £1709 which, as you’d hope, is cheaper than getting them on separate contracts with Orange.

If you want more storage on your devices, then the up-front cost rises to £349 for a 32GB smartphone and 64GB tablet. Existing Orange customers do get a slight price cut, though, and can knock £50 off the initial fee.

While this is a network first, we’re not sure that the spectre of £65 per month – on top of a considerable initial outlay – is going to tempt too many people. We may well be wrong, however.

It’ll be interesting to see if other operators follow suit with their own perhaps more competitive bundles. Or if the concept gets expanded from Apple to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S II and Tab.

Of course, you could always just wait for an Asus PadFone contract, the slate which comes with a smartphone tucked away on board.

The current CEO of Three, Kevin Russell, is planning to return to Australia with his family after almost five years in charge of the network operator.

And the vacancy left will be filled by the current COO or Chief Operating Officer, David Dyson.

Previously Dyson was Chief Financial Officer in 2006 and was made COO in 2009. According to Three, “he has played a pivotal role in turning Three UK’s business around.”

The outgoing CEO said: “He has been a key member of my team and I have enjoyed working with him immensely.”

Dyson said of Russell in his part of the mutual back-slapping: “I know everyone at Three will join me in thanking [Russell] for all he has done to put our business firmly and positively on the map. We are in a very strong position and I am looking forward to building on the growth we are now seeing.”

Russell isn’t moving to another job down under, rather he plans to take a six month sabbatical in order to spend time with his family. And to get re-acquainted with that strange yellow-orangey globe which appears far more frequently in the sky in Australia.

If you’re looking for a business phone with simple design, simple features, solid synching, and sharp Web pages, then the BlackBerry Bold 9780 is for you. The Bold 9780 looks very similar to RIM’s BlackBerry Bold 9700. The only difference is its 5-megapixel camera, 512MB RAM, and BlackBerry 6 OS, which is defeinitely a much needed improvement.

The Bold 9780′s design, as mentioned, is very similar to other BlackBerry devices, most specifically, the BlackBerry Bold 9700. This isn’t generally a bad thing. The 9780 contains all the classic qualities fans would expect from BlackBerry. Furthermore, its choice of materials also remains the same as it utilizes some tough feeling plastic, a metallic bezel, and that faux-pas leather back cover.

Again, the Bold 9780 employs the same identical keyboard from its predecessor and functions almost flawlessly with its distinguishable buttons and tactile responsiveness. The optical track-pad is placed squarely in the middle of the device as it feels slick and highlighted with a chrome outline. Surrounding it are the usual set of other physical buttons which are flush, but separated – these include the send, end, BlackBerry Menu, and back keys.

The Bold 9780 still uses the same 2.44″ TFT display from other Bold models. It is capable of resolutions up to 480 x 360 pixels and support for 65k colors. This lags behind when we compare it to other business smartphones out on the market today by manufacturers like Samsung or HTC. Nevertheless, it gets the job done with its excellent viewing angles and its high luminance.

The BlackBerry Bold 9780 comes with OS 6.0.0.285, which is more or less the same as the BlackBerry Style. With its small screen, you can navigate menus via its four-way directional touchpad in the middle, access actions through the menu key to the left of it, and launch them by clicking the optical pad. You can also summon up common tasks by holding down the trackpad, which is more graphically rich than the short menu you used to get on the trackball models.

You also have the notification bar at the top where you can view most recent phone calls, messages, and calendar items. Multitasking is easily done by holding down the menu key, revealing a nice grid of what’s currently active.

As for its camera, the Bold 9780 features a bumped up 5-megapixel shooter. Surprisingly, the camera quality is really good, and can easily replace a point-and-shoot cameras. OS 6 includes a lot of different presets for varying light conditions, like Party, Night, Close-Up, Portrait, and lots of others.

Most BlackBerrys come with a Webkit browser. For the 9780, the implementation of multiple tabs is very slick, and web page rendering is highly accurate. Of course, Android and iPhone browsers are much much superior than RIM’s. Still the browser is usable and completes most of the things you want done.

The BlackBerry Bold 9780 fared reasonably well as a music player. For those that swap songs around frequently, the BlackBerry Desktop Software has Wi-Fi music sync available. The native media player shows cover art when available, and comes with some great equalizer options. The external speaker on the back is definitely good enough for conference calls, and generally loud and crisp enough for music. Video playback is getting a little bit better, but particularly large video files are just too much for the 9780′s 624 MHz processor.

The biggest selling point for most BlackBerry handsets is its battery life. With the screen brightness all the way down, and heavy usage (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, and lots of e-mail checking), not only will the 9780 last the day, it’ll make it through the night with a bit of life left. The relatively big 1500 mAh battery certainly helps, but the Bold also has a smaller screen than a lot of smartphones these days, and that goes really far. RIM lists the 9780 as handling 22 days standby, 6 hours of talk, and 36 hours of music playback.

A new study commissioned by National Family Week has revealed the amount of technological effort parents expend keeping track of their children.

Apparently an average parent sends 600 texts a year in an effort to find out just where little Johnny (or Jane) is, as technology increasingly becomes the method they use to stay in touch.

The research also pointed to 312 emails per year and usage of sites such as Facebook. One in five parents said the best chance they had of getting hold of their child was via such technological means.

While mobiles and suchlike help to keep tabs on the kids and are useful for emergencies, just over 40% of parents lamented the fact that when they do try and get the family together, it can be a difficult task despite these aids.

And instead of talking to each other when they are together, the family might all be texting friends or surfing YouTube on their mobiles.

Three-quarters of those polled thought that modern family life has suffered at the hands of technology. In that case, maybe don’t let younger kids have a mobile and a PlayStation in their bedroom, perhaps?

O2 has finally ironed out the problems it was having with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, and the exclusive white version of the gaming phone is now available from the network.

The so-called PlayStation phone launched on April 1st (at some retail outlets anyway), so O2 has fallen two months behind thanks to the software issues it encountered.

However, with these solved PAYG customers can now pick up the Xperia Play in white for £430. If you want the handset for free on a two year contract, you’ll have to stump up £37 per month for 900 minutes and unlimited texts.

However, the bad news is that no data allowance is included, so if you want the standard 500MB per month which would go with this sort of contract normally, that’ll be £6 extra, making for a total of £43 a month.

Which seems a bit out-of-whack given that the handset will cost you over a grand at the end of that fairly standard two year deal.

On top of that, the Xperia Play has rather fizzled since its launch, with some folks certainly not convinced that it makes a great gaming device. The PS1 classics available for the handset have been disappointing, too.

Still, if you were waiting for the white version, now’s your chance to bag it. At least the PAYG price tag on O2 is more competitive (it’s £470 sim-free on Play.com, for example).