SE has been on the down-tick lately, thanks no doubt in no small part to the iPhone’s success. The Xperia is an exciting piece of portable technology but its release may be a little too late to combat high-end rivals. Let’s face it, a touch screen smartphone with a slideout QWERTY keyboard isn’t exactly the way the smartphone industry is headed, and slideout QWERTY’s are so last year. The T700 may be the handset to get SE back to the game. The familiar SE aesthetics is here but with this model, SE has reached the peak of stylishness. It’s slim, shiny and metallic and has all the right details like the raised metal buttons to make and end calls bordered in a nice way by dedicated buttons for mail and home. It’s a quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 3G and has an on board 3.2 MP camera. It looks like it includes a remade UI as well supporting landscape mode. No idea about the retail price but the “premium metal finish” is a winner to me and for those people who don’t look to well on the new plasticky iPhone.

[via gizmodo]