3GSM Sony Ericsson today took a swipe at Motorola's popular, ultra-low end C115 handset and Nokia's 1100 with a no-frills dual-band GSM handset of its own. It also launched a low-end, "affordable" candybar phone for the 3G market.

The J100 offers a basic 'calls, text and nothing else' specification. OK, there's a calculator and alarm clock in there too, and a few games, but that's it. It's the same idea as Moto's C115, but the Sony Ericsson handset wins out with a 96 x 64, 65,536-colour display - the C115's screen is monchrome.

It also offers a whopping eight hours' talk time, Sony Ericsson claimed - well above the C115's claimed six-hour talk-time. The J100 runs for 300 hours on standby.

The J100 will ship in Q2, and be made available in white and blue designs.

The K610 will also ship in Q2, in dark red and silver shades. It's a dual-mode 3G device with tri-band GSM/GPRS for good measure, a two megapixel digital camera with 2x digital zoom, and a 1.9in, 176 x 220, 262,144-colour screen.

It uses Sony's new Memory Stick Micro card for memory expansion - it can take up to 1GB cards - and USB 2.0 for PC connectivity, though it's got Bluetooth on board too. The handset ships with Disc2Phone CD ripping software, and tracks can be dragged and dropped across.

Sony Ericsson claimed the K610's battery delivers seven hours' GSM talk time, though that falls to 2.5 hours in 3G mode.

The company did not disclose pricing, preferring to leave that to the operators. ®