Sony Ericsson today launched its latest clamshell handset hoping to pull in the punters with the phone's mirror-finish casing, its choice of black, bronze or pink hues, and ability to colour-code contacts with lighting effects.

The Z310's a tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone with a 128 x 160, 65,536-colour passive-matrix main display and a single-colour 96 x 64 external read-out. It can also display a series of icons on the outer casing to indicate the arrival of messages, voicemails and so on. It has a VGA, 0.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth.

The handset also comes equipped with a coloured lighting strip around the edge of the case which glows during an incoming call. The light's colour can be set to indicate specific callers, Sony Ericsson said.

The manufacturer claimed the phone will deliver a talk time of up to seven hours. It will run for up to 12.5 days on stand-by.

The Z310 will go on sale in "select markets" during Q1 2007. ®