British phone vendor Sendo has announced its Symbian smartphone, based on Nokia's Series 60 software, and says it will ship before the end of the year.

The company was, for a while, Microsoft's flagship phone OEM, until an acrimonious falling out drove Sendo into the Nokia camp. Sendo is suing Microsoft, alleging fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition, amongst other things.

Sendo is differentiating itself from other Series 60 licensees such as Siemens and of course Nokia itself, primarily by pumping up the specifications. The Sendo X will have a whopping 32MB of user memory, a 65,000 colour screen, SD card support and all in a package 10g lighter than Nokia's 3650. Unusually for a cameraphone, this one has a flash. The device also uses sturdier materials such as aluminium.

Sendo promises that a package of accessories including a keyboard will be available separately.

The Series 60 platform already works pretty well as a "portable Office" viewer, but a keyboard would turn the phone into a tolerable content creation tool, too. Sendo has more details here and pictures here. ®