Microsoft on Wednesday began sending out invitations to the press for the company’s Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh launch event in China. According to Liveside, the event will be held in Beijing on March 21st. While the invitation doesn’t mention any specific handsets, HTC recently launched the Titan — becoming the first manufacturer to release a Window Phone device in China. Nokia CEO and president Stephen Elop will also reportedly host a separate event on March 28th. The company is expected to launch three Lumia devices, most likely running the refreshed Windows Phone 7.5 operating system. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, Nokia controls 16.1% of the Chinese mobile market, second only to Samsung.

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The image Sony Ericsson chose to place atop its MWC event invitation could be quite telling. While the world waits impatiently for the PlayStation Phone — which may launch as the Xperia Play — Sony Ericsson is preparing to introduce new members of its Xperia line on February 13th ahead of the annual Mobile World Congress show. That should be great news, but unfortunately it appears as though Sony Ericsson has something other than its PS phone in store. The trendy young woman seen on the event invite could certainly be a beast of a gamer, but we doubt that’s the message Sony Ericsson is looking to convey with this pic. As such, it looks like we may be in store for another round of social network-friendly phones geared toward the young professional demographic. We’re happy to see some nice new social kit of course; maybe even with revamped versions of TimeScape and MediaScape in tow. We would be lying, however, if we didn’t say we’d rather see the gaming goliath everyone has been anxiously awaiting. Then again, perhaps Sony Ericsson will surprise us all and unveil its first PlayStation-friendly phone at CES next month.

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Yep, this has Nseries event written all over it. Awkwardly secretive, selective audience, decent budget; when it comes to making bloggers feel special Nokia will always be the king. This coming Monday at 3:00 am EST Nokia will be holding a private online event that will showcase two upcoming Nokia handsets a week ahead of the official public Nokia announcement. The online shindig will will cover all the details about these two new handsets and will likely involve a couple of product managers to field some inquiries. Now we’re not betting men here at BGR but if we had to venture a guess as to which handsets will be announced it would have to be the N79 and the N85. The N79 as you recall is a bit of an ugly duckling, mildly reminiscent of the N82. Specs are pretty much unknown at this point beyond a 2.4 inch QVGA screen, a 5 megapixel camera and Feature Pack 2. The N85 on the other hand, is pretty much an open book at this point after having passed through the FCC recently. Tri-band WCDMA, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, integrated FM Transmitter and GPS and dual-slide form factor a la N95 cover the highlights. We’d like to think that the 5800 XpressMusic might be announced in place of one of the aforementioned handsets but it’s likely not in the cards. Some day…

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