Dear ad firm that put together Sony Ericsson’s latest round of Xperia PLAY promos: thank you. In its latest effort to garner some attention for its upcoming gaming Goliath, Sony Ericsson brought actress and comedian Kristen Schaal on board to go over some of the Xperia PLAY’s finer points. In the spots, Schaal uses the Xperia PLAY to shoot herself in the face, watch furry kittens, score a triple-kill, check herself out on YouTube and even… edit some spreadsheets. If you haven’t seen them all yet — and even if you have — hit the break to watch five different promo videos. Trust us, you’ll be glad you did.

This one is for you hardcore Sony Ericsson fans. The folks over at SEMC blog compiled a list of the upcoming Sony Ericsson phones with their codenames and known features. No new smartphones but a bunch of Cybershots, a few Walkmans and one phone rocking HSUPA are on the near horizon. The rumored early 2009 lineup will include the following:

• Yao:
  • Walkman branded phone named W305
  • Entry slider phone
  • Walkman-version of F305
  • Release date: the end of Q1
• Yue:
  • Cyber-shot branded
  • Compact stick phone
  • 3.2-Mp camera
  • One of the K550’s successors
  • Release date: the end of Q1

MUCH more after the jump!

• Frances:
  • Cyber-shot branded
  • Slider design
  • GPS (!)
  • Active lens cover
  • PhotoFix, Face Detection, Smile Shutter
  • Looks very pretty
• Athena:
  • Snapshot branded
  • Mid-range stick phone
  • Can be successor of S302
  • Release date: Q1, 2009
• Filippa:
  • Cyber-shot branded stick phone with Cybershot UI 2.0
  • 5MP camera with AF and Xenon flash
  • Active Lens cover
  • 2.2″ QVGA scratch resistant, mineral glass display
  • HSUPA
  • 140 Mb of memory
  • SnapFish, YouTube upload & download
  • QVGA video
  • TV-Out
  • BestPic, PhotoFix, Face Detection, Smile Shutter, PictBridge
  • Colours: Noble Black, Precious Peach, Sincere Silver
• Kate:
  • Cyber-shot branded stick phone
  • Active lens cover
  • 3.2-Mp camera with AF
  • EDGE 900/1800/1900 and HSDPA 2100
  • Auto Rotation, dedicated camera and video keys
  • 120 Mb of memory
  • PhotoFix, Face Detection, Smile Shutter, SnapFish
  • Available in 2 different colors
• Rika:
  • Named W705
  • Walkman-version of G705
  • 2.4″display (320×240)
  • Wi-Fi with aGPS (!)
  • Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP)
  • In the box: 4 Gb M2 and HPM-77
  • Available in 3 colors (!)

These are all rumored so don’t bet your life savings that they will all come to market. SE does have a track record of canceling phones and with its lukewarm Q3 performance, it may be more inclined to toss one or two of these overboard. Only time will tell. For those of you that cant get enough of Sony Ericsson,here’s one more pic of “Kate”:

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