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Sony Ericsson have been a bit quiet at CES 2007 so far, but one thing they have released is a set of official pictures of their new Walkman phone, the Sony Ericsson W880. Called the Ai in prototype form, the W880 isn’t quite ready yet, but as you can see from the pics, it won’t be long now before we see it in our shops.

More pictures of the Sony Ericsson W880i after the jump.

Motorola have announced the new Motorola MOTORIZR Z6 at CES 2007, a new RAZR-esque phone that’s based on a slider form factor rather than the original RAZR’s clamshell design.

The RIZR Z6 features the RAZR’s legendary good looks, and is heavy on the music features.

It offers full support for Microsoft’s Media DRM, Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), which enables Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 11 to automatically recognize the RIZR Z6 for instant syncing of music files between phone and PC. Well, I say more interesting – that’s about as interesting as it gets! It also comes with 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player (obviously!), and Bluetooth with A2DP, but that’s hardly interesting.

According to Motorola, the RIZR Z6 is the “world’s first Linux-Java music phone integrating the full suite of Windows Media technologies” – big whoop!

Motorola were the most-blogged about mobile phone manufacturer at last year’s CES – I’m guessing they won’t be this year!

Nokia have been busy at CES 2007, with the announcement of the Nokia 6131 NFC (Near Field Communications) phone.

NFC is a technology that enables a device (such as a mobile phone) to exchange information seamlessly with other devices when placed in close contact.

Examples of its use include using your phone as an entry card, receiving product information from a CD or DVD by swiping your phone over it, or even buying a bus ticket or can from a vending machine, all by swiping your phone over a suitable receiver.

Still with Nokia, the company have also announced the Nokia N93i, which is, unsurprisingly, an update of its existing Nokia N93 videophone. The N93i features a few updates, but its chief claim to fame is its smaller size – it’s now just 103mm x 58mm x 25mm in size (as opposed to the original N93′s 118mm x 56mm x 28mm). This was one of the problems with the existing N93, as although its feature-set was fantastic, it created a bulge in your pocket bigger than the proverbial canoe.

It also features a different, RAZR-esque keypad, which some users have complained about, preferring the original N93′s keypad as it was easier to use (can’t please all the people, eh?!), but the new keypad goes some way in reducing the thickness of the N93i.

Also at CES 2007 today, Nokia announced their new Nokia N800 Internet tablet. A replacement for its previous Nokia 770 Internet tablet, the N800 has been branded as an N-Series phone, and so is therefore officially a multimedia computer. In fact, its more of a multimedia computer than the existing range of N-Series multimedia computers, which are, at the end of the day, just fancy phones!

And here lies on of the problems with the N800 – in order to get the most out of it, you need to use it with a mobile phone! Not really convergence – more sort of anti-convergence! But as you’ll see, the Nokia N800 is actually a glorious multimedia computer, more so than any of Nokia’s current N-Series phones that share the same title.

More details and pictures of the N800 after the jump.

CES 2007 finally kicks off in earnest, and first among the big new releases is Nokia, with its new Nokia N76. As it’s an N-series phone, you’d expect the N76 to be all-singing all-dancing, but no this time – the N76 is a budget phone multimedia computer (well, compared with its N-series siblings), sporting only a 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, video recorder, up to 2GB storage, and er, well that’s it!

Well, not quite it – it has a tasty looking 2.4″ 16 million colour screen. But nothing special to mark this N-Series phone out from its competitors.

More details and pictures of the Nokia N76 after the jump.

Samsung are about to announce a brand new mobile TV chipset at CES 2007 that could completely revolutionize the mobile TV market by offering free mobile TV that’s completely indpendent from the network operators.

We already have a variety of mobile TV standards in place, which either use the existing mobile network to stream the TV data to the handset, or broadcast technology, which uses similar technology to the way in which terrestrial TV is broadcast.

However, both require the operators to upgrade their networks to support the standards (and ensure that a phone designed for one standard, say DVB-H, can’t work with a different standard, such as MediaFLO). Obviously this is an expensive outlay for the operators, but it also enables them to charge a premium for the benefit of mobile TV.

CES 2007 has started with a pre-show show (as it were!), so most of the big stories have yet to be made. Verizon have decided to jump the gun, though, announcing their new VCAST Mobile TV service for the US, complete with the fancy new LG VX9400 mobile TV phone (above)

Saturday 7th January marks the start of the mobile phone and electronics trade fair events, with the opening of CES 2007 in glorious Las Vegas. Last year, Sony Ericsson announced new Walkman phones, Samsung showed off no less than 25 new mobile phones, and everyone seemed to be releasing mobile TV phones for what was predicted to be the hot new mobile service of 2006.

Happy New Year all! Yes, MobileMentalism is back after a glorious Christmas and New Year break. And back in style, too, with news that no other mobile phone site can give you. The latest CES2007 scoops? More new Sony Ericsson leaked phones? No, news on my Dad’s Christmas pressie!