By Patrick Avenell

SYDNEY, NSW: The impending Christmas rush has not stopped several mobile phone suppliers from pumping out news. Here is a rundown on what Sony Ericsson, LG and BlackBerry have been up to.

Sony Ericsson has today released the Cedar handset exclusively on the Telstra NextG network. It’s $79 pre-paid, with a 2-megapixel camera, 2.2-inch screen and a raft of social networking applications. This phone is clearly aimed at the young, price conscious consumer, and it reasonably logical to suggest it could be a good Christmas present.

LG used uppercase letters this morning to announce that it was launching the world’s first and dual-core smartphone. Called the Optimus 2X, this phone runs on Android 2.2 (upgradable to 2.3), and features a 4-inch touchscreen, 8GB memory, front and back cameras (1.3 and 8 megapixels) and 1Ghz dual core processor from Nvidia. Of course, it’s only available in Korea, so the uppercase letters probably weren’t that necessary for Australian media. “Europe and Asia to follow,” according to the release.

And Research in Motion has released the BlackBerry Bold 9780 to the Australian market.

“The BlackBerry Bold series has always been very popular in Australia so it’s great to be able to introduce the BlackBerry Bold 9780 with the new BlackBerry 6 operating system,” said RIM Australia MD Adele Beachley. “The BlackBerry Bold 9780 features a sleek design with high performance communications, multimedia and web browsing capabilities that will make this new model popular with users for both their business and social needs.”

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