New Windows Mobile 6.5 phones unveiled

Several new Windows Mobile handsets were announced over Wednesday and Thursday by manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson, LG and HTC.

All will use the latest revision of Microsoft's mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5. Apart from its new user interface, the revamped OS also includes the Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store and offers users a hosted backup service called My Phone.

The LG GM570, pictured above, will go on sale on 6 October, the official release date for Windows Mobile 6.5. In the UK, it will be available exclusively through Vodafone. The deal remains exclusive until the end of the year, when the handset will become more widely available.

The three-inch screen of the GM570 will make use of LG's S-Class user interface, which resembles the iPhone interface more closely than it does the underlying Windows Mobile user interface. The device has a five-megapixel camera.

LG said on Thursday that it intended to launch 13 new Windows Mobile handsets worldwide by the end of 2010, in what it called its "most aggressive smartphone strategy to date".