Yep, it's official. Both the rumoured Sony Ericsson UIQ smartphones codenamed "BeiBei" (G702) and "Paris" (P5) has been killed off. It spells a sense of uncertainty for the Symbian UIQ platform in the Sony Ericsson camp, as both phones have stoked up huge media and fan interest since they were leaked during the start of the year (and possibly even earlier).

I'm going to focus on the Sony Ericsson Paris P5 smartphone. Originally speculated as the successor of the Sony Ericsson P1, it was going to sport HSDPA, a sliding QWERTY keypad, a 5 megapixel camera and AGPS. In short, everything that the P1 should have gotten (in order to beat other high end smart phones). However, the P5 specs were a bit too common, a bit too late (the Nokia N95 has everything I mentioned above with the exception of the QWERTY keypad and a touch screen, and it was out a long time ago) - perhaps that was why the project was killed off? Or was the P5 viewed as competition to the newly released G900 UIQ smartphone, which incidentally can be considered as a minor upgrade from the P1?

Anyhow, both phones were going to sport the new UIQ 3.2 3.3 platform, which promised HSDPA and WiFi b/g support. Now that both phones have been killed off, the future of UIQ seems to be quite uncertain - there are no new phones announced that will run on the UIQ platform, and a P-series upgrade that is worthy to compete with other WM mobiles seems to be long overdue. I'm still waiting for that perfect P-series phone with a 5 Megapixel camera, Integrated GPS, HSDPA support, WiFi b/g, and more or less everything that the N95 has. Rival competitors have smart phones which are extremely tempting - take the HTC Diamond for example; not only is it stylish (seems to be taking lessons for SE themselves), but it also offers the specs that I want. It's about time to get a grip SE, otherwise you'll lose a lot of marketshare to HTC and the Apple iPhone 3G (which has slightly improved since the days iPhone v1 has been released).

Or alternatively, focus your resources on providing firmware and software upgrades for the P1. It has plenty of potential as well as a wide audience supporting it; I've lost count of the number of P1's I see lying in the hands of business people in Hong Kong or hanging on the necks of many phone lovers like me. I'm looking forward to an Opera Mobile 9.5 update, or support for Widgets or even Flash media. It's got the potential to be so much more - please don't make the same mistake as you did with the P990.

What's your take on the cancellation of the Paris P5? Share your opinions with everyone else here on the SE P1i Blog.