Sony Ericsson Jolie

Year: 2010
Prototype level: Cancelled
Codename: Jolie

Overview

The Sony Ericsson Jolie was a Windows Phone 7 prototype developed around 2010, when Sony Ericsson was evaluating Microsoft’s new smartphone platform alongside its growing commitment to Android. Sony Ericsson had been named as one of the original Windows Phone 7 hardware partners, and Jolie shows that the company progressed considerably further than simply experimenting with the software. Complete working prototypes were produced, although the project was cancelled and Sony Ericsson ultimately never released a Windows Phone handset. 

Jolie used a landscape slider design with a full physical QWERTY keyboard beneath the touchscreen, continuing an approach Sony Ericsson had previously used with devices such as the Xperia X1 and X2. Surviving prototypes run early builds of Windows Phone 7 and are reported with 16 GB of internal storage and an 8-megapixel-class camera. Both black and white/silver versions of the prototype are known, suggesting that the project reached a relatively advanced stage of hardware development before being abandoned. 

The surviving hardware makes Jolie particularly significant because it represents Sony Ericsson’s most tangible attempt to enter the Windows Phone ecosystem. Rather than being an adaptation of a commercially released Sony Ericsson handset, it was purpose-built development hardware for a product direction the company ultimately chose not to pursue. Jolie therefore preserves an interesting alternative path in Sony Ericsson’s smartphone history: one in which the company might have joined Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform alongside its contemporary Xperia Android devices.