At Sunday's Mobile World Congress trade show, Sony Ericsson announced its ongoing endeavor towards the manufacturing of its new offering - the concept name Idou, a 12.1-megapixel cameraphone.

Projecting itself as an "entertainment unlimited" company, Sony described the Idou as a 3.5-inch, 640x480 resistive touchscreen device; in the 16:9 format; outfitted with a Xenon flash; and music and video players. The company's head of product marketing, Steve Walker, said the Idou, being built for an exceptional experience for playing videos is a blend of Sony Ericsson's Walkman and Cybershot lines.

Sony's Idou will give some competition to the Goggle backed Android platform, as the upcoming phone is based on the Symbian Foundation operating system. According to Sony, the new Symbian OS, which is still unnamed as yet, will be advancement over the current Series 60.

Sony refused to divulge any further details on the full program menu of the device. The company said it hopes to begin selling the new phone, with its "real" model name, in the second half of the year.

According to analyst Ben Wood, of CCS Insight, it will be quite a challenging task for Sony to keep up the impetus for Idou, with the launch still a few months away. Sony's rivals, like Samsung, might grab the chance of launching and selling similar devices ahead of Sony! (Rupinder contributed to this report)