It seems that, at least in the mid- to high-end handset space, the battle for market share will not be fought with features alone - but with marketing alliances.

It has started already, with the recent co-branding efforts that Nokia and Sony Ericsson have undertaken.

Sony Ericsson led the way through the Walkman line of music handsets, and more recently with the Cyber-shot branded K800i. The Cyber-shot branding, it seems, was in response to Nokia’s Carl Zeiss alliance.

This camera branding is a perfect example of how important recognition is in the marketplace. The Sony Ericsson K750 was, in most tests we carried out for MobileBurn, a better camera than the Nokia N90, though most people believed that the N90 was far superior, purely because they recognise the Carl Zeiss brand.

It is unfortunate, but superior sales may be down to what brand power the manufacturers can muster - I just hope that they don’t forget actual features as well.