Oh man, these looked so awesome. I miss these phones sometimes. There was something cool about seeing what features different phones had. Nowadays, it's basically iOS vs Android, where both OSes do pretty much the same things, and it's all about the apps.
Sony had these on their Clié (Palm OS) devices as well.
I’ve only ever had first-party Palm handhelds, but the scroll wheel (Sony had some nifty name which is eluding me) always seemed very appealing for single-handed use.
I had a SonyEricsson P800 (the first of that series) and it had the same wheel, but IIRC was plastic made (just like the rest of the phone). Oh man I was barely 20yo back then and I feel bad for the hype I had while waiting the phone to actually come out and buy it. I also remember I paid an insane amount of money for it, which then became standard a few years later thanks to Apple.
lateral scroll wheel. awesome phone:
https://fdn.gsmarena.com/imgroot/news/21/08/sony-ericsson-p9...