Sony Ericsson partnered with Vodafone, a large mobile operator in Europe, Japan and Australia and launched the SE first handset for specific operator. The new F500i is a Vodafone Live! handset, meaning that the phone software is optimized for Vodafone sound and visual VASs. The phone will be available in July 2004.

At the same time, a similar handset appeared in Mainland China side. For those who are not Voda's customers will be happy to know that general version K500i/c is also prepared for them. The comparison tells that the designs of two are almost the same. K500i/c is another version of F500i for not Vodafone customers. (Though Sony Ericsson has not announced the K500i/c yet )

Sony Ericsson F500i or K500i is the simplified version of K700i that is available in market now. Although the screen size is enlarged to 1.9 inch, the resolution is reduced to 128 x 160 pixels (K700i is 176 x 220 pixels) which is supposed to affect the picture quality. Some K700i features are missing in this version like FM radio, MP3 playback and bluetooth technology etc. In return, F500i / K500i emphasizes the strong internet experience. For Vodafone version F500i, it uses back Vodafone Live! menu for easy access the VAS's set by the operator. For K500i, the 'Quick Share' buttons enable the users '1-click' to send MMS or connect to internet for content download. The phone also comes with a TFT 65k color display, and supports up to 40-chords polyphonic ring tones. 

The phone also uses the dual front , design, with traditional candy bar front and camera-like back. The embedded camera supports to take VGA standard pictures and vieo clips. The great improvement of the phone is the support of Mascot Capsule Micro3D graphics engine. With this technology, users can play 3D-style games with faster speed. The games also can be played with the SE game controller accessory, the EGB-10.