Leading up to the CES, Sony Ericsson dropped a few hints at what products we might get a chance to see. In at least one of these teases, the company seemed to be suggesting that some of its news might be of the Windows Phone variety. This would make for a very interesting development, as the manufacturer had been uncertain of the platform’s potential in months past. Apparently that apprehension didn’t stop the company from putting together some prototype hardware, which we got a chance to see last winter. Now some SE Windows Phone hardware is back on-camera; are we looking at old pics of a scrapped project, or will this device be Sony’s first Windows Phone handset?

The hardware we got to see last year was a landscape-mode QWERTY slider. Today’s pics don’t show an extended keyboard, but the sheer bulk of the phone would seem to suggest we’re still looking at a slider. The quality of these images leaves a lot to be desired, preventing us from making much of the depicted on-screen text. We wish we had some indication of what Windows Phone build this hardware runs, at least so we could rule-out these images also dating from March of last year. The presence of a Sony Ericsson logo rather than just Sony is a less reliable indicator of the hardware’s age, as we’re still seeing the SE branding on plenty of shots of in-development Android hardware.

With any luck, maybe some of our questions about this hardware will answer themselves as the Mobile World Congress gets started.