iPhone competition from Sony Ericsson

[one1]

The only people in the electronics game that run with apple on security and GUI are Sony. Given that, I'd say this will turn out to be a good phone.

I was looking this phone over just yesterday on NYT who was comparing the two phones: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/t...basics.html?_r=1&ref=personaltech&oref=slogin

 

[Archie-]

The only people in the electronics game that run with apple on security and GUI are Sony. Given that, I'd say this will turn out to be a good phone.

I was looking this phone over just yesterday on NYT who was comparing the two phones: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/t...basics.html?_r=1&ref=personaltech&oref=slogin

That New York Times article is pretty funny. It basically claims all those phones, some of which bear very little resemblance to the iPhone, are iphone wannabe's, as if the iPhone is the new high water level of success in the phone world. It neglects to mention that Nokia sells more phones in a quarter than Apple has sold iPod's (not even iphones) ever, and that 77 million symbian phones were sold last year.

All these companies want to be Nokia, not Apple.

 

[kdarling]

Obviously you NEVER used an iPhone before. Why don't you get one and use it before making uneducated comments? The iPhone is as sturdy as they can make it without it cost much more.

Yep, I have one (being used by my son), and a Touch.

Do YOU? Hard to believe, if you don't know about needing a case and screen protector if you don't want it scratched up, gooed up, or dangerously liable to screen breakage on drops. Or maybe you just live dangerously

As for sturdy... they chose prettiness over functionality. Glass screen. Slick body. Chrome one on the touch that picks up fingerprints like crazy. In both cases, difficult to hold.

And just the sheer fact that Apple KNEW their headphone jack was a direct ingress for rain or other water (and put their detector there), demonstrates they knew it needed a rubber plug there like all other phones have. But that wouldn't have been pretty enough for them.

Style over functionality.

 

[kdarling]

... It neglects to mention that Nokia sells more phones in a quarter than Apple has sold iPod's (not even iphones) ever, and that 77 million symbian phones were sold last year.

And 14.3 million Windows Mobile phones were sold worldwide in the last six months.

Not a giant number, but surprisingly high.

 

[myphone]

It's nice but, I still like the simple, slim and sleek design of iPhone.

 

[Rauha]

Sad to see that SonyEricsson decided to go with Windows Mobile. They also released some nice looking Symbian phones that have touch screen, 5 megapixel camera GPS and forth, but aren't plagued with Windows Mobile.

As I understand Xperia isn't even built or designed by SonyEricsson, but instead it's a HTC phone that SE has just pasted it's own UI on top. It will also be manufactured by HTC for SE. Ericsson used to make nice phones. Now they have sunk this low. Can't even design their own phones.

 

[BongoBanger]

I have to say I think the Xperian is pretty ugly. The N96, however is gorgeous although they've slipped on a banana skin by giving it a BL-5F 950mh battery. That unit needs a BL-6 at least.

 

[Project]

This things "touch" interface is a joke just like the HTC Touch was.

The fancy stuff in all the screens is just an app launcher/window manager. It still has the same Windows Mobile UI we all know and love *cough*.

 

[Archie-]

This things "touch" interface is a joke just like the HTC Touch was.

The fancy stuff in all the screens is just an app launcher/window manager. It still has the same Windows Mobile UI we all know and love *cough*.

If you notice the apps on the "launcher" do not look much like WM. The web pages are fully formatted, the calender looks nice, the picture viewer pretty good, as does the clock. The media player looks all integrated, and it seems you will be able to buy games and music right from the device. Sony Ericsson is bringing a lot more than their name to the table.

Do you really think SE is going to entrust their flagship to simply rebranding WM?

 

[DaffyDuck]

My colleague's WM6 'phone crashed its comms stack the other day, the rest of it worked fine (so basically he didn't know it'd crashed!) it just wouldn't take/make any calls until he hard reset it.

I owned a WM3 phone (Audiovox) up until just a month ago. This happened to me ALL THE TIME.

Wife: I've been trying to call you for the last hour!
Me: Huh? My phone is on and I have 5 bars. Oh, I guess I need to reboot the phone yet again (half an hour later I'm ready to make a call).

I'll never again even consider a WM based phone.

 

[DaffyDuck]

I have to say I think the Xperian is pretty ugly. The N96, however is gorgeous although they've slipped on a banana skin by giving it a BL-5F 950mh battery. That unit needs a BL-6 at least.

950mAh is a lot of juice. It must be a serious gas guzzler.

 

[Templex]

950mAh is a lot of juice. It must be a serious gas guzzler.

I believe the iPhone's battery is 1400 mAh.

 

[deasine]

Sad to see that SonyEricsson decided to go with Windows Mobile. They also released some nice looking Symbian phones that have touch screen, 5 megapixel camera GPS and forth, but aren't plagued with Windows Mobile.

There were many rumors about Sony Ericsson using Windows Mobile - but I refused to believe it. I would have hoped they improve their UIQ Symbian system and release their next highend phone in UIQ 4.0 (current latest is UIQ 3.0). But Sony Ericsson has announced two new UIQ 3.0 phones at the 3GSM Conference (the X1 stole thunder from these two phones). The G700 with a 3.2 Megapixel Camera with image stablizier, WiFi, and 3G (not international). Also, the G900 with a 5 Megapixel Camera, auto focus with touchscreen focus designation capabilities, WiFi, and 3G (not international).

Here's the G900:

GSM Arena YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5g8LO38WPE

Note that it comes with a stylus but doesn't necessarly need it during phone operation. The newly designed UI works just as well with fingers (except for the notes application of course).

As I understand Xperia isn't even built or designed by SonyEricsson, but instead it's a HTC phone that SE has just pasted it's own UI on top. It will also be manufactured by HTC for SE. Ericsson used to make nice phones. Now they have sunk this low. Can't even design their own phones.

There are rumors of a merger between the two companies. If that's not happening, then HTC and Sony Ericsson will work very closely. Sony Ericsson actually designed the phones themselves but they teamed up with HTC since they have a lot of experience with Windows Mobile and their hardware. They could obviously start again, but why should you work yourself when you have someone else that is willing to work with you.

Keep in that that these competitors ALWAYS list features on their best, most expensive models, WITHOUT PRICING, and it's always in the future. You can't compare iPhone of today with something that will be released 6 months or 1 year in the future. You have to compare future iPhone with these knockoffs.

You are not familiar with the mobile market. Don't all COMPANIES list their products best features? Including Apple? Sony Ericsson only announced this phone's existence and when it's avaliable. They don't need to announce the pricing of the phone, which does usually depend on the network operator. Retail price (completely unlocked), this phone would be about 600-700 USD. The high pricing is because it's a feature-packed phone and it's considered high-end (apple's iPhone is mid-range).

Not an iPhone knockoff, just another competitor. This phone caters for professional business people unlike the iPhone. Again, it has Office, Outlook Exchange, international GSM and 3G support. I would love to compare it with iPhone 2 as soon as Apple releases it. And I do hope Apple will respond back by giving a better phone, adding it to their portfolio.

 

[tom2517]

This phone isn't a real competitor for iPhone, it will be more expensive than the iPhone. It's interesting that people tend to use other company's most expensive phone and compare it to iPhone. For instance, there are countless comparison between N95 and the iPhone, but they are in different price bracket, so of course the N95 should have more functions.

No doubt the X1 will be a nice phone, but people who buy it will mainly be windows users, or lured away from other windows devices. Once you go pass the pretty startup screen, it's still a WM device.

It's not surprising that SE is going to using WM, they need it to expand the market share, same with Nokia, they are contemplating about WM too.

 

[Oh-es-Ten]

The X1 has a slick front-end UI, sort of a cover-flow for apps:

Short YouTube video

It's supposed to come with WM 6.5, an interim touch friendlier bridge to WM 7.

This sounds like another HTC trick. Put a pretty 'front' on the usual system. Sure it has nice display (really not sure about their 'cover flow' attempt), but as soon as you get off the screen you are dumped back into the usual Windows Mobile interface.

As someone mentioned before, it looks like they are trying to cater to two markets at the same time, and I am not sure that is the best approach.

I actually think it does not look too bad, but it would be a cold day in hell before I would switch from the iPhone to a WM device - WM is much worse in stability etc.
(shudder)

 

[Matti]

If you notice the apps on the "launcher" do not look much like WM. The web pages are fully formatted, the calender looks nice, the picture viewer pretty good, as does the clock. The media player looks all integrated, and it seems you will be able to buy games and music right from the device. Sony Ericsson is bringing a lot more than their name to the table.

Do you really think SE is going to entrust their flagship to simply rebranding WM?

That's exactly what they appear to be doing. Pic you posted shows the different graphical gimmick on top and there will be the usual WM crappiness underneath. This is Windows that we are talking about, not Linux. Nobody can fork Windows development. MS wouldn't allow it. All they can do is add little sugar on top.

There are rumors of a merger between the two companies. If that's not happening, then HTC and Sony Ericsson will work very closely. Sony Ericsson actually designed the phones themselves but they teamed up with HTC since they have a lot of experience with Windows Mobile and their hardware. They could obviously start again, but why should you work yourself when you have someone else that is willing to work with you.

Well I suppose that SE didn't get the help from HTC for free. Them needing help from HTC isn't exactly flattering. I guess SE just can't keep up with Samsung, LG and Nokia on it's own.

Ericsson is also largest owner of Symbian (If you count Ericsson+SonyEricssons shares together) and going with WM is both suprising and sad. Don't understand why they made the switch. Especially when both Samsung and LG just released their first Symbian smatphones (S60) and Symbians market share has reached 70%+. Going with WM is like friending with the least popular kid in school.

 

[Hudzilla]

The front of it apart from the screen is made of brushed metal, as are the keys and the rest of the body. So do a little a research before trying to make your jesus phone sound better.

The phone isn't bad, it's the best looking windows mobile phone i've ever seen. And sony isn't trying to market this as an iphone competitor. Just that everyone sees a new touchscreen phone and all of a sudden its an iphone competitor. The specs on it are really good as well. 3.2 megapixel camera, flash, records video at 30 fps in VGA resolution, aGPS, and the best part it's suppose to use a pretty good high capacity battery. Still wouldn't pre-order this phone until i see how this "new" version of windows stacks up though.

I said it LOOKS plastic, I didn't say it WAS plastic.

Read a post properly before voicing your opinions.

 

[BongoBanger]

950mAh is a lot of juice. It must be a serious gas guzzler.

Perhaps. I have an N95 and although much has been said about battery life it's not that bad - especially after the v20 firmware was released. That said, if it's billed as a MMC then it needs the juice to support the functions and I think a 950mAh is a little on the light side. The N95 8Gb has a BL-6F which is a 1200mAh unit so I don't know why they haven't used that.

 

[Matti]

The N95 8Gb has a BL-6F which is a 1200mAh unit so I don't know why they haven't used that.

Compared to N95 8Gb the N96 has memory card slot, extra 8Gbs of storage and DVB-H support, which propably take the space required for larger battery.

Original N95 had smaller battery than N95 8Gb and in order to fit large battery in N95 8Gb Nokia had to remove memory card slot and the lens protector.

N96 product maneger said at the N96 release that they did same kind of optimization that was done with N95 v2 firmware and N96 should have improved battery life, even with smaller battery. Symbian has lately been very good at optimazing energy consumption.

 

[Archie-]

That's exactly what they appear to be doing. Pic you posted shows the different graphical gimmick on top and there will be the usual WM crappiness underneath. This is Windows that we are talking about, not Linux. Nobody can fork Windows development. MS wouldn't allow it. All they can do is add little sugar on top.

Thats pretty uninformed. What do MS care what its OEM's do? Many people in fact say they give the OEM's too much freedom, and allow them to use 200Mhz processors and 32 MB RAM. HTC has shipped phones with Opera as the default browser. HTC has their own cube based launcher, their own smart dialer, their own video and picture viewer, their own camera application etc. They modified the contacts app to allow quick scrolling, and the mail app to allow you to change e-mail accounts by gesture. They added finger scrolling to the whole OS. Palm added threaded SMS, the same dialer they used on their PalmOS phones, and ignore by SMS. The whole point of WM is to be open and reprogrammable by anyone, including the OEM's.

Ericsson is also largest owner of Symbian (If you count Ericsson+SonyEricssons shares together) and going with WM is both suprising and sad. Don't understand why they made the switch. Especially when both Samsung and LG just released their first Symbian smatphones (S60) and Symbians market share has reached 70%+..

HTC ships more smartphones than Sony Ericsson. Symbian's market share is relatively irrelevant in this light. People buy WM phones because they run WM. Very few people have any passion for Symbian smartphones.

Going with WM is like friending with the least popular kid in school.

Or with the most supported open OS, with more than 50 ODM's and on 160 carriers. Its not like they could license OSX, could they?

 

[deasine]

HTC ships more smartphones than Sony Ericsson. Symbian's market share is relatively irrelevant in this light. People buy WM phones because they run WM. Very few people have any passion for Symbian smartphones.

I can't agree with you on that one. Many people do buy Symbian phones because they run Symbian. However, there's a greater interest in Windows Mobile - especially to the business industry. IT users would only use Windows Mobile. The only downside to Windows Mobile is because it's not stable nor does the OS look nice. But again, Sony Ericsson is trying to change that. They are going to do a much better job than HTC and their "touchflo"

 

[deasine]

. Ericsson is also largest owner of Symbian (If you count Ericsson+SonyEricssons shares together) and going with WM is both suprising and sad. Don't understand why they made the switch. Especially when both Samsung and LG just released their first Symbian smatphones (S60) and Symbians market share has reached 70%+. Going with WM is like friending with the least popular kid in school.

Dont' know where you got that stat from: Symbian is currently owned by Nokia (47.9%), Ericsson (15.6%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Panasonic (10.5%), Siemens AG (8.4%) and Samsung (4.5%). Although BenQ acquired the mobile phone subsidiary of Siemens AG, the Siemens AG stake in Symbian did not pass to BenQ.

People shouldn't be confused with Symbian and UIQ. IQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz) by UIQ Technology is a software platform based upon Symbian OS. Essentially this is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core OS, to enable the development of feature-rich mobile phones that are open to expanded capabilities through third-party applications. Currently, it's owned half and half by Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

 

[BongoBanger]

Compared to N95 8Gb the N96 has memory card slot, extra 8Gbs of storage and DVB-H support, which propably take the space required for larger battery.

Original N95 had smaller battery than N95 8Gb and in order to fit large battery in N95 8Gb Nokia had to remove memory card slot and the lens protector.

N96 product maneger said at the N96 release that they did same kind of optimization that was done with N95 v2 firmware and N96 should have improved battery life, even with smaller battery. Symbian has lately been very good at optimazing energy consumption.

Ah, I see. I can confirm that the V20 firmware does make a huge difference for my Nokia N95-1 so maybe it'll be enough.

Apple are going to have to go great guns to make me not get an N96 next upgrade.

 

[Archie-]

Apple are going to have to go great guns to make me not get an N96 next upgrade.

The N96 is pretty sweet, and I like the updated appearance (never liked the N95's look). Its going to bring a very very advanced phone to many people's pockets. I see the N95 everywhere already.

I think Nokia's big problem is going to be getting people to use these functions. I bet a huge number of N95 owners dont even know the phone has GPS, let alone a pretty good internet browser.

 

[oldimac]

The SE is nice and has a lot of functions that I need but only have T-Mobile where I live and do 95 percent of my calling, so, no Se and no iPhone for me.

Since I don't have an iPhone but have and have had Apples since 1984, I am definitely an Apple fanboy (ok fanoldman) but Apple certainly is not perfect. My Titanium 667 laptop has this damned flap cover on the backside so you have to put it down every time you want to hook up a cable or stick in a thumb drive and when you plug in the ethernet cable you have to use someone's very small fingers or something flat to hold down the little tip do get the damned thing out. THIS after it won oodles of design awards.

Steve basically flaunted the iPhone as THE phone to have but then decided on an inferior carrier (IMHO - I'm Verizon) although the rumors are he tried with Verizon, no business anything, no cut and paste, inferior search, and DAMIT I can't have one unless I go through the willy nilly's of jailbreak, unlock, different sims, etc.

BUT, the iPhone IS a sleek piece of hardware which I doubt anyone would deny and if the SDK is even close to what I believe it will (it WILL be released Tuesday, Feb 26 - but then you all knew that right?), it may well entice me to try to do all the breaks and unbreaks to make it work where I live.

It is gorgeous but definitely is NOT THE phone Steve wants us to believe we all need.