Metropol

Ant wrote:I loved my Sony Ericsson K800i, and so did a lot of people at one point (maybe around 2006-2008). It seemed to be a pretty popular device before iPhones and Blackberry's reached the mainstream market. It looked great and had a pretty decent camera if I recall, very decently priced too.

It's a shame they didn't go down the HTC route and create a decent challenge for Apple (they had the well-known Sony Ericsson brand to do it), but I don't think the Xperia has done as well as they'd hoped.

Christ I'd totally forgotten about Ericsson. Yeah, they didn't react quickly enough - if they had taken on Android at the same speed HTC did it'd be a different story, perhaps.

lukey wrote:Actually, for a few years before consumer smartphones, Sony Ericsson phones were brilliant. They were unusual for having semi-decent cameras (for the time) with proper flashes and decent build quality. They were a bit of a victim of the Android fragmentation explosion, where the likes of HTC could pop out a handset every week to cover every conceivable corner of the market, whereas SE had little to innovate with. Insisting on peddling the Walkman brand for so long at a premium (maybe even still?) didn't help.

I remember my Sony Ericsson, and everyone else's, breaking after a couple of years, due to both poor build quality and software issues. The words "Alien Battery" and a drop of 3 inches or more would strike fear into my heart.

bilky asko wrote:

lukey wrote:Actually, for a few years before consumer smartphones, Sony Ericsson phones were brilliant. They were unusual for having semi-decent cameras (for the time) with proper flashes and decent build quality. They were a bit of a victim of the Android fragmentation explosion, where the likes of HTC could pop out a handset every week to cover every conceivable corner of the market, whereas SE had little to innovate with. Insisting on peddling the Walkman brand for so long at a premium (maybe even still?) didn't help.

I remember my Sony Ericsson, and everyone else's, breaking after a couple of years, due to both poor build quality and software issues. The words "Alien Battery" and a drop of 3 inches or more would strike fear into my heart.

Hmm, I had a T610 and a K800 which both survived many many drops. I think they were rendered obsolete by requirements before they died, although I seem to remember the latter had a lens cover which went a bit wonky after a while.

Sony also do a very nice line in DSLR cameras. Albeit achieved by buying out Minolta and putting a different badge on them.

I think I'm right in saying Sony Ericsson were approached to build the first Nexus device, could've really placed them as a major force in the Android arena.

It looks as though they are trying to integrate their services at the minute to compete with Apple. The Playstation Network is becoming part of the Sony Entertainment Network and I can see their buyout of Ericsson also fitting in as part of their desire to create a Sony ecosystem.

IMO, Sony trading on the their name rather than actual product quality is nothing new. 6/7 years ago, Sony's misguided decision to eschew plasma TV at a time when they were the only way to get decent picture quality on large screens saw them the only top tier brand happy to knock out large screen LCDs with abysmal picture quality rather than use plasmas (indeed I do wonder if all the myths about screen burn, huge power consumption, and 'regassing' of plasma screens which is slowly but surely killing plasma off were generated by Sony propaganda). This was no technical decision - it was purely that Sony left themselves without a means to manufacture screens of their own, so everything had to come from their joint LCD plant with Samsung.

Just before I left electrical retail a couple of years ago, I remember vivdly looking at Sony's then latest little 20" set displayed next to a Sanyo that was half the price and the Sanyo putting it to shame, the quality on the Sony just wasn't there despite the brand name and the price point.

Rather ironically, if I was asked to think back 5 years and name a then-current Sony product which springs to mind as a 'killer' product I would go for the TCM939 - a £25 'shoebox' tape recorder which had been made since the early 90's, was based on something from the 70's and was favoured by old dears. Certainly, the AV ranges of Panasonic and Pioneer (and to a certain extent Samsung) IMO were far superior to anything knocked out by Sony.

Even back then, Sony IMO were a once-great company living of off past successes and high margins rather than genuinely being at the forefront of technology and their products deserving of their high price.

It certainly doesn't look like things are getting any better - and I don't think those 4 magic letters can carry them forever.