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Sony Ericsson Shows Off Feature-Heavy Cell Phones
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jun 16, 2007 02:25 AM
from the i'll-take-one-of-those-and-two-of-those-and dept.
from the i'll-take-one-of-those-and-two-of-those-and dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As if waiting until the end of the month for the iPhone wasn't bad enough, Sony Ericsson has announced a set of super phones due to come out later this year. The Sony Ericsson K850i features an impressive 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and xenon flash, while the W960i comes with a whopping 8GB of on-board memory, stereo Bluetooth, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. These were among several other new devices Ericsson unveiled recently, in hopes feature-heavy offerings will put it firmly back on the camera and music phone map."
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lame (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tithe to your cell provider (Score:2, Insightful)
So you go and pay so many extra $$s to get your nice "shiny" cell phone with all of the "shiny" extra features, and you realize that you are going to replace it within two years. (Actually 2 years seems to be on the outside.)
Why do you want to pay so much extra for a disposable camera and music player? That is what it really is. I see some great small MP3 players for really cheap and a real digital camera takes way better pictures and both of them
Re:lame (Score:4, Interesting)
Real keys, in other words, with tactile feedback. Much preferable.
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Re:lame (Score:4, Interesting)
Knowing how good SE phones have become over the last few years, and the decent music playback abilities of the Walkman branded ones, there's every chance that this will become a iPhone killer in some markets, mostly here in Europe: not tied to one provider, full 3G capability, a decent camera (not tacked on as an afterthought), Symbian OS with thousands of apps available, and the Opera browser onboard. I know some people have mentioned that the battery life isn't mentioned, but my K800i will happily work for more than a week without a recharge.
Not really much to complain about there really to be honest.
Less shiny? Well, that'll be less fingerprints then...
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and how much battery life? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:and how much battery life? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:and how much battery life? (Score:4, Informative)
I moved from an Ericsson t68 to a Sony Ericsson t610, and found the UI went backwards slightly. Previously, all menu items were numbered, so you could skip to the one you wanted by pressing the keypad button. With the t610, this shortcut still worked, but they weren't numbered, so you had to count the options, making it only marginally faster than using the little joystick.
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This is all well and good.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is all well and good.. (Score:4, Informative)
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Yup, I've tried plenty of phones, and Sony Ericsson always delivers a great product. These new phones look amazing. Their cameras have also being surprisingly good in the past. Nokia N92 had a 2MP camera justl ike the K750i, but K750i delivere
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Maybe they meant it in the same way as 'iPod killer'..? :-)
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Whenever I use a Nokia phone, I get the impression that their UI guys write specs in Finnish and pass them off to programmers who don't speak Finnish, and so just look at the pictures and guess.
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From my experiences with other Nokia's deparments that could be really close the truth :) One team, which I was supposed to lead, was totally moved to some foreign country where people doesn't even speak english. It's been 3-4 years now and I'm not sure if they have made any real development so far.
So the obvious question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck the features. Does it get good reception and decent range? Can it survive being dropped, mishandled, weather etc? Does it actually last for more than 18 months? Can I hear you properly....?
Mobiles these days jut have too much crap and not enough just plain phone.
Re:So the obvious question is... (Score:4, Informative)
Why? I like features! But OK, here are your answers. Yes it gets decent reception and range, at least, I've never had any problems with that when my friends didn't. Can it survive being dropped/mishandled/weather etc. Well I took my W800i through the Mexican jungle, have dropped it more times than I care to think and I've had it for about two years now yet it all still works. The only part I've had to replace is the external mini-jack adapter which doesn't seem to be too robust ... if you let the cable catch on things eventually the wires inside will work loose and you'll have to buy another. The phone itself is pretty robust though.
Parent
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In every review of a new "smart phone" posted on /. there is always one person that gets modded up for
If want a plain phone then go out and get one. Stop whining about the smart phones. Here check out Motorola [motorola.com] or Nokia [nokiausa.com] it wasn't that hard to find plain phones
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Convergence = good (Score:4, Insightful)
So, important functionality - for me, camera and electronic dictionary - are important enough for me to warrant their own devices. I am willing to sacrifice precious space in order to get the best possible function in these areas. It means carrying a DSLR in a small pack, and having a separate Casio dictionary.
Other functions are nice and I would not want to be without them, but they're not so important that I want to give up precious space for it. For me it includes things like a sound player and radio (covered by my mobile phone), GPS (I have one that I never bring along), text reader (dictionary), web surfing (phone). These functions need to be built in another device or I end up not using them (but still missing them if I lack it).
Of course, what constitutes essential and what is optional differs from person to person. You listen to music all the time, and just take the occasional snapshot? Get a iPod or other real player and just use the phonecam instead of getting a "real" camera that ends up gathering dust at home. Fortunately, many of these functions are low-cost addons to existing devices, and doesn't hurt a user that wants to be without. Besides, there's low-end phones and other stuff out there for those that absolutely do not want to be saddled with it. Notably, for all that people complain about all those extras, basic models just never sell well when a manufacturer actually tries to listen to the complaints.
Re:Convergence = good (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just get a clip-on gadget utility belt and you'll never have a problem with lack of pocket space again.
Repels women too.
Double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
But they invite comparison... (Score:2)
his is the closest thing to an iPhone killer we've seen so far. The W960i not only comes with a whopping 8GB of on-board memory, it also features Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, and a 3.2-megapixel camera with auto-focus.
Other features include stereo Bluetooth so that you can listen to your music wirelessly and a 66mm (2.6-inch) touchscreen.
Although it does support exchange, seems a lot more targeted at "Fun" users than at business people, most of whole will be using Blackberrys anyway. And the
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"closest thing to an ipod killer" cracks me up.
I would call the 3.2 megapixel camera,(iphone does not have) 3G(iphone does not have). All killing the iphone right there. Should not have been released without 3g, but hey second generation you can give apple another 700 bucks for technology that every other phone has now.
Puto
Nokia N95 (Score:5, Informative)
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I have to say though that it misses three things which would make it the perfect phone:
1. No integrated qwerty-keyboard. After having had a keyboard on my phone (Treo) there's no way I will ever buy a phone without one. Writing sms/email without it is so painful. Even a small keyboard like on the Treo is quite usable.
2. Crappy QVGA resolution. Why oh why don't they upgrade the resolution of the screens? VGA is possible these days and
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5MP ? (Score:3, Funny)
Can't wait (Score:2)
K850 - probably no real improvement over k800 (Score:3, Informative)
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"Useful" in the mugshot or coroner's report sense of the word. Yeah, you can see the detail of your girlfriend's face in the photo you took at the party, but she looks like a bloodless corpse in a rictus of horror.
A built-in flash is OK for taking "useful" photos of stuff, but not good photos.
LOOK OUT! (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats $500000 for #define MAXENT 1500000 (Score:2)
again they use some stupid ass business manager to decide the numbers.
Btw, do windows mobile devices handle infinite entries since its MS coded.
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The feature they forgot to mention... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nokia has a nice offering too (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing these phones don't have is touch screen, but I'd question whether it's really that great to have, afaik they haven't go round the problem of greasy finger-prints making you need to clean screen every 5 seconds problem with them yet.
The reality is, compared to offerings like this and like Nokia's offerings the iPhone looks really dated, 2 megapixel camera? no GPS? no 3rd party apps?, what's more the iPhone is actually even heavier than the N95! The iPhone is essentially, to us Europeans/Asians at least the kind of thing we'd have expected at the low end of the market around 3 - 4 years ago, as an example I used to have a Nokia 7650 around 5 years ago, other than the things that improve with age, such as screen quality, megapixels on camera, memory this phone actually still did more than the iPhone can out the box, it could also still run Doom at full speed such that it was perfectly playable.
So again, I ask where does the iPhone actually fit in? It's a low end phone with a high end price, the only people over here I can imagine buying it are those that want a phone that interacts well with their Apple hardware, which isn't exactly the biggest target demographic to aim for! Still, I guess I shouldn't speak too soon, the iPod was extremely feature-crippled compared to other portable audio players yet I still fell into the trap of buying one so maybe the Apple hype machine will pull the wool over our eyes once more
No more Ericssons for me. (Score:3, Interesting)
How are they for standard interfaces ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm guessing that because it is SE they don't use the commmon types of memory cards (SD, uSD) but use the Sony type. This is negative points, but what about a standard 3.5" stereo jack? And how about a standard mini-USB port which can be used to charge the unit, and which support USB 'mass storage' (or whatever it is called).
I find it a bit bizarre that Nokia used to be terrible on this count, but has now become much better. HTC on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction.
Sony Ericcson... (Score:2)
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Of course they do (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want a phone that makes calls, and does SMS, there are loads to choose from. Take the world's most popular phone, the Nokia 1100, with over 200 million sold worldwide [engadget.com]. Excellent at making calls, sending text messages, brilliant battery life, and the only extra feature being a handy torch. And it'll cost you about £20 in the UK, without a contract, with £10 call time thrown in.
So leave those of us who use our phone for more than making calls to our gadget phones, you can buy the same basic and solid phones that you've always been able to buy.
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