Archive for November, 2007

W910 review by GSMArena

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

W910

Following shortly their review of the S500i (as earlier posted), GSMArena now took an in-depth look at the W910i.

They are very dissatisfied with the high price tag of the handset, as they also state in their conclusion:

Sony Ericsson W910 is the top dog in the Walkman series when it comes to feature phones, the smarty W960 being a class of its own in the company’s music portfolio. Some of W910 features are true high-end stuff: the quality display, elaborate music features, exquisite design, fast performance and 3G capabilities. Those however coexist with painfully familiar features and applications we’ve been getting in downright midrange handsets. Too much compromise to put up with in this price range and the tag on W910 is likely to get even the brand loyals a bit reserved. Nokia and Samsung seem to prepare a handful of cool music offerings in this price range too, while their non-music oriented handsets too have good music players. Despite the rich sales package, including a 1GB M2 card and the cool M2 USB reader, the W910 will be under pressure, as price is the ultimate decisive factor in this increasingly competitive market.

However, they are not so picky about the sound quality as Mobile Review (as mentioned here).

Read the full review at GSMArena.

Sony Ericsson tops J.D. Power’s satisfaction list

Friday, November 16th, 2007

 jd-power.jpg

J.D. Power has announced that Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications’ handsets has scored the highest in overall customer satisfaction among American and Canadian consumers in the latest survey.

Sony Ericsson ranked highest in features, battery life, physical design, opeartion and durability among the American consumers. The manufacturers are ranked in different categories, and can at maximum achieve a perfect 1000 score, however it is extremely unlikely that this will ever happen.
These results reflected Sony Ericsson’s strong commitment to the North American market, said Najmi Jarwala, who’s the President of Sony Ericsson North American market. This is a market where SEMC has struggled to gain market share, but things seem to be turning now.

Announcement on the 12th of December?

Friday, November 16th, 2007

According to a member at Esato Russian Eldar Murtazin has posted in the Russian VIP section of their forum, that he’ll be going to an announcement for Sony Ericsson on the 12th of December. If this is true or not, I can’t say, but I remember having talked with Aldo Liguori, who said that Sony Ericsson had no plans of any further announcements this year. But based on the people’s reaction what there was no announcement yesterday (the 15th of November), maybe they’ve decided to announce something in December.

I’ll try to get a comment from Sony Ericsson later on.

Questions to Mr. Komiyama update!

Friday, November 16th, 2007

I’ve just had a chat with Sony Ericsson, and I’ve now been given the green lights to ask the 10 best questions by the blog readers.

So if you still haven’t asked your question, go to this post for more information.

The questions round will end on the 19th of November, so if you want to have a chance to ask Sony Ericsson’s President a question, do it fast!

XS++ 3.1 released!

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

Today the new version of the fantastic XS++ software was released in a new version (I guess this is no longer beta) – version 3.1 codenamed Darwin. This means even more features, and here’s the changelog for this new version.

  • DB2010 New Security models handled, e.g. W810i CID50
  • Added Smartphone EPOC CCPU (Phone Part) Flashing
  • K750/W800 etc now have unlocked CSloader. no more breakin and sleeping phones
  • CID29 CS Loaders added
  • Experimental DB3150 detection and profiling
  • Auto CID update changed for PNX support
  • Tweaked FSX a little
  • XS++ moved home
  • XS++ Help and information R1A (Well, its basic and needs work)
  • New Splash Screen! Great work from ashrafalm

I think it finally has a slight support for the new phones such as K850!

You can download it here at SE-NSE (8.84 MB), and here’s the official thread for the application.

New Sony Ericsson website structure

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

se_website_w890.jpg

If you’re a regular visitor of Sony Ericsson’s website – like myself – you should have noticed by now that the URL’s at their site were very strange and hard to figure out. Now, however, it looks like Sony Ericsson has updated the site with a new structure – i.e. the frontpage is now called http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/ and mobile phone pages are now much neater looking in the URL; http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/overview/w890i?cc=gb&lc=en for the W890.

Thanks to Xellar for telling me about this!

P5 hardware update

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

Now the information can probably no longer be held back, so here it goes.
The hardware changes, that we talked about yesterday, consist of two hardware components.

  • Processor. Instead of a TI OMAP 2420 @ 332 MHz it will be an unknown TI @ 520 MHz processor.
  • GPS module

The new UI with all its features will probably also need a stronger processor. This processor will also be compatible with Windows Mobile 6. This is an essential step in regard of the ability to construct new hardware.

Therefore this very late decision means the FP1 again will be discarded, and a new hardware platform created. Maria is said to be running the same platform.
The main reason for the CPU swap is the simultaneous announcement of new ARM-chipsets at the Smartphone Show 2007. The new chipsets are significantly
more efficient in terms of its graphics features than any previous versions.

What would YOU like to ask Sony Ericsson’s President about?

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

As the title says – what would YOU like to ask Sony Ericsson’s President about? Post your question in a comment below this post, and I’ll pick out the 10 best questions, and I’ll then have something arranged for Sony Ericsson’s current President – Hideki ‘Dick’ Komiyama – to answer them, if possible. Only serious and appropriate questions, please, and to make it easier please don’t ask any already asked questions.

This is your chance, so start asking!

The last day to post your question will be the 19th of November, as I’m counting on passing them on to Mr. Komiyama on the 20th.

PS. This is my 120th post!

The questioning round has ended for now, and the ten chosen questions will be sent off to Sony Ericsson. More details will follow soon.

Funny mistake on the K660 press picture

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

The day K660 was announced I spotted something weird in the press pictures – there were no letters on the keypad of the white one! However I quickly threw the thought about it away, thinking that Sony Ericsson would probably fix the mistake soon. But they haven’t done so yet, so if someone working at Sony Ericsson is reading this – please get it fixed! The most peculiar thing, however, is that the letters are there in the reflection, but not on the phone itself. Don’t believe me? Have a look at the full resolution press picture yourself then (but please note that it’s a huge picture!).

k660_keypad.jpg

Great live pictures of K660, W380 & W890

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

I had almost completely forgotten about SE-employee “Virgile” at Planete-Nokia, and the fact that he always posts pictures of just announced phones – loads of them, that is! Here are the links to the latest set of pictures – the K660 (Lime on White & Wine on Black), W380 (Electric Purple & Magnetic Grey) and at last the W890 (Mocha Brown & Sparkling Silver). K660 looks really nice, I think, and so does the W890. Am not really liking the W380’s design that much…
K660

k660_planete_nokia.jpg

W380

w380_planete_nokia.jpg

W890

w890_planete_nokia.jpg