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There are only 2 days left of 2009 and indeed only 2 days left in this decade. With that in mind many blogs have been indulging in retrospectives looking back over the decade and judging what they think are the best and worst gadgets and tech of the past ten years. Whilst Sony Ericsson itself hasn’t actually been around for a full 10 years, this is the end of the first decade they’ve been in business so time for a look back at what they’ve done right … and what they’ve done wrong.

The Good

You can’t get much better than starting at the beginning … the T68i. I still have mine and it still works as well as when it was new. It was ahead of its time and even now it’s a passable mobile phone. Sure it doesn’t have GPS, an inbuilt camera, etc, but the fact that it still works almost 10 years later counts for a lot.

The P800 was Sony Ericsson’s first smartphone, indeed one of the first proper smartphones and looking back a precursor to today’s smartphones with their large touchscreens and installable apps. Compared with current handsets it’s slow, cumbersome, bulky, and generally archaic, but it was the most powerful handset of its day and ushered in the much loved P series.

The K750 and W800 were two of the best handsets Sony Ericsson has ever produced. That’s not just my opinion, look at the sales figures. Look at how many people still look back on them fondly. The W800 heralded the dawn of Walkman phones and for the first time gave consumers the capability to play music on their phone with a quality approaching dedicated mp3 players.

The K800 was arguably Sony Ericsson’s last great handset. It took the K750 and built upon it to give a better camera, a proper flash, 3G data speeds and a pretty attractive form factor. The fact that so many are still in use is a testament to its quality and its popularity.

The Bad

When first announced the W960 was greeted with much enthusiasm; here was a handset with 8 Gb of inbuilt memory, WiFi, and a touchscreen, features, at the time, that were top class and certainly whetted many an appetite. Where did it go wrong? Well it was pretty much down to that old bug bear of Sony Ericsson’s … delays. Wars have been fought and won in less time than it took for the W960 to finally appear on the shelves and by that time consumers had moved on.

The W910 was one of those handsets that should have been great and to be fair it sold well, but that doesn’t disguise the horrendous firmware problems that dogged the handset. Numerous customers reported problems with their handsets and in the end it became a testament to slipping quality, something that was to dog Sony Ericsson in later handsets.

Another handset that suffered from poor quality was the W580 with cracked keypads galore. Like it’s big sister, the W910, it sold well, but left many customers unhappy as their keys split in two. Great sales, but another knocking for Sony Ericsson’s reputation amongst consumers.

In an all too similar situation to the W960 we saw Satio, then dubbed Idou, unveiled to much fanfare and excitement. A 12 MP camera! A first for the mobile industry outside of South Korea and it was Sony Ericsson leading the way. 10 months later the handset finally got itself into the shops and sales began in earnest. The long wait hadn’t helped, but once it was out business was brisk and consumers seemed prepared to overlook that. Disaster was to strike barely a few weeks later though as Satio was pulled from sale in the UK owing to firmware problems. Although it was back on sale soon afterwards the damage was done and again Sony Ericsson’s once high reputation for quality had taken a blow.

The Ugly

Some handsets Sony Ericsson have released over the years deserve to be forgotten, but we’ll dredge them up here anyway!

The K850 might be a surprise on this list for some, but hear me out. The keypad alone is enough to condemn this handset as awful; tiny square peg like keys widely spaced beneath a touch sensitive panel on the screen that was prone to failure does not a good handset make! The fact that the K850 was thicker than a dictionary didn’t help either.

I know Michell will disagree with me here, but Pureness is arguably the biggest waste of time, money and resources Sony Ericsson have ever publicly committed to. A luxury phone with a price tag to match whilst the rest of their line-up suffered from qualitative issues doesn’t strike me as a great idea. It’s quirky sure, but eminently forgettable.

Agree? Disagree? Have I left something out? Let us know in the comments!