Maybe the title doesn't sound so nice, but that's the same with reality - harsh and cruel (and no, this is not about my life experiences). I've also decided to start an ongoing series - this article, as well as an upcoming one comparing the P1 with current options in the market. So stay on the lookout!
Since the days of the P800 (which captured many business people's imaginations) to the P910, we've seen a high level success from SE's smart phones. Then we saw the epic failure of the P990i, and the relatively small success from the remaining M600, W950, P1 and the W960. So why did Sony Ericsson's success turn in to failure? Here's my verdict on this:
- Product Differentiation - since some far ago time (which I can't recall), SE decided to split their successful phones in to 2 series; the K series, for Kameraphone, and the W series, for the Walkman phones (and some other small series which isn't much relevant here). While it's good for marketing and appealing to a wide range of audiences, people who want the flagship products tend to want everything in the phone, from multimedia to business features.
Yep, if the W960 and the P1 was combined in to a single product, it might have been an outstanding success. That's why you see all the hacks and ports of the W960 apps to the P1. C'mon Sony, if I'm shelling out HK$4000+ to get the top of the range phone, I expect it to have everything. EVERYTHING. Otherwise why would it cost so much? - Announcement to Product Delivery - Lets see, the W960 was announced a full half a year before it finally hit the selected markets at the end of 2007. The Xperia was announced in February; but it doesn't seem to be anywhere close to delivery until probably after this coming quarter. In the meantime, while SE is busy manufacturing these phones, it's competitors are already making big noise in announcing and releasing phones of the similar calibre.
For example, the Apple iPhone 3G was announced and available with a month or 2 after the press conference. There was also plenty of marketing to generate all the hype for the phone; in contrast, there was nothing like that for the P1. In fact, I wasn't aware myself that the P1 was going to be released until AFTER August in 2007, when I happened to walk past my local Smartone-Vodafone provider store. - Updates are few and far - how many firmware updates have we gone through on the P1? I think I can count all of them in one hand. And that's not the only problem; the updates don't add new functionality to the phone. Nor does it smooth out all the bugs that come along as a result of poor coding.
I think 2 issues immediately spring to mind: the green tint issue (which incidentally SE never commented on) and the WLAN access point problem (which SE is still strangely silent about). You can't expect customers to say loyal to a company that doesn't offer to fix problems in it's flagship products, can you?
Stay tuned for the next part in my series - Moving on from the Sony Ericsson P1!
I doubt I will be staying with SE after this. The way they have treated a lot of the P1 user is truly despicable. I have emailed them several times regarding the firmware upgrades as well as the future support for UIQ and they have just remained silent. No point in staying with them to be honest. I have my eye on the Samsung Omnia when its released in August. I get the feeling Xperia will get the same kind of treatment from SE.
I doubt that Xperia will give SE an uplift, it's to expensive and the potential customers is already tired of SE because of the troubles with P1, since many of the potential Xperia-users today own a P1i.
I had always a Sony-Ericsson mobile, and I've been happy with them, when compared to the phones of my friends, my SE phone was always better looking, faster and hipper, and that I could e-mail, go to internet, etc, was always great. But now, things are starting to change, one year ago, with my P1i, I was still in the lead of wowing my friends (who always had Nokias), now, a couple of them have or iPhone 3G's or new HTC's, and they are just not as impressed as before. It is almost no comparison with them anymore.
What makes things worse, is that almost any phone coming right now or in the following months looks even better than the X1 (xperia), for example the Samsung Omnia is looking every day better and better, and I'm afraid that this time, I'll be moving to apple, samsung or even HTC. Well, it was good while it lasted, I enjoyed good times with SE, time to move on now.
I agree whit your analysis xtream
Shut up roderick are you just interested in impressing your friends? Sony ericssons have great build quality compared to most of the phones out today. My w810 that i've had for a year feels much more solid than my n95.
I agree, there is nothing special about sony ericsson phones anymore. With 97% drop in profits I don't think it's the thoughts of a few disgruntled people. I think they need to work on the software side and ditch uiq. Ive got a p1i and I'm now regretting it. They have been resting on their laurels during the good times, similar to amd. Funny how massive drop in profits and market share prompts companies to come up with something special, do they not have r&d departments?
they have been slow to respond to market changes, the x1 is over a year late
The biggest problem of the SE smart phones for me always was the slowness. Everything is slow, the boot process, the user interface, the browser, each application (except TomTom :-). The P990 was almost unusable for that reason. The P1i with the very latest firmware is acceptable finally fortunately. However, I don't know what the developers of UIQ did to make it that unbelievable slow. I did a test one time. I opened the same email (large, but only text) on my iPhone and the P1i. The iPhone showed it almost instantly, the P1i needed 10 minutes.
SE doesn't upgrade UIQ software for their smartphones is one of the reason it fails. UIQ v3 doesn't support EDGE/HSDPA. These 2 are supposed to be crcial functions in high end smartphones. In latest G900, as the UIQ version is still 3.0, so no EDGE/HSDPA support, just plain WIFI support. Which again, disappointed us. Why don't Sony upgrade UIQ software to latest version?!! Or at least upgrade to 3.1. Which adds support of HSDPA!
I have to say my P1i is my 5th SE phone and will be the last one from SE.... Time to move on.
My last Se phone, a paltry K610i, kept turning itself off, I sent it back for repairs 5 times and the last time I had to firmly raise a very large stink to get them to replace it. They still tried to weasel out of replacing it by demanding every piece of paperwork from every single repair. The new phone shut itself off in the middle of conversations as well, but not as often.
I recently replaced it with a Nokia N85 and will never ever buy another Sony Ericsson phone again. The whole experience, from start to finish, left a very bad taste in my mouth, secure in the knowledge that SE doesn't give a rat's patootie about its customers after is ells them a phone.
SE's idea of customer service is a joke and their phones are rushed to market without having all the bugs worked out of them, and then forgotten about.
Never again.