Spillikins #8 - editorial policy

ПRecently I have been getting a lot of amusing letters concerning Sony Ericsson and how badly we have been treating them over at Mobile-Review.com up until this point. So that I won't have to repeat myself in countless replies and forum posts, let me make myself clear right here - thankfully, that's exactly what Spillikins are meant for. Don't think of the following passage as an attempt to find a suitable excuse for what we are doing; on the contrary, we have always been very transparent, sharing with our readers everything we have got and I feel this case isn't an exception, so a thorough explanation is in order.

Our editorial policy is quite simple, actually, and we never deviate from it regardless of who we are dealing with - the sooner phone makers hand us their latest and greatest handset, the sooner you'll see detailed reviews at Mobile-Review.com. In the way of articles we have never held back anything on purpose, except for a handful of really rare cases, such as the Sony Ericsson W902 when the phone itself was pretty lackluster and I had to spend some time tweaking and elaborating my review in an effort to make it a touch less mocking. Because, the fact is, it's always a pity when the vendor's pricing policy and penny-pinching cost savings have effectively ruined the phone. I have been keeping a close eye on its sales lately, among all other solutions we are tracking on a regular basis, and for the most part I haven't seen anything positive about the W902 yet - now that it's through the initial surge of demand, it's becoming more of a burden in Sony Ericsson's portfolio. Well, I remember mentioning some lines above that we aren't biased towards any manufacturer, but at the same time I end up critiquing the W902's sales. Many readers will actually fault me for doing that, claiming that I should better support them at a time like this, rather than "provoke a completely unnecessary commotion with all my hatred towards Sony Ericsson". This gem was discovered by me in a letter mailed by one of Sony Ericsson's employees from his private address. I do, however, like the word "unnecessary" - it really sends me back to "colourful" political debates of the Soviet period.

What these die-hard fans are asking for? To put it plainly, they want us to rank their interests above those of the rest of our readers. For example, they think if some Sony Ericsson's products can't stand comparison with some other offerings out there or have an array of newsworthy glitches, it'd be better if we kept mum on them. Indeed, people in the know already have an idea of what's going on, and as for everyone else… well they will have to figure it all out on their own! Is that a fair approach? As far as I'm concerned - not at all. At the end of the day, what is the point in writing a review where we don't explore all possible alternatives and all readers or even prospective owners are literally kept in the dark regarding how much they will shell out for the vendor's own missteps or ungrounded ambitions of their marketing department?

A valuable piece of advice - when reading reviews here or somewhere else, always pay attention to this part. In fact, very rarely does some phone have no direct or indirect alternatives altogether and it's crucial that the author touches upon both pros and cons of every similar solution, including the phone in question. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend reading these reviews at all.

Another rhetorical question - if a phone maker suddenly drops its quality standards but at the same time ups the prices on its solutions, what do we do? Should we start blabbering nonessential stories, trying to cover it up, just to stay on good terms with this company, which we aren't even connected to? As I see it, the only way to go in situations like this is to give our readers the whole truth - strong and motivated vendors treat it like another incentive to move forward, while the weaker ones see in it all another reason to keep ranting about how cruel the fate and market has been to them.

It's been a while since we developed a very simple, yet effective approach - whenever we find that some vendor's products have dropped in quality, we start devoting more time to testing them, so that we won't miss anything. For example the Sony Ericsson G705 is one of these cases. Their local office sends only the samples they are sure of. Fine, but as we found out, it had a very loose battery cover, and in truth we even had to sneak out several commercial units to make sure it wasn't just our phone. Now, tell me, whether we should conceal this defect, fearing that every mention of it will be treated as another portion of bias? Actually, I have the answer myself - it's absolutely necessary to report about these issues, otherwise nothing will change even a year from now. Remarkably, our persistency has earned many owners of the Sony Ericsson C702 (whose problem is that its coating tends to peel off with time) the right to return their phones for warranty repair in Russia, and now, half a year later, they might start using higher-grade materials for this phone. Amusingly, we warned Sony Ericsson about this glitch several months before the C702's launch day. But it seems it takes more than a couple of articles to get through to Sony Ericsson and make them fix their own blunders.

As for the much-praised Xpreia, it has been with me for around 6 months now; nevertheless I have no warm feelings for it simply because it can't do much at all. At first I thought it was largely due to its hardware, then blamed the software, but wasn't a hundred percent sure. Now that it's started shipping everything has come to the surface. I remember mentioning somewhere that Sony Ericsson were planning to get its software in gear by February 2009, and recently I got a statement from their local headquarters: "The Xperia's hardware is final indeed, however we still don't have the final version of its firmware, so it's not advisable to test it". That's right, let's wait for it to arrive and then put the Xperia X1 through its paces.

Wrapping it all up, here is a simple rule we follow and haven't been wrong once yet. When someone starts praising products that don't deserve this kind of credit, we don't get hostile or anything. We just throw in a write-up or two with detailed breakdowns of all glitches and shortcomings of these solutions, so that all consumers out there won't get misled. It's always better to have the full picture before you take money out of your wallet, is it not?

But I think by now you've already heard enough of the grim future awaiting Sony Ericsson - I, for one, already see it on the horizon, and pretty much everyone will spot it after several more losing quarters, make no mistake about that. Now, let's get back to phones, and here I've got a confession to make - I still haven't released the review of the Nokia N96, but I really want to believe I'll get to it some time soon (although we already have a quite comprehensive preview). But, for everyone interested, I simply can't bring myself to like this phone. So... moving on.

Nokia 3610 Fold

I never thought reviewing a phone could be that simple - I found that all I needed to do was change the title of the Nokia 6555's review, and throw in a couple of updates regarding the display and design. All in all, the 6555 was a fashion-savvy solution and nobody could say its price tag was fair. While it definitely had some visual appeal, there was nothing special about it. Unfortunately, the 3610 Fold is no different in this regard - its price is "somewhat" inadequate, to say the least. This phone is more of a mixed bag that will hardly find a niche for itself given where Nokia is headed with its mid-tier phones these days.

Nokia 6212 Classic

No-frills budget phone running on S40 that is reasonably attractive and functional. In fact, its centerpiece has nothing to do with design or feature pack - the thing is, the Nokia 6212 Classic comes included with NFC technology that allows its user to pay for tickets, food and other things wirelessly by flashing the phone in front of a scanner. However, as it stands today, NFC is used primarily for wireless data transfers. In our tests we paired two 6212 Classic and it was like clockwork.

Sony Ericsson G705

The G705 is a mid-range slider packed with a 3.2 Mpix camera, plastic casing and a remarkably loose battery cover. Apart from that it sports a quirky design and bog-standard A200 platfrom with C905-esque software. All in all, it has all the makings of a fairly decent offering - we can't even say it's vastly overpriced for a fashion-conscious solution. Obviously, there is a great many of other offerings retailing at this price point, and the G705's WiFi connectivity or GPS (in all honestly, WayFinder, the version found in the phone, is probably the worst possible application for navigation) doesn't seem to be much of an advantage.

Personally, I like the G705 for the way it feels in the hand and its overall robust feature pack. It will also take a bite of two of the Sony Ericsson W595's sales, even though the latter is positioned in a different way.

Samsung B320

Much like the rest of Samsung's B-series phones, the B320's guiding principle is "cheap but good" - at 85 USD it packs in a pretty good set of features and offers a very sturdy build quality. I dropped it a couple of times, but it seems the phone hasn't been affected in any way, which is great news of course.

Samsung M150

Another entry-level phone with a no-frills plasticky design and a very compact casing. In some ways it feels vaguely similar to the Ericsson T66 - adequately priced, small, practical and can't do much other than make and receive calls. In fact, I can hardly find a niggle with it; my experience with the Samsung M150 was pretty smooth overall. If you are in the market for a cheap phone for calls without a wealth of extra features, then the M150 is definitely worth a glance or two.

Motorola MOTOROKR EM25

Affordable music-minded slider offering one of the best sounding players to date - a likable phone that comes in black or white. On the downside, though, it supports only 2 Gb memory cards, which is going to become a deal-breaker for some. But as far as I am concerned, I like almost everything about the EM25 - no useless extra features, decent audio quality and more than justified price. It's a pity, though, that the state Motorola is in didn't let them launch it any time sooner: it's scheduled for mid December. At the same time, it's not the worst time for the EM25 to arrive either - it'll definitely generate some sales.

Odds and ends

In this issue of Spillikins we had to leave out a whole array of phones, such as the Samsung L700 and LG K910 (LG's first 8 Mpix camera phone), but we won't rush it, since these phones aren't really all the rage these days. Same goes for the Sony Ericsson W705 that isn't much different from the G705 apart from its pared-down GPS functionality and a tad enchanced music player.

Eldar Murtazin ([email protected])
Translated by Oleg Kononosov ([email protected])

Published — 3 December 2008

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