russian

Phone Search:

RSS

Samsung Galaxy Note. First Look

Today, large companies, especially corporate giants like Samsung, do not surprise users with extraordinary products...

First look. Sony ST21i Tapioca Microsoft Windows Phone 7: Reasons for Failure First Look at Samsung Galaxy S3 as a 2012 Flagship

Reviews Editorials

Mobile Phones Editorials MP3 Forum

Sony Ericsson W995 and Idou

Twenty four hours before the world’s largest telecom event, Mobile World Congress, kicked off, Sony Ericsson had rolled out two new phones – one of them had been anticipated for a while already, whereas the other one came out of the blue. Touchscreen-enabled smartphone, codenamed Idou is by far their most unexpected announcement to date.

Sony Ericsson W995 (Hikaru)

In a word, the W995 is Sony Ericsson’s brand new music playing flagship; one could even say it has long been called-for and there are several reasons for that. First, it picks up the vendor’s music-centric line-up where the W910 left it, and the latter was, let’s be honest, not the most dazzling phone in terms of audio performance, although it wasn’t all that bad as a fashion-savvy offering.

Then, the Sony Ericsson W995 is notable for two quite significant differences from all previous Sony Ericsson branded music playing sliders – first and foremost it’s got a 3.5 mm audio jack. I believe most of our readers still remember how perplexed we used to be about this vendor’s strange policy regarding standard audio jacks (they simply didn’t use them anywhere), so that even their top-of-the-line music-savvy offerings came boxed with 3.5 mm adapters.

Secondly, the W995 comes boxed with a much bigger memory card – as Sony Ericsson have learned, as far as music-minded phones are concerned, storage size does matter, be it a memory card or phone’s inbuilt memory. Most previous Walkman-braded solutions ignored this simple rule, featuring 1-2 Gb memory cards in the package at best; luckily the W995 changes things with its 100 Mb of bundled storage and an 8 Gb memory card that will be just enough to keep all your favorite music (or most of it) in one place.

All in all, it’s a pretty decent solution, and even though the W995’s primary focus is music, it comes equipped with an 8 MP camera, Wi-Fi connectivity and aGPS support. Although some would really like to see something more capable than their bog-standard A200 for the W995’s OS. At the same time, it’s still a bit too early to make any sort of forecasts regarding its future and sales, but it seems to have what it takes, plus while Sony Ericsson has a whole array of music-centric sliders in its portfolio, the W995 manages to stand out, which is another thing going for it. The phone’s release is slotted for 2Q 2009, but you’ll be able to read a breakdown of all its features in our exclusive preview tomorrow – don’t forget to check back!

Sony Ericsson Idou

One thing I need to mention right off the bat – “Idou” is a working title, Sony Ericsson’s officials even promised to think up a new codename for its worldwide release.

During the presentation of “Idou” we were shown a short commercial that featured this smartphone more towards the last seconds (you can check out the video itself below). However the thing I was most interesting in was the fact that once they took the wraps off, no wave of exclamations or even slight chatter ran through the room. We can only guess why most journalists seemed so unenthusiastic about it, although back then nobody said that the Idou was Sony Ericsson’s Symbian-based touchscreen smartphone. Symbian, again…

Idou's commercial (11,6 mb)

In fact, this situation seems very shady – let’s be honest, Sony Ericsson are going through one of the worst shake-ups they have been in, some of their projects are months behind their original schedules, some have already been canceled and UIQ Technology, the company that put together the operating system for Sony Ericsson’s smartphone simply ceased to exist. However, two months later Sony Ericsson roll out their new Symbian-powered touchscreen-enabled smartphone, and the question whether the phone was build around S60 got a very vague answer from one of the officials that “it was a Symbian Foundation development, nothing more”.

But that’s not where the rub is – as a matter of fact, most of their touchscreen-enabled smartphones have been pretty lackluster from a commercial point of few. They appeal to a very narrow circle of users bent on technology, and those who can't live without digging inside their phones' operating systems; in other words, their smartphones have been everything but widely popular.

Perhaps that’s the reason why their new smartphone comes armed with a 12 MP camera and no conventional controls whatsoever (so that all interactions with the phone are done with bare fingers). Supposedly, these are the things that will make the Idou a sought-after device; and if that won’t be enough, it’ll come with all state-of-the-art features imaginable, including Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS and a 3.5-inch display capable of 640x320 pixel resolution (which makes it Sony Ericsson’s biggest display to date).

As far as its physical design goes, I’d say that they have managed to keep Sony Ericsson’s trademark style, as the Idou looks more like some of their old smartphones and avoids clich?s brought about by other touchscreen-enabled phones out there, which is quite an achievement already.

We’d really like to think that the Idou will do alright, since, on the face of it, it’s got all the makings of a great phone, but it’s hard to believe they’ll make it now. It’s the second time they enter these waters, trying to take a slice of the booming market created by the Apple iPhone, but early in 2009 there are too many players out there already and only this much space left. All we can do now is hope that it won’t follow in the footsteps of the XPERIA X1 that saw release almost twelve months after its official announcement.