Sony Ericsson, in a surprising movement (at least to me), has decided to acquire the UIQ Technologies division of Symbian. They must have their reasons, but can’t stop thinking one of them surely is the multiple critics that P990 has gotten since its launch. Until now, UIQ couldn’t focus its development in any particular manufacturer, because Symbian is a company owned by multiple cellphone companies, and being so, they must develop a standard product which can be implemented in multiple and very different devices from different brands with minimum modifications software-wise. This approach has its advantages, but it doesn’t come without drawbacks, and one of them is that the interface must work in different kind of terminals, which limits it quite a deal. Having full control over UIQ’s development will enable Sony Ericsson to custom the interface to their likings, making it as good as the one in the rest of the Sony Ericsson terminals.
Another question to pay attention to is whether this could affect UIQ’s popularity between developers. Right now, there are only 3 UIQ 3.0 terminals in the market: the M600, W950 and P990. This is a very low number compared to UIQ 2.x, which was adopted not only by Sony Ericsson, but also by Motorola and BenQ, to name a couple more. The difference translates in the number of UIQ 3.0 users in the market, which is quite lower than UIQ 2.x back at its time. And number of potential users is a very (if not the most) important factor for a software developer, when it comes to decide whether to develop software for that platform or not. And UIQ, without third-party software, doesn’t worth much. Sony Ericsson claims that the rest of the manufacturers will be able to acquire Symbian UIQ licenses just like they have been doing until this moment. The real question is if they will want to do that, once Sony Ericsson decide to adapt UIQ more and more to their devices.
The transaction is expected to be completed over the next few months.
Sorry, third-parties, all JAVA-enabled Sony Ericssons now have official support from Microsoft to run their new Windows Live Messenger Mobile application. MSN/Windows Messenger site Mess.be found this goodie in a chineese MSN website. Well, actually, functionality may be a little below some other JAVA clients, but if you’re like me and only need your contact list and being able to chat with some few emoticons, you’ll take this Windows Live themed instant messenger over anything else. Apparently these download links (be careful to chose the version for your model) are completely legal and free to download, but after a couple of months they will stop working unless you pay a small unknown monthly fee. Hmm, let’s just enjoy it in the meantime and we’ll talk again in January. Check some screenshots of it running on K800 inside this entry. [Via Mess.be].
If your exact model number isn’t listed here, make sure your phone supports JAVA and then download the version of models using the same screen pixel size.
They’ve gone nuts: look what Sony Ericsson is preparing during the SE Championship Tour for the nights of November 9th and 10th in Madrid, Spain, as the first in a series around the world: black tennis court illuminated solely with UV light, 8 players wearing neon clothes, a bright ball and background live DJ music from no others than Groove Armada and Darren Emerson, as well as neon-wear catwalk fashion show from Ruben Gomez Navarro, all deep into the night. I’m not exaggerating a bit: in Darren Emerson’s words: “I’ve DJ’d in interesting places and situations and also weird ones, but this is going to be the most amazing of all”.
Free tickets are available to Spanish residents via SMS so if you’re going to be around the capital by next week, check out our spanish post on this topic for more details, or go to Nighttennis.es. No word on what is going to be the next city to welcome another Night of the Dancing Neon Mobile Phone Freak.
Sony Ericsson is back to the Smartphones Big Guys’ scene, thanks to the P990, M600 and W950. The company has re-entered, after a long absence, at fourth place in the top five smart mobile devices companies in the EMEA market, with a 3% share. This also has had a positive effect on Symbian’s market share in smartphones, which is now at 78.7% (it was 76.6% last year).
Straight out from the French Riviera, Noreve offers a series of high quality leather cases for almost all current mid-high Sony Ericssons, for those who don’t mind losing some portability in favor of protecting the precious device inside while adding a touch of style and personalization with the many leather colors available. I say losing portability because after trying these with my P990, it just won’t fit any comfortably in trousers any tighter than 50 Cent’s. It shouldn’t be a big problem for smaller models’ users though —the P990 itself isn’t very pocket-friendly anyway—, but it’s fair to say that these cases add considerable bulk to your phone, not to mention if you even attach the huge belt clip. This belt clip led McCoy, reviewer of the black M600/W950 and red P990 cases, to find a funny problem with the back screw, which you can check in the video (in all Superhandz style) after the jump, along with photos of those and my black and white P990 cases.
Posted by Luis Camino on Oct 25, 2006 in Reviews| W710
I was going to title this entry “another scant recommended rating from Mobileburn” but let’s be fair, it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep up with the fierce competition, and if recentnews about Sony Ericsson’s figures is any indicative, perhaps business isn’t always about making every single supermodel worth a Mobileburn’s “highly recommended” rating. And after all, it’s an “enthusiastic recommended rating”. Next, some notable extracts from the review, including a description of the W710’s interesting pedometer “for people who sweat” (I’m just quoting there!):
The slider key located on the right side of the W710i locks the rubber buttons [around the orange back lit, 4 shade grayscale external display] so that they won’t be triggered by accident when you aren’t playing music
Some long needed functionality [is that] email accounts can now be configured to download headers or only the first so many KB of a message. This system will let users see what an email message is about without having to download any huge attachments that were sent with.
The overall quality of the photos is not quite as good as we have come to expect from Sony Ericsson. The issue seems to be the lens, which takes photos that are not consistently focused
I was pleased with the quality of the sound overall when the W710i was used with both wired and Bluetooth wireless stereo headphones.
The pedometer function in the W710i works really well, and does a good job of organizing your past exercise efforts by distance, time, and calories burned. You can calibrate it by inputting your height, age, and weight and let it guess about stride length, or you can actually use it on a known distance (like a track) and have it calibrate itself from that. While in use, the pedometer will display the number of steps walked that day on both the internal and external displays. An included Java app actually lets you see graphs of your training, and offers the user virtual medals and other rewards as incentive. In short, the pedometer is a fun addition to a mobile phone.
Sony Ericsson’s user interface is both intuitive and entertaining. It makes good use of screen real estate as well as color and animation – without getting in its own way.
While I don’t consider it to be one of the better looking handsets the company has created, the Sony Ericsson W710i is still a very capable and fun handset to use. It might not have a best in class camera, but the music playback (with stereo Bluetooth support) and the built-in pedometer make it a great companion for commuters and athletically inclined people alike.
If not for some issues with audio quality on calls, I might have been convinced to give the W710i a higher rating, but as is, I instead give it an enthusiastic “Recommended” rating.
It seems that Sony Ericsson is doing it right with its Sony-brand linking strategy for their products, like Walkman and Cyber-shot (and we all hope Handycam soon). Sony Ericsson, with a 43% annual growth rate, has taken the position of the fastest-growing mobile vendor in Q3 2006, a position that Motorola has held since Q1 2005, now with a rate of 39%.
This trend is even clearer in Taiwan’s market, in which Sony Ericsson has surpassed Motorola in sales volume, making it the second company in Taiwan’s handset market (being Nokia the first). With a total of 700,000 Sony Ericsson units sold in Taiwan in the first nine months of this year, the prediction is that it will exceed one million in 2007, something quite feasible knowing that Yeh Shun-fa, president of Sony Ericsson Taiwan, claimed that his company will launch five new models in October.
Several phtoos have been leaked in a now-locked Secentral.net forum thread of what seems to be a candybar mid-range (ok, downgraded) K800 with the same QVGA screen and Memory Stick Micro slot but with the 2.0 autofocus and two-led flashlight camera of the K750. Interesting where the FastPort connector appears to be located: at one of the sides. While the materials used seem to be on the cheaper side (it might be just the quality of the photos) and the back loses any resemblance to any Cybershot product, at least it looks like it’s pretty slim, maybe thinner than the M600 (which is 15mm) [Via Engadget and Newmobile.nl]
He who doesn’t know the original won’t get what is a Sony TV set commercial doing in a Sony Ericsson fansite, but the fact is that that one deserved to appear even in a crochet work website. So keeping up the trend it started, we post the new one:
Sony Ericsson, in a surprising movement (at least to me), has decided to acquire the UIQ Technologies division of Symbian. They must have their reasons, but can’t stop thinking one of them surely is the multiple critics that P990 has gotten since its launch. Until now, UIQ couldn’t focus its development in any particular manufacturer, because Symbian is a company owned by multiple cellphone companies, and being so, they must develop a standard product which can be implemented in multiple and very different devices from different brands with minimum modifications software-wise. This approach has its advantages, but it doesn’t come without drawbacks, and one of them is that the interface must work in different kind of terminals, which limits it quite a deal. Having full control over UIQ’s development will enable Sony Ericsson to custom the interface to their likings, making it as good as the one in the rest of the Sony Ericsson terminals. 
Sony Ericsson is back to the Smartphones Big Guys’ scene, thanks to the P990, M600 and W950. The company has re-entered, after a long absence, at fourth place in the top five smart mobile devices companies in the EMEA market, with a 3% share. This also has had a positive effect on Symbian’s market share in smartphones, which is now at 78.7% (it was 76.6% last year).
It seems that Sony Ericsson is doing it right with its Sony-brand linking strategy for their products, like Walkman and Cyber-shot (and we all hope Handycam soon). Sony Ericsson, with a 43% annual growth rate, has taken the position of the fastest-growing mobile vendor in Q3 2006, a position that Motorola has held since Q1 2005, now with a rate of 39%.
