Ewan's been comparing the W950i with a non-smartphone 'Walkman' phone, the W900, and finds that the comparison reveals quite a bit about Sony Ericsson's thinking in the styling and interface of the newer, UIQ 3-powered device.
Read on in the full article.
"There�s no real credit to Symbian OS ... anywhere in the packaging or marketing"
That's true of all Symbian smartphones. Manufacturers might tout Symbian when they're talking to technology or industry figures, but as far as consumers are concerned they never see the name Symbian anywhere, it's not a consumer brand.
It's sometimes visible tucked away on the tech specs, but even that isn't always true, the official 6290 and 5500 specs don't even mention S60 or Symbian.
The SE UIQ3 devices all have some unique features, but it seems it takes a while to appreciate the innovation SE has added to the Symbian ecosystem. Hopefully SE will continue to innovate. But as their focus turns to the mass market we may have to look elsewhere for the bleeding edge Smartphones. But I hope SE will surprise us this year with the next generation Smartphone 😉
Steve, some very interesting insights. I wonder if this new perspective would have you reposition the W950 slightly in the Venn Diagram from last week. Perhaps or perhaps not.
jah:
Yeah! Well, we're geeks! It is always interesting to understand the perspective of the non geek.
It would also be very interesting to know if some of the things Steve hints at - like: W950s are an upgrade path from Wxxx's and not UIQ smartphones sans-proper keypads - turned up in SE market research. Of course, if it did, they won't be wanting us or NOK to know that.
krisse,
Sorry for these thoughts. Once a marketer, always one.
Oh! Yeah! krisse,
Again, Symbian isn't credited because Symbian isn't a brand. It owns the market because Nokia is the brand and makes Symbian phones.
Walkman - OTOH - is a BRAND.
dgduris: Err... Now't to do with me - Ewan's the author of the article itself.
Steve
I think s60 intends to change that and start using it more as a brand.. on the tube I see "s60" in feature list these days
Steve,
Oops! I goofed! Not atypical of me at all!
eyephone,
Are they promoting S60 or Symbian or both?
s60 primarily, I think this is important if only to provoke the question "what is s60" in joe consumer where symbian is rather more ambiguous
Hi
I upgraded my o2 sim-only account to a good deal on a W950i package.
After a week, I've sent it back.
My car is factory Bluetooth (BT) equipped, and my own N6230 and company N6021 both pair superbly. Sound quality is excellent, and I've never had a dropout (tunnels notwithstanding!!).
The W950i first failed to impress by the slowness of its pairing on BT, then the scratchy quality of sound, and finally - and this was the last straw, it kept dropping out!
Driving home on the M6, I tried calling home via my W950i - my car told me to "switch phone on". It was already on, and had previously paired. The phone had also locked-up. The only solution was to remove the battery and allow it to pair with the car again. This happened twice more before I got fed up.
I was interested in the A2DP aspects of the phone - I envisaged being able to wirelessly connect the 4Gb music Walkman feature of the W950i and play it via my car stereo. When I contacted SE directly, they told me that they had no intentions of developing A2DP in the immediate future, other than the wireless music headphones they have now. I wonder if the car makers are working on this application?