Does Sony have future as a smartphone maker?

 

Before I go any further, let me confess. The header of this blog is copied from another blog post! Why? Ok, that’s because I got the thought of writing this post because of two reasons. One, Today Morning when I was flipping through my appy-geek widget I read this article “Does Sony have future as a smartphone maker?”

The post was talking about how Sony is not able to impress the Smartphone buyers and gradually losing it. Which, in a way is correct. And I do believe quite a bit of it.

And second, around 5 hours later reading this article, I went and bought a Sony Phone. To be very precise, the Sony Xperia Go.

And to top it all, when I reached home I realized, right now all the usable phones (4) I have at home, be it a smart or an old school phone. They are all Sony/Sony Ericsson. So if the post mentioned above is correct, then how come this happened?

So I thought to collect my memory and decided to put down, how did I ended up with all Sony phone. And the answer which came out was, the Sony phones just don’t die, and every component is exceptionally good in usage/quality. Me be not that great in terms of Specs

I have bought quite a few android devices lately. To name a few.

1. HTC Wildfire – Horrible battery. When will HTC understand, we don’t run phones on power sockets. I threw it in the bin after around an year of use.
2. Samsung Galaxy SL – The camera Sucks!! For a 5MP cam, nothing can be worse. The MB conked off just after the warranty was over. And the camera sensor got dust in it (damn it’s not a SLR with interchangeable lens, and neither the lens cap was broken) I threw it in the bin few days back.
3. Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 P1000 – The battery and MB crashed within 3 month of buying. Got it replaced and again it died before a year. I sold it off
4. Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7 P3100 – Still working fine. But it’s not even 2 months old now.

I can talk about more such shitty phones which I bought over time from companies Like Micromax, Motorola, HTC with various Oss. But I want to keep this article restricted to Android only. But just wanted to point one thing here. I did have used non smart SE phones before, and whenever a phone have died on me, I have found them sitting in the corner of my junk locker, still in usable condition just to save the day.

So, when I got fed-up with HTC Wildfire and its battery, I picked up a Sony Xperia Mini Pro Ski7 for 14k INR. Along with it, I picked up Samsung Galaxy SL for my wife for around 19k INR. The SL was a bigger screen bigger battery more heavy duty phone. But the camera shitted on me! 5MP!! U kidding me?? Where as the Xpera mini pro being a cheaper and small screen phone, still came with surprises packed. A polymer battery, which used to get 100% charged within 2Hrs and used to run for a full day of 3G and Call usages. It was like a magic for me after my Wildfire which I used to majorly run on 220V (at least thrice a day for a couple of hours).

And talking about the camera. It also has a 5MP sensor, but believe me. I have got extra ordinary pics using that phone.

And the best part is. The phone is still with me after serving for around one and half years. And still charges within 2 Hrs and remains charged for a full day, and creates great pics when my DSLR is not handy. And got a ICS 4.0 update.

One the other hand, The Galaxy SL had taken a battery swap. Had to spend 2k to get an original battery within 8 months of usages. Why? Coz the battery was not even giving half a day of backup. And the new battery worked for another 4 odd months when the MB died on me, making the phone reboot every 10 minutes. And it never got an ICS update. So I thought of throwing that in the bin and getting a new phone for my wife.

Though, my wife’s phone goes through much more tuff situation than mine coz she takes care of a geek kid who loves to throw gadgets in different substances including water, etc and see how they (the gadgets) and we (the parents) react. So I thought of getting her one of those rugged phones which can sustain harsh situations. Now the problem was none of those rugged phones were suitable for a lady to carry and flaunt around. They just looked too tactile. Except one which was good in looks (will not say brilliant though) . Has a great 5MP camera and can be used while submerged inside a pool or a bath tub and is an Android Smart phone.

It was Sony Xperia Go. One hidden agenda of mine to convince my wife to buy this one was to get a device which can do some underwater photography for me. (am planning a Andaman Trip late this year :P).

Though it’s pretty expensive. Around 19K INR. And it’s not a top of the line phone with features like 8MP camera and 4 CPU cores (in god’s name, do we need a 4 Core phone whose battery dies in 3 Hrs and I can’t make a call?) . But I am damn sure; it’s going to live its own life with everything working fine and I am gonna keep it in my junk locker when I change it to some fancy spec smart phone. And I will again find it out when that fancy phone will die on me. Coz, they just work!

 

And could be that’s why people don’t by Sony Smart phones, coz they don’t die on you and give you a reason to upgrade/change your phone every now and then 😛

So, why is Sony not able to impress every one of us? This is because; they are not flaunting their products well. I mean the marketing somehow is not that great, at least here in India. I hardly see any Sony Mobile Ad but see so many Samsung Mobile Ads here. Even, Samsung is trying to target and capture every Blogger in the country to talk about them by doing different campaigns but Sony looks to be not interested at all.

So the bottom line is, it’s not just enough to be good. It’s also important to publicize your goodness. If Sony actually loses the battele of Smart Phone, I as a user will be really upset. I also get upset when a great idea or product just dies due to bad marketing.