10
May
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Editorial: Sony, Get Your Smartphone Act Together, Please

Posted by in Editorials, Sony, Sony Ericsson

Sony, you really confuse me sometimes. The US is just about to get the Xperia Ion on AT&T, supposedly the Sony-branded flagship smartphone. The problem is that the Xperia GX just took that crown from the Ion - before it even came out. I'm not sure what Sony's grand master plan here is, but looking from the outside in, it seems like the company (that lost $5.7 billion last year - most of it in the fourth quarter alone) is flying completely and utterly blind.

Sony got into the Android smartphone game way back in 2009, with the announcement of the Xperia X10.

09
May
2012-05-09 16h40_32

Sony And Google Show Off New GoogleTV Box With A Remote That Resembles A Space Shuttle Control Panel

Posted by in Google TV, News

You guys remember Google TV, right? It's the project that every CEO and their mothers stood on a stage with to declare war on Apple's AppleTV hobby? Yeah, those guys have been pretty quiet since about that platform for a while now. Sony, however, got up the nerve to announce a new Google TV box at a special event in Palo Alto. Where "announce" means "say some words near, without actually talking about."

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Details one the device are scarce. In photos we can see that it comes with standard fare in the port department. A couple of HDMI ports, optical audio out, ethernet, a couple USB slots, and even an (optional?) space for an IR blaster.

18
Apr
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Sony Wants To Make Sure Apps Work Properly On Xperia Devices, Offers Loaner Phones To Developers For Free

Posted by in Development, News, Sony

All manufacturers want to make sure that apps work properly on their devices. Of course, the best way to make sure an app works on any given phone is to actually test the app on the device in question. For developers, though, that could cost a substantial amount of money - just think about how many Android devices are out there at the moment.

As an answer to this quandary, though, Sony has come up with a unique plan to allow developers to borrow Xperia devices. For free.

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The deal is pretty simple: Sony is willing to offer up a few of its more popular devices  as loaners for developers to test their apps on for 30 days.

13
Apr
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Sony Begins Rollout Of Ice Cream Sandwich To The Xperia Arc S, Neo V, and Ray In Nordic Countries

Posted by in News, Xperia Active (Satsuma), Xperia Arc (Anzu, X12), Xperia Arc S, Xperia Mini / Mini Pro (Smultron / Mango), Xperia Neo (Hallon), Xperia Neo V (Haida), Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone), Xperia Ray (Urushi, ST18i)

Sony has done an excellent job at being transparent with its progress on the bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to a number of Xperia devices. It has kept users aware of what's going on throughout the process, as well as shared alpha and beta builds along the way. Now, though, it looks like the beta days are behind them and the build is ready for prime time for a certain Xperia devices.

The rollout will being with unlocked variants of the Xperia arc s, neo v, and ray (seriously, Sony, stop with the lowercase device names. It looks awful) in Nordic Countries and will continue over the next four to six weeks.

12
Apr
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[Deal Alert] Expansys USA Offering Sony's New SmartWatch For $118 (That's $32 Off)

Posted by in Android OS, Deals, News

The Sony SmartWatch, which was only just announced for the US earlier today, is already available for an awesomely reduced price. Expansys USA is offering the device for just $118, which is $32 off Sony's price of $149.99.

For those unaware, Sony's SmartWatch allows users to "check updates discreetly," and control certain features of their Android device (like music, for example) from the Bluetooth-connected timepiece.

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For those interested, here are a few more details about the SmartWatch:

  • 1.3" OLED display with a 128x128 resolution (16 bit color)
  • .03" thickness
  • Aluminum/high-polished plastic body
  • Dust and splash-proof
  • Compatibility with devices running Android 2.2 and higher
  • ~3-4 day battery life

As an added bonus, Expansys USA is promising customers that the device will ship in about 7 days, which is much sooner than Sony's May 4th date.

30
Mar
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Ice Cream Sandwich Updates For 2011 Sony Xperia Phones Starting In Mid-April, But Carrier Restrictions May Apply

Posted by in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Live w/ Walkman (Coconut), Sony, Xperia Active (Satsuma), Xperia Arc (Anzu, X12), Xperia Arc S, Xperia Mini / Mini Pro (Smultron / Mango), Xperia Neo (Hallon), Xperia Neo V (Haida), Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone), Xperia Pro (Iyokan), Xperia Ray (Urushi, ST18i)

Before Sony Ericsson became Sony Mobile, the company seemed committed to developing an Android 4.0 update, going so far as to release alpha ROMs for a number of Xperia devices, and more recently a beta for the Xperia Play. Here we are, a quarter of the way into 2012, and Xperia owners are still gnawing on last year's official Gingerbread. Although, there may finally be a light at the end of the tunnel; the Sony Mobile blog has announced that the first Android 4.0 updates will roll out to select Xperia phones in mid-April. Don't get too excited when wireless carriers are involved though.

29
Mar
XperiaPLAY-ICSbeta

Sony Releases Beta ICS ROM For Unlockable Xperia Play Models

Posted by in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News, Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone)

In a time when many users are wondering if an Android 4.0 update will ever come to their devices, it was a pleasant surprise that Sony was open enough to release a beta version of ICS for some of their devices - the Xperia Arc S, Neo V, and Ray. But they didn't stop there, as they have, "upon request," released a beta ICS ROM for the Xperia Play (or as you may know it, the PlayStation Phone).

As with the previous releases, this is certainly far from a final release. A number of features are missing, most notably Google Apps and Wi-Fi, though Sony says that most "basic functionality" is working.

20
Mar
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Sony Releases Open Source Archive For The Xperia S, Includes Handy Build Instructions

Posted by in Development, News, Sony, Xperia S (Nozomi)

Sony released the Xperia S open source archive today, providing all the tools necessary to build a kernel and start cooking up ROMs for the Xperia S from Sony's source code. In a post to Sony Mobile's developer blog today, the company also noted that the opening of the Xperia S archive marks the first time Sony has published source code for a product built around Qualcomm's Snapdragon S3.

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The post goes on to advise that in order to flash the software, users will need to complete a few extra steps and run a special script (which is linked, along with a proprietary firmware file, in the original post).

13
Mar
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Sony Unveils The Xperia Sola With 'Floating Touch', Lets You Highlight Items On-Screen Without Actually Touching The Device

Posted by in News, Xperia sola (Pepper)

When touchscreen phones first became mainstream, countless people talked about how "impractical" a touch-only device was. Since then, touch devices have become the norm in the smartphone realm, with basically every modern high-end phone packing at least some sort of touch input.

Sony is taking the touch revolution to a whole new level with the Xperia sola, though, by bringing a new feature to the table called "floating touch" that allows the user to simply hover their finger over items in the browser and highlight them, much like using a mouse.

Not only does the sola incorporate this new floating touch technology, but it's also NFC enabled and comes packaged with two Sony SmartTags which can be customized to handle up to ten different commands each.

01
Mar
sony_mwc2012

Sony Spokesman Says The Company Likely Won't Go Quad-Core Until 2013, Cites Battery And Performance Concerns

Posted by in News, Sony

Sony brought some sleek new devices to MWC, but we were surprised to see nothing truly groundbreaking - specifically, a lack of quad-core CPUs. CNET Asia got a few minutes with Stephen Sneeden, product marketing manager for Sony Mobile, and he clarified the companies stance, saying that we likely won't see quad-core phones from the company until early 2013.

"We're going to join quad-core when we feel that the performance matches the battery efficiency," he said. "Because right now we don't feel that is there. What we are going to be doing in the second half of the year is moving to the Cortex A15 architecture, which we feel outperforms the current quad-core architecture.

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