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Sony revitalizes smartphone franchise with movie-style screens

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Sony needs better cameras and better sound. Screens are way too overpriced and overrated. Sure OLED is awesome but with a blurry camera what's the point. When you zoom in you see terrible quality and pixels. It's ironic considering that Sony makes best cameras in the world.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

If you are at the MWC, Sony's line up makes Sony look like a retro-fashion brand. That's how old fashioned and out of sync with the latest trend that Sony's product line up has become.

And this isn't just Sony's problem alone, most of Japan Inc are like Sony, not just behind Koreans who overtook Japan Inc a decade ago, but also Chinese whose product is now better than Japanese.

By the time Japanese break out of Jalapagos and realize how uncompetitive Japan Inc has become, it's too late.

Japanese think Japanese products are still no. 1 in the world. In reality, even Chinese have surpassed them.

6 ( +12 / -6 )

Samit Basu

excellent post

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Good for movies and may be a hit with customers who like them. Non-movie videos, tv, most of Youtube etc. aren't going to be that shape though.

An extreme aspect ratio like that will also be a nightmare for web designers. It can already be difficult enough producing rich content that works on a small screen, without it being a weird shape.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

" how uncompetitive Japan Inc has become, it's too late."

Q) If Japan Inc can't compete, then how is Japan Inc making so much money?

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

@Samit Basu @Nero Archangel, Are your comments specifically about the Xperia1? Did you try it at the event? If you did, I think folks might be curious about it. Otherwise, you are just trolling Sony.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

"Sony needs better cameras"

But sony cameras are in the I phone, the galaxy and almost all other smart phones.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Samit Basu

excellent post

Unfortunately, Japan's response will be to isolate themselves and live in the bubble that they have created.

Q) If Japan Inc can't compete, then how is Japan Inc making so much money?

Are they really globally? Or do you mean the overpriced items that they sell in Japan like this phone?

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Q) If Japan Inc can't compete, then how is Japan Inc making so much money?

Protectionism in its local market. Their cameras are gaining huge market-share. The still own Sony Entertainment, so lots of cash there, too. But as far as innovating?

This phone will be a flop like all of their other efforts in phones. Huawei, Samsung etc are killing it! In that particular department, I think Sony (Japan in general) is hobbled by it's inability to truly innovate. They are better at copying, but the competition has taken it into such deep waters, that not even the Japanese can copy them at that price-point any more - even with all the free hours of work their employees (slaves) give them.

Maybe time to start teaching kids (allowing them) how to think...

5 ( +9 / -4 )

@hooktrunk2

At the MWC2019, all the craze is on foldable phones. If you don't have folding phones, then almost all screen phones with zero bezels and 6.2 inch+ wide screens and five or more cameras.

So what does Sony bring to the MWC? Old fashioned phones with thick bezels, big black bars top and bottom, and the width too narrow for Western hands. Looks like 2016 model year phones that have no place in 2019.

It's as if Sony gave up trying, and is at the MWC just to brag at home about being at some famous overseas trade show knowing their product won't sell outside of Japan.

From outside Japan, I see only one Japanese company trying to create uniquely Japanese product that is still competitive world-class, Mazda. Everybody else isn't even trying.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

all the craze is on foldable phones.

that is what the media has created, but I don't think the average person is that worried

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Unfortunately, Sony is no longer a dominant factor in digital electronic devices.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Do people really watch full movies on their phones?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Only smart people can make smart phones, as simple as that.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Q) If Japan Inc can't compete, then how is Japan Inc making so much money?

Japan is moving on from competing with Korea and China. Japan lost much of the consumer electronic market but that business has thin marign (exception: Apple). Japan cannot compete with Korea and China on prices so it was inevitable that Japan would lose the market.

What Japan inc does is behind the scenes. Manufacturing key components and parts needed for essentially all electronic products. Many former consumer electronic brands such as Fujitsu, Canon, Hitachi, Olympus..etc are still very much alive, just behind the scenes. Japan inc moved on to become from ultra competative, razer thin margins of consumer electronics. Sooner or later, as Korea and China becomes more developed, they too will move on from consumer electronics.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Samsung has bad batteries, Huawei spies on you, Xperia is a solid build but android on it crashes at time. Android and Ios all record what you do. Whatever happened to Blackberry, I know it exists but it's now Chinese and you now they'll be spying on you too.. But the original Blackberry company was the ultimate in security, hence why everyone in Finance and Law had one back then.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Bye bye Sony.

You can't survive on the Japanese consumer alone.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Iphones are also a joke no, no headphone jack, over priced additional dongles which makes your phone look like its from the 80s, yeah but Tim Cook is a very greedy person for Apples future vision on its products..

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Time will tell if this "revitalizes " the brand.  but current Sony tech is dated .

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Unfortunately, Japan's response will be to isolate themselves and live in the bubble that they have created.

exactly

Are they really globally? Or do you mean the overpriced items that they sell in Japan like this phone?

THIS!!

Protectionism in its local market

THAT is Japan's trademark.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Iphones are also a joke no, no headphone jack

Why would you need one? Outdated technology. I couldn't imagine non-bluetooth headphones anymore. I would rather not have Apple stocking my phone with legacy technology.

over priced additional dongles which makes your phone look like its from the 80s

I've never heard of or seen dongles for iphones. For what? Why would you ever need one? I'm the kind of guy to buy one if one was necessary, but I've literally never needed to be able to attach a dongle to my iphone.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Much larger file size and proprietory limited format for a tiny screen size - ahh. .... no thanks.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Only smart people can make smart phones, as simple as that."

Well your sure right about that. I guess that rules out the Chinese and Koreans, since 80% of the parts come from Japan and 20% come from America. The Koreans and the Chinese just turn the screws.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

I use for many years the top of the line Sony and Samsung phones and I know firsthand that Sony phones are of a very high quality. Samsung phones are of a bad quality, I cannot hear clear what people calling me are saying, and they don't hear what I am saying. The screens in Samsung phones are of very bad quality and last only few months. Maybe Samsung and other brands rush to add new features to their phones, however these features don't work well, they are not perfected. What good to have foldable screens and 5G, if they suck. Samsung and Huawei are focused on naive fools who don't understand too much in quality...

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Realistically though, Sony is on the verge of selling off its mobile business soon. Vaio was already sold off, Toshiba sold off its Dynabook PC business and all other home consumer electronics, Sharp was sold off. So now Chinese Foxcon owns Toshiba home consumer business and Sharp, Vaio computer is still Japanese. Sony mobile and electronics businesses is heading in that direction in the reality of overly cheap and saturated goods coming from China, the reality post Olympics.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I don't think this is practical. Who would want to watch a block buster movie on a tiny phone. Why not make a TV that ratio instead?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I don't think this is practical. Who would want to watch a block buster movie on a tiny phone.

I watch movies on my phone all the time.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

As a kid those yellow walkmans were status symbols. Sony has a bad habit of getting into tech, then abandoning it because it didn't have the foresight to change or update. How are those memory sticks doing? Where'd those ereaders go? On and on

1 ( +1 / -0 )

No one is interested Sony.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

 So now Chinese Foxcon owns Toshiba home consumer business and Sharp,

They are very astute buyers of businesses, like Volvo and Cirrus, and you can maybe think of many more.

Isn't Huawei now selling the most expensive phone at $2300 ?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

As always, there are detractors about large Japanese companies. However, it appears that Japanese manufacturing is still doing big business in tech...just not the end product. For Iphones, Japan is the second largest (to America) in terms of components for the Iphone 7.

https://theconversation.com/we-estimate-china-only-makes-8-46-from-an-iphone-and-thats-why-trumps-trade-war-is-futile-99258

Commentators love to squawk about Japanese protectionism. Have you seen China's protectionism? Please, there is no comparison.

Mobile phones are a very low margin business, with the exception of Apple. Very much a Japanese approach: perhaps lagging on innovation, but very much leading with respect to the manufacturing process.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The Falcon Wing of Huawei foldable phone alone has 1000 components, none of which is from Sony. Japan makes a lot of things of past, unfortunately, and that is the real problem.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I have avoided Sony phones for last couple generations due to their ill-advised experiments. Finally they have come to senses and created one that I want.

I am glad they did not follow a dumb trend of notch and hole. Kudos to Sony for that. I am glad they abandoned curvy edge experiments and returned to the most simple and beautiful form with sharper edges. That's in a Sony DNA; never abandon that! And I am glad they found the focus of functionalities: visuals and sounds, where Sony can offer something significant.

I like especially the new cinema standard screen. The tall aspect ratio makes it look so good that designs of all other phones suddenly look outdated.

It is designed for great movie viewing experience but also for list viewing like emails and texting. What I like most, however, is that it makes more comfortable to hold and operate in one hand despite its huge screen size, thanks to its narrower width.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Betamax

Digital Audio Tape

Minidisc

MemoryStick

DVD+R/DVD+RW

PRS-T1/T2 ereaders and many more models

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Silly Sony, people don't want tiny movie screens on phones. They want fisheye lenses, compound telescopes, confocal microscopy, tasers, cardiac defibrillators, smellovision, cigarette lighters, pez dispensers, breathalyzers, breadboards, circuit testers, and convenient handheld consoles for programming in python. Obviously.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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