Smartphone biz shocker: Nokia sells fewer devices than Lenovo More upsets from the world of smartphone manufacturing: Sony has been selling more phones than HTC, and they’re both shipping more smartphones then either RIM or Nokia - which has plunged toward the bottom of the world vendor rankings. The latest data presented by market watcher Canalys - covering Q3 2012 - holds no surprises …
I have two xperias in the household and the next raft of upgrades will be Xperias too.
The latest and greatest software is not everything. In fact, I would rather have _NOT_ the latest and greatest, but some level of quality assurance on whatever is shipped. The amount of bugs I have encountered on my "fleet" is inexistent compared to some of what I have observed on "leading edge" Samsungs (and iDevices for that matter). Hardware is similarly excellent. Compared to HTC or RIM it is a "no contest". You take one, you take the other and you walk out of the shop with an Xperia in hand.
My only gripe with the Xperias so far has been that they are very picky on what they connect/charge from.
So Sony overtaking the other also-runs is not surprising. Just get an Xperia for a few months and you will understand why (as well as why it was one of the very few Androids to hit a 90%+ el-reg review rating). I hope they keep up with this level of commitment to quality in the future.
I bought an Xperia Ray for my wife on the understanding that it would get an Android Ice Cream Sandwich update later on in the year. Did it? Of course not. The only way you can get an official ICS build on a UK unlocked Ray is by unlocking the bootloader and destroying your warranty. The official update to ICS was also a buggy mess, as evidenced by the fact that O2 actually declined permission for Sony to roll it out.
The latest and greatest software might not be everything, but it is a lot of things for me, at least with ICS. I was relying on ICS' built-in "disable apps" feature to cut down on the insane amount of bloatware Sony install on the device - it takes up tonnes of the limited RAM. I also quite liked ICS being able to tether via Bluetooth for those occasions when I'm abroad and the hotel has limited me to one device on the wifi. Neither of those features are available on the shipped Gingerbread build.
My current plan is to wait for CM10 to be stable enough for the wife to use and then switch to that, but in the meantime I'm very disappointed with Sony. The Ray is the last Sony I'll ever buy.
I agree completely about HTC, although to be fair it's a problem with most Android OEMs. Basically only the top sellers ever get an upgrade right up until they're superceded by the next top model. My Samsung Galaxy S3 is getting regular updates at the moment as their flagship device (note the lack of upgrades for the cheaper Samsungs) but I don't expect that to last much longer as soon as the S4 is announced and released.
What annoyed me most about Sony regarding the Xperia Ray wasn't that it didn't get an upgrade, it was that they *promised* it would get an upgrade (on the box, no less), half rolled out an upgrade and then spent the rest of the time telling people how great it was they rolled out the upgrade "as promised" when only a few Nordic phones and those willing to unlock their bootloaders ever got the upgrade at all. It was deceitful and shoddy behaviour in my book.
The reason Sony have such a poor rep for updating Android is they consistently cut corners on hardware - mainly shipping the bare minimum memory needed for the shipped OS+extensive Sony bloatware. If shipping an upgrade means removing the crapware, you don't get upgraded.
My Play came with 3 different Sony app stores and I believe I removed 11 different FaceBook support apks. No-one needs that much crap but Sony insist on it.
End result is you install a dozen apps and the phone starts falling over with low memory warnings and because they pick terrible partitioning splits forcing apps to SD doesn't help for long either.
So yes, not having the latest OS update isn't necessarily a bad thing but I'd like the choice... experimental Jelly Bean on my Xperia *is* a hell of a lot better than the Android versions Sony provided.
I have an Xperia Ray at home running ICS, and quite nice it is too. Can't remember if it came through SEUS or if I used Flashtool, but if you do need to Flashtool it, no warranty is invalidated as you are using official firmware and the bootloader stays locked.
Sounds like user error to me.....
" I would rather have _NOT_ the latest and greatest, but some level of quality assurance on whatever is shipped. The amount of bugs I have encountered on my "fleet" is inexistent compared to some of what I have observed on "leading edge" Samsungs (and iDevices for that matter)."
I paid rather a lot of money once upon a time for a top end Sony phone and the build quality was craap. I have tried most manufacturers, but poor quality drove me to Nokia 3 years ago and I experienced hardware heaven!
Unfortunately various flavours of Symbian have given me nothing but problems, especially in dealing with emails, as well as their Nokia Suite pile of sh1te that has only recently become acceptable but too late since most business customers disappeared a long time ago. Poor software killed Nokia and Win 8 is unlikely to bring back much life to them. Nokia re doing well in the developing markets with their cheap phones and I nearly bought one of their nice dual SIm phones via India until I realised it only has GSM 900/1800, therefore of no use for a dual SIM phone for a business traveller!
RIP Nokia.
Perhaps if Nokia concentrated a little less on exclusive deals and more on actually getting the handsets into peoples hands then they would sell more? The craziness of people like me having the money to buy a Lumia 920 and wanting nothing more than being able to do so but no options of actually buying one is pure insanity.
I'm there trying to hand over my cash to Nokia but Nokia isn't interested. Go figure...
Heard it many times. Not the latest Nokia lumia but my gf' always takes her old symbian based phone, even though she pays for the calls, in preference to the lumia which her employer pays for. Why? Because the symbian works, and works for more than 10 minutes, it is easier to use, better calls, better photos and faster ui.
People write a lot of crap about symbian but it was British and if we had shouted how wonderful it was as much as the american s yell how wonderful they are people would probably still be able to buy the rather better symbian phones instead of the inferior american based replacements.
Which is precisely why I have said before "until windows phone does precisely what my E7 does, Nokia, you can get lost. The only reason I just got a ' droid tablet is you can't get symbian ones.
I have to say I find it disingenous to compare asia and western europe as like for like and bash accordingly, my english and maths teachers would be spinning in their graves over this article..
Wrecked, destroyed and ruined company. Oh how the choice of CEO has affected this company. The guy is a first rate idiot, proof if proof is needed that the rich and powerful can remain rich and powerful even when they make mistake after mistake (go and look up his 'CV' - a history of failures).
What is still incredible is that the shareholders are clearly HAPPY with this situation - their stock and investments now worthless. My guess is that most of those investors are you and I through our pension funds and similar. Investors who don't bother to hold the pension companies to account for their stupidities because we can't reasonably move what little is left of our 'investment' to a more useful company (mainly because they are all shit).
Since I am going to go and get me LTE phone soon (it is a waste of money as is). I am going to get me Nokia 700 before it runs out of sale (I need a slightly feature less phone then Nokia N8 for one of my phone number). I already got two Nokia N8 that work great. They do have software issues as every software. But that is nothing reboot does not fix.
As for Nokia. If they do not go off the Windows path of doom, then Nokia is done for. As Microsoft clearly want. Since they are moving to make there own phones soon.
Over the years, in our household, we've had the 3g V800, the K850, W800, the C905 (just superb - best feature-phone/CyberShot handset) and most recently an O2 branded Xperia S - which received it's ICS upgrade fairly quickly (yes, I was surprised). I also think the Xperia 'bravia' screens are crisp and clear and must be the best on the market. I'm going for an Xperia T just as soon as I've flogged some more crap on e-bay. I love the fact that, for the ICS upgrade, Sony have brought back the Walkman branding. Also the google chrome bookmarking integration has proved more useful that I might have thought.
The Xperia S is a great way of ensmartening your TV via HDMI, too!
I agree with the previous posters - I would expect the top-of-the-range sellers to be updated fairly regularly. After 18months, it's just as well, then to CM it.
I'm glad Sony have found their feet again in this arena. They have some nice designs and a variety of entry points. - something for all pockets. Will they re-brand the Vaio as Xperia, I wonder
So the idiot in charge turned a perfectly good OS into cinders. He has ditched their replacement s40 platform in order to 'invest' in the Microsoft platform. He has shoved the remaining s40 development and production to china despite the lower quality.
I think Nokia will soon just be a historic foot note.
Where are the shareholders - why don't they care what he has done, what he continues to do?
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