Sony intros Xperia Sola with no-need-to-touch screen

Sony today introduced an Android smartphone, the Xperia Sola, that you can can control without touching. The latest Sony handset features a "floating touch" navigation system, which detects hovering fingers as a cursor on the display and lets users surf the web without physically touching the screen. Until you need to click …

[dogged]

Shiny

but the "floating finger" is just begging to send pocket messages.

[jai]

that's gonna ache isn't it? holding your finger above the screen? either it's going to ache in your shoulder if your using it two handed, or ache at the base of your thumb if your one-handedly browsing

[cortezcortez]

I don't think so. Just held my phone loosely and did a few thumb swipes and actions without trying to touch the screen and it felt perfectly natural and comfortable. Support your phone on your fingertips and one edge in the crook of your hand (i.e. where the bases of your fingers meet your palm) and your thumb doesn't naturally reach the screen.

As for thumb ache, you'll be using exactly the same actions and less energy.

[thesykes]

I can see some use for that. Using the BBC mobile sport site can be a pain, as the text is fairly small for big fingers, and clicking on the wrong link isn't unusual. Being able to see which link you're going to click before pressing is a good idea.

Presume you still have to touch the screen to scroll etc, so no problem with holding your finger floating in mid air for long periods.

[Piro]

Opera Mobile

Use Opera Mobile.

When you tap in an area of clustered links, it enlarges the area, highlights the links it thinks you meant to press. Now tap again on the link you meant to press, because it's now almost certainly filling half the screen.

Works well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to Sony

Test before marketing, don't test by marketing. It makes you look as if you haven't got a clue what people want

[Anonymous Coward]

New phone

Old OS

Why? A promised update? ICS has been available since December. I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: New phone

Do you think this phone was created, engineered, prototyped and tested in 3 months?

It takes a while to get a phone to market and if all the hardware drivers, software and testing has been done on an older version it might not be so simple just to put the latest version on when it is released. Sony probably have about 10 phones that they are currently working on with timetables for release and they can only develop them with currently available software.

The Nexus phones will be used for the actual testing of the next Android release and therefore when it is available it will already be guaranteed to work and available for the latest Nexus phone.

[David Gosnell]

Re: New phone

What I'd like to see is phones get announced, then be availably (ideally SIM free) within the month. Now admittedly this particular device is drop-dead gorgeous and top of my latest shopping list, but generally a phone is a phone. I really can't get excited about waiting three or more months, by which time something even shinier will have been announced for another three months later.

[Jamie Kitson]

Magical

I see they've appropriated the Jobs lexicon:

"This smartphone is magical, and no I don’t mean ‘rabbit-out-of the hat’, ‘cards across the table’ like frolics – it includes the amazing “floating touch”, allowing you to magically search and navigate the web."

http://blogs.sonymobile.com/products/2012/03/13/introducing-our-magical-xperia-sola-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introducing-our-magical-xperia-sola-2

[David Gosnell]

Re: Magical

Also seems to have Jobs' magical embedded battery, from what I can tell. Magical for the networks, that is, with the forced obsolescence model - though if it's anything like the Xperia S, apparently it's not so hard for someone who knows what they're up to with a Torx driver.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Harry Potter fans should love this

Sendus Emailus!

On second thought, maybe too much wand-waving would be required to actually type anything...

[What? Me worry?]

traces of Ericsson

Looks like there's still traces of Ericsson (or the home market) in there. At 0:40, the onscreen menus are in Swedish. Granted, this model is probably one of the last out the gate from the old SonyEricsson org. Nice slab, but what's with the ledge/edge towards the bottom?

[David Gosnell]

Re: ledge/edge

It's an escape pod arrangement, like the top of a Fiat Multipla. It was the final part of Sony's strategy to get away from Ericsson - until someone decided to use the NovaThor chippery.

[Sean Timarco Baggaley]

Dear Samsung,

See, this is why Apple are suing you, not Sony. Sony are using a popular design technique called "not just slavishly copying everything Apple does to the extent that your own corporate lawyer can't tell the difference between an Apple iPad and your own, rival, product". The technical jargon for this technique is, "innovation".

Granted, the GUi in this Sony phone could use some more tweaking—hovering a finger over a hyperlink should probably do something a bit more visible than merely adding a thin underscore, for example—but it's a genuinely useful technical user experience innovation that could provide Sony with a unique advantage over Apple.

Something you, Samsung, have singularly failed to do.

Yrs, etc.,

Me.