Earlier in the week it was revealed that Sony Ericsson were no longer planning to use the Symbian operating system on it’s future mobile handset releases. The company fully intent to take the Android OS and run with it, hoping to become a major player in the Android handset market (no comment from this Xperia owner). Now SE have announced that they are planning to release a Windows 7 based mobile phone and that it may not be all that far away from release.
Both Jan Uddenfeldt and Aldo Liguori from Sony Ericsson have stated that the company has no further plans to work with Symbian systems in the future with Mr Liguori confirming as a spokesperson for SE that, ” We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system”.
So, that seems to be the end of Symbian phones from Sony Ericsson and now Microsoft’s head of marketing in the UK Oded Ran has confirmed that Sony Ericsson are actively working on a WP7 handset, at least one handset actually.The Microsoft statement ties in with a comment recently made by Mr Uddenfeldt himself stating that a, “Windows 7 Phone is on the roadmap”.
It appears that the future is looking rosy for Windows 7 in the SE camp and we feel that it won’t be very long before Sony Ericsson are releasing specific product details for their own Windows 7 powered handset. Hopefully they won’t forget that Android update along the way though.
Although Sony Ericsson had never confirmed the release date for the updated version of the Android operating system used on it’s Xperia X10 hansdets, the company has now moved to announce on it’s official blog that the update is not imminent and will not arrive before October 2010.
The Xperia X10, the Xperia X10 Mini and the X10 Mini Pro all run on the Android operating system currently and are using the 1.6 version of the Google OS. Whilst other handset manufacturers have pushed out their mobile phones with Android 2.1 or 2.2, the Xperia range has sadly been left behind by the reluctance of Sony Ericsson to update the firmware to a firmware that many users desire greatly. Sony Ericsson have never actually explained why there is such a delay to update and the latest announcement could see some Xperia users leave their Sony Ericsson handsets behind and move on to brands such as Samsung, HTC and Apple.
Running on an outdated firmware such as 1.6 Android is slowing the development of Android applications and games for the Xperia range and with the upcoming release of another Xperia handset, in the form of the Xperia X8, the Xperia phone range is left unable to play many games and applications available on the Android market because many applications are created with 2.1 or 2.2 compatibility in mind. This is a shame for Xperia owners who paid a healthy sum for their handsets and are struggling to get the best use out of their phones.
Hopefully Sony Ericsson are a big enough company, with enough care about their customers to resolve the updating issue sooner rather than later. They certainly aren’t a company that lets their customers down regularly so fingers crossed that Android 2.1 arrives soon.
For those who have been extremely interested in the Pink Vivaz we recently saw from Sony Ericsson, we now have a time scale for release. Sony Ericsson have shown of the phone on their blog today, along with a video from Maiko Ishida, who is the product planner for Vivaz. She shares her story behind the design of the handset while showing off the Vivaz in light pink. The Vivaz will be coming out in pink by the end of this quarter, so we should see it by September in stores. Unfortunately Sony Ericsson haven’t released any specifics on what regions will be receiving the handsets. All we know is that it will be “selected markets”. As always though, we’ll keep our ears to the ground to find out where exactly the pink model will be released. You can view the video of the pink Vivaz and the story behind the design below.
Releasing handsets in multiple colors seems to be Sony Ericsson’s “thing” lately. More specifically the Xperia X10 Mini and the recently announced Xperia X8, showing up in more colors than we’ve ever seen before. While the Vivaz doesn’t have quite as many colors, a new color model will be released soon. Currently the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is available in Cosmic Black, Silver Moon, Venus Ruby and Galaxy Blue (or black, silver, red and blue to the rest of the world). Pink will be the fifth color for the handset. All specs of the phone will remain the same, it will just be a different color chassis.
The specs of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz include a 3.2 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 360×640, an 8 megapixel camera with the ability to record video in HD and a TV out port so you can watch your videos on your TV. It uses the Symbian S60 5th Edition as it’s OS. The Vivaz also has support for HSDPA (3.5G), Wi-Fi and GPS. Pricing is likely to remain the same as the other color models in your region but, availablity and release information is currently unknown.
Ifixit.com have had the pleasure of taking a E10i (European, similar to the E10A US model) Xperia X10 Mini and opening it up and dismantling it. Sounds like fun? Well, fortunately they have also documented the procedure so that anyone who wants to try it can do (we aren’t advising anyone does so) and anyone, like us, who just wants a nosy inside the X10 Mini without risking breaking one can see it all for themselves.
Apparently the procedure was pretty easy to do and although they didnt put the handset back together they seem sure it will be a simple task too.
The full tear down can be found on the ifixit site.
For those who have been extremely interested in the 
