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.
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.
The all new Sony Ericsson Vivaz is finally here. Considered to be a step ahead of Sony Ericsson Xperia, Vivaz is the second offering from Sony Ericsson in its family of high end communication entertainment phones.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz comes with robust Symbian operating system. The most striking feature of this mobile is its HD video recording capabilities which offers videos with quality that could match those with videos from digital video recorders. Vivaz is no exception to the latest trend in mobile shapes. It is slender, sleek and curvy. Its HD 720p video recording capabilities come with continuous auto focus, meaning users can be rest assured of high quality videos and pics even when they are driving.
Lennard Hoornik, Head of Marketing, Sony Ericsson says “User generated content such as videos are exploding on the web. Our Sony Ericsson Vivaz offers an effective tool to their user which makes capturing their daily life events fun and enjoyable. These videos can be easily uploaded onto web without much hassle. Sharing lives and those beautiful moments was never easier”.
Sony Ericsson Vivaz comes with enhanced battery life with talk time that lasts for 13 hours and standby time of around 430 hours. Sized 107 x 52 x 12.5 mm it weighs only 97 grams, another good reason why it’s going to be a huge hit among its users. It supports networks such as GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900/, UMTS 900/2100.
Now about its best part, camera. It comes with 8.1 MP, 4x digital zoom, face detection. Auto focus, image stabilizer, geo tagging, smile detection and photo light.
It supports both Wifi and 3G networks. It has inbuilt Bluetooth device. It also supports SMS, MMS and Email services. Its display is a joy to look at, a formidable 3.2 inch, 640 x 360 pixel resolution, around 16,000000 colors and it comes with touch screen. Its webkit browser offers quick browsing and fast downloading facilities. It supports up to 16 GB memory. It also comes with Gmaps and a 720 MHz processor for faster computing purposes. This is device that people would definitely look forward for.
The Sony Ericsson Kuraru was expected to be announced at MWC next month but an accidental leak (which has now been removed) gives us more details on the handset, ahead of time. The phone will be launched as Vivaz and feature the same specs as revealed last time. That includes an 8.1 megapixel camera, 3.2 inch touch screen and Symbian 60 5th Edition. The handset is due to be released in April in the UK and Asia following later. It’ll retail for around $670 to $750 and be available in four colors, Cosmic Black, Moon Silver, Galaxy Blue or Venus Ruby.
The Sony Ericsson Satio may be back on shelves after the firmware update, but many problems still persist. Here I’ll post the known issues and whether they were patched in the update.
Media limited to 3000 files – Fixed in latest update. Not sure if the limits been removed completely or increased, but I’ve found no problems so far. However, media files are now loading slower after the update.
Screen is blank when a phone call is received – Problem still persists after update. When I receive a phone call, the display stays black and so I can’t see who is calling me.
Phone vibrates 5 seconds before ringing – May not be an issue to some, but is causing problems for others, as is counted as a couple of rings from the callers end.
Lock and unlock – Phone locks and unlocks after the update.
Pay as You go customers get a zero balance – When using Google Maps, the phone says you need at least x amount of credit to use GPRS (minimum price dependant on network, am using O2 myself). Phone needs to be restarted for the balance to become correct again (have rang up before restart and told I have no credit, upon restart and a balance check, my correct balance shows).
Facebook App still missing.
Phone crashes or freezes when certain apps/games are launched. Never had an app make the phone crash or restart but am still having apps freeze the phone for a good minute.
Home Screen theme – Only the Sony Ericsson home screen themes shows correctly. With the latest firmware, it appears to still be an issue. However restoring all your settings on the phone, should fix it with the latest firmware. Because it didn’t fix it without resetting the settings the issue may crop up again.
Calls from one contact from different numbers still show one icon, so is unknown where the caller rang from.
For those who have been extremely interested in the 
