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Where next for Symbian and Sony Ericsson |
Nitro Fan
Joined: Jun 11, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: London
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I have like many others been looking hard at the X1 but the more I look the more convinced I am that it is a bit like the kings new clothes, lots of fuss and hype ("Johnny X", "Panels" it own Blog! etc) but when you actually look at it its just a WM phone and from the videos I have seen not a particularly fast one at that.
I have a P1 Original Sim Free (up for sale soon!) and a Vodafone W960 and I have to say the W960 is one of the best phones I have ever owned (Apart from the creaky back that is!) it does everything I ask of it perfectly if it had a joy stick or pad it and 16Gb it would be just about perfect.
But I hear nothing regards future Symbian devices from  I personally do not get on well with the P1 keyboard so I am more interested in the W960 kind of layout but what is happening is the X1 the end of the line for Symbian (apart from that horrible new Walkman music flipper) and where are the promised P990 replacements we were assured were comming?
I have owned the ... T68i T610, P800, P900, P910, P990, W950, P1, W960 But SE have now totally lost the plot. | |
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makbil
Joined: Oct 26, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Istanbul
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Things have changed a lot. Nokia has effectively put an end to UIQ, so if SE ever decides to continue with Symbian, it has to have S60 at its base code.
I don't believe SE is capable of adapting to this new situation as fast as we would like. Having a WM device built under the SE logo by a competitor was not the smartest decision in my opinion. Up to now SE had an advantage (and used it to ask for higher prices) because they had different devices. Now that they are just one of the many devices in the block I fail to see how they can survive.
There is a bumpy road ahead of SE, I hope they can survive and make a good come back to once again give us the exceptional devices we have come to associate with them.
P990i: A mistake, a curse and a disgrace  So I lowered my expectations and settled for a P1i. I couldn't keep my expectations so low for a long time so now I have an HTC Touch HD |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
Posts: > 500
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Agreed with Makbil, I don't think this a very happy phase for SE particularly in the smartphone segment, and I don't see them ever really regaining the edge here that they once had. UIQ was their baby, but they mishandled it badly in recent years, and Nokia always had the upper hand through their ownership of Symbian anyway. Without UIQ, SE can only be just another Windows Mobile maker (or rebadger at least), or perhaps just another S60 brand, or just another Android provider... they'll have to work extremely hard and move extremely quickly to really differentiate their products against the competition, and I don't get the sense they're in any kind of a state to do that.
The X1, when it comes down to it, is just another HTC-built Windows Mobile device. The SE-inspired touches are certainly there, and it looks like a nice product, but it's just one WM phone in a sea of very similar WM phones at the end of the day.
[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2008-10-03 11:48 ] |
ares
Joined: Dec 11, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Coimbra, Portugal
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Just look to the new Nokiaīs Tube UI, and compare it to UIQ touch preview on uiq.com...and you get even more the impression that SE blew it, and destroyed the better Symbian GUI
SE w880 + Iphone 4 16gb |
Nitro Fan
Joined: Jun 11, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: London
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Hmm that makes depressing reading, whilst I am often critical of for their appalling build quality and seeming lack of SW testing, my current W960 is one of the best phones I have ever used. It does rather leave those of us who like the Symbian block form phones with a dilema do we hang on in the hope that will release a follow on device to the P1 and the W960 OR do we see what the X1 offers.
I watched an "unboxing" clip of the X1 and it was running like a dog so much so, that my colleague who is NOT in any way a "phone head" was watching the X1 doing its stuff said and I quote "Ha thats what is wrong with animated menus they run too slowly to be any good" I just hope that it is fixed in the final retail versions (I am not laying out good money on SIM free devices anymore they are simply not worth it anymore)
I have owned the ... T68i T610, P800, P900, P910, P990, W950, P1, W960 But SE have now totally lost the plot. |
tranced
Joined: Jan 19, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Santo Domingo, wonDeRland
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edited: i confused the names. sorry.
I was reading that nokia "gave up on symbian". Steve BallmerRussell Beattie said that he dropped symbian years ago. So this means that we would be saying good bye soon.
G502 and G705 are not uiq and they were supposed to be smartphones, weren't they?
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[ This Message was edited by: tranced on 2008-10-03 14:26 ] |
ares
Joined: Dec 11, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Coimbra, Portugal
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nokia gave up on symbian??? thats bs
and balmer is from m$
SE w880 + Iphone 4 16gb |
raduci
Joined: May 04, 2007
Posts: 43
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There is still some unexpected help from Nokia, since they decided not to support Blackberry connect on the new E-series. This leaves SE as the only producer of Symbian phones with Blackberry connect, and a good choice for the former E-series owner (like myself).
Let's see if they can take advantage of this situation ! |
tranced
Joined: Jan 19, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Santo Domingo, wonDeRland
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Quote:
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On 2008-10-03 13:45:14, ares wrote:
nokia gave up on symbian??? thats bs
and balmer is from m$
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that's what i read. Gotta confirm with the source i got it from.
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Karun
Joined: Nov 09, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: India
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@nitro fan
some xperia x1 prototypes out there still have the older RAM chips. the final retail version has 384 MB RAM. So I think the retail version will be a lot faster
@Ares
I totally agree with you on this. We all know which one is the superior symbian GUI.
@makbil
Actually, SE stopped coming out with unique devices post P990. Am sure there will be those who won't agree but if you look at it, the newer handsets like W960 and P1, though being good handsets, aren't actually something you can call exceptional. The G900/G700 are very good smartphones , but they arrived too late. SE was almost done with UIQ when they were launched.
btw....I've just posted an analysis as to 'what went wrong with UIQ'. I'd appreciate it if you all share your views about the same.
http://seloyalist.blogspot.com/2008/10/uiq-what-went-wrong.html
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[ This Message was edited by: kurt_karun on 2008-10-03 12:53 ] |
anonymuser
Joined: Dec 17, 2002
Posts: > 500
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I can't agree with this bit really -
The P900 wasn't too different from its predecessor, although the design was much more refined. The P910 can be called a breakthrough though, as it had a superior function set.
I think in reality, the P910 was actually far too similar to the P900, while the P900 was little more than a P800 in a new suit. What really happened here, for three years, was that SE rested on its laurels with the UIQ2 range, or at least didn't put sufficient resources into developing them - they simply marketed almost exactly the same hardware, for three years, solely as a "niche" high-end device.
The breakthrough in the UIQ line was that first handset - the P800. The P910's "superior function set" amounted to nothing that the P800 or P900 couldn't also do, with the right software added, because they were all essentially the same phone.
A truly successful series would have built much more quickly and more substantially on that P800 platform back in 2003-04 when it was a success and so unlike anything else on the market at the time. They could have taken that original technology and done an Iphone with it, pushing that stable touch-based UI to a much wider audience, years before Apple even dreamt of it. Instead the line simply stagnated, to be replaced by an underdeveloped and unstable UIQ3 that completely threw away the market UIQ2 had built up, with no software compatibility, little UI commonality, and very poor implementation on the P990 etc. It was a complete mess from the P990 onwards, and personally I really don't mourn UIQ3 at all.
[ This Message was edited by: Boinng on 2008-10-03 14:16 ] |
tranced
Joined: Jan 19, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Santo Domingo, wonDeRland
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read something here:
Nokia has recently bought out Symbian and intends to make it an open source platform in order to better compete against current mobile OS. It’s surprising to see Russell Beattie, Strategic Technology Marketing Manager, Nokia Corporation, write on his personal journal that “Me personally, however, I gave up on Symbian a few years ago, and am still not convinced that it's a viable platform for the future.”
http://www.mobiletopsoft.com/[....]kia-says-symbian-will-die.html
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ares
Joined: Dec 11, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Coimbra, Portugal
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well...i do and it wasnīt a mess from the P990 onwards...the P990 was THE MESS...P1, W960, g700, g900 were good products from the beggining, and the UI also evolved
And that was also getting even better with UIQ 3.3, as far as we can tell, and with the next UIQ 4 aka UIQ touch...
However, without hardware upgrades from SE, that would mean nothing
SE w880 + Iphone 4 16gb |
Muhammad-Oli
Joined: Jun 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: The NZ of L
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Just putting this out there, and I would never even pretend to know a lot about software, etc. And I have never used a UIQ phone before, though have always been very tempted to buy one. Anyway...
With the Symbian Foundation, of which SE is a member, it is obvious that we will see Symbian phones from SE in the future at some stage. It is increasingly likely that we won't ever see a UIQ phone again as we know them today. It wouldn't be wise for SE to make another UIQ phone because the Symbian Foundation platform will only be backwards compatible with S60.
But Motorola and SE both joint own UIQ right? After all UIQ's assets have been handed over to the Symbian Foundation, UIQ will what...? Just vanish? With the way the UIQ website is being kept up to date, and the way they're pumping out new concepts, I somewhat doubt it.
With the Symbian Foundation, obviously the manufacturers will put their own stamp onto the platform right? For example, SE will make it look like an SE platform with their own icons, applications, etc. So who's gonna do that? What I'm thinking is that maybe UIQ will handle that for SE and Motorola! I wonder, maybe then they could call it Symbian with UIQ or something along those lines, and they could make it pretty similar to the UIQ we are all used to and love.
That's just something I've been pondering over the last few days, and its all speculation based on what I read.
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[ This Message was edited by: Muhammad-Oli on 2008-10-03 14:39 ] |
ares
Joined: Dec 11, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Coimbra, Portugal
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Thatīs also my only hope...that they put UIQ engineers making the UI for SEīs version of the Symbian Foundation OS
SE w880 + Iphone 4 16gb | |
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Posted: 2008-10-02 18:32
So I lowered my expectations and settled for a P1i. I couldn't keep my expectations so low for a long time so now I have an HTC Touch HD 
jay0726 | 
