Adding insult to Sony Ericsson's
injurious bottom line, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U shops (the UK's largest mobile phone retailers) have halted sales of the SE's Symbian-powered
Satio handset after a high number of customer returns and complaints. A "software glitch" reportedly causes Sony Ericsson's flagship device to power down when users try to access certain applications -- unfortunately, the issue can't be patched via an over-the-air update. A little digging into CPW discussion forums reveals multiple complaints of freezes, crashes, under-performing batteries, and bizarre interface behavior. Both the Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U will offer "new phones" to customers fed up with their Satio.
Richard Dorman, senior marketing manager at Sony Ericsson, concedes the issue and assures us that it should be sorted by Christmas. Until then, you can still purchase the handset directly from Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile... but really, why would you? The Satio's not the only dubiously-spec'd
12 megapixel cameraphone on the market.
[Thanks, ugotamesij]
posted November 24th 2009 6:02AM
yeah .. well it will be ..
Best... picture... EVAR!
@Engadget
I wish you guys were this neutral about Apple failure-news. Today's Apple Core i7 failure was posted with such an apple-whoring attitude, one can only imagine how much Apple pays you engadget!
@Gad Get
All these problems are not if operators do not put their own settings in all our smart phones bought with subscriptions. I bought all my SE smartphones Cash and I have never had a problem. Remember, these battery problems and freez exclusively occurred in UK
Saito?
@simbr
Gatotsu ZERO STYLE!!
They don't test these devices before launching them? You pay lots of $$ and you get ****
@elvinu
You mean ££ ;-)
Also, from my experience with phone users these days, it's more an issue of seemingly disabled people not being able to use a f****n resistive screen properly. Just look at Engadget's review of the N97...
@elvinu
if you test, then you find *bugs , if you find bugs, then it means that more time tofix those bugs and that means delay of product launch = bad for the $$$
so now that there is this internet thing you can sell these crap phones like Apple does, THEN get people to do the work for you and throw out an update firmware...
Also it gets people coming back to you like a crack dealer...
@elvinu
The insufficient testing / poor QA issue isn't just with Sony Eric, its with Nokia and other major phones also.
For instance i switched to Nokia after being a Sony Eric fan for years.
Bought my Nokia 5530 Xpress Music touch screen.
Withing first 3,4 days of use, the phone's screen blanked white and the phone rebooted like 3,4 times.
Made my wonder if these companies really even care about their phones in real life? .. i remember seeing a video on engadget about Nokia's QA facility, but with my 5530, the screen blanking/rebooting issue was a pain, the frequency of reboots/hang-ups have decreased after the latest firmware update, but its nowhere as stable as my previous Sony Eric Java based k790.
just my 0.02$
I am not suprised. All SE smartphones are plagued by bugs in the first 2-3 months after their release. But SE is generally very good at patching them. I remember the P1i had similar issues, but after 3 months and a couple of software updates it turned into a rock solid phone in terms of software. I am pretty sure that just as the SE marketing guy said, by December they will all be fixed.
@Black I wouldn't be so sure. I owned the W910i which for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back. No matter how often I flashed the firmware, it crashed and reset itself... not to mention it falling to pieces. I vowed never to buy another SE again, so bought myself a shiny, spanking HTC Hero instead :-D
The Phone is just like the Girl in the picture, sometimes when you touch her/it you just turn her off, and you can't patch it
But there are those willing to be a replacement when your tired of it :)
@(Unverified) This has what to do with Apple?
@wizk1
Yup, I got through a shed load of W910is too. Apparently it was a 'component fault' that caused them to keep crashing. Last SE phone I bought...
@wizk1
W910i is not a smartphone, so his claim is still valid.
@Soul7963 Nice to see that comments still don't work properly!!!
@Soul7963
I was about to say, i have no worms about apple.
since it's a sony product it won't be considered a flaw...it's a feature
Surprised it's taken this long to filter through - it was last week when a) CPW pulled the phone from sale and b) when a lot of other techblogs mentioned this.
CRAPPPPPPPPPP SONY IS CRAPPPPPPPPPP :P
Yeah the featue packed phone that give the illusion of a flaw
As the Say SONY STYLE....................
Well it runs Symbian so it could be Nokia's fault
@kalleboo why should it be Nokia's fault if SE can't be bothered to properly implement Symbian, or adequately test it?
Symbian != Nokia...
@kalleboo
It's not a Symbian.
@kalleboo
It's obviously a quality control issue with the hardware, otherwise a simple emergency firmware update would work and they wouldn't have to stop selling the phones all together. SE is losing a lot of money so they are making cheap handsets that cost a lot of money to recoup their losses. This has been a trend for almost 2 years now.
@kalleboo
I don't remember my 5800 powering down when I tried to open an application when I first got it.
And I just got a N97 mini and I don't have a problem with it either.
But I do remember my w910i and all the headaches it gave me.
Excuse me if I think it's just SE and their crappy firmware, as usual.
Just like Apple, Sony's rolling out products too fast before even bothering to test it out. (read: Apple's numerous glitches followed by updates.)
@milkywayer Someones ALWAYS gotta bring up Apple. Theres one in every bunch!
I for one, am glad Nokia delays their products. I used to be a huge SE fan but the last SE phone I got was the W810 for $400 unlocked way back before AT&T even got it. I've never gone back to those guys since then.
@Eternity
Huh, so did I (actually paid more than you) and I *loved* that phone, more than any other I've owned.
@Eternity
Did you try stuffing a 4gb memory stick in it? It would cause the phone to die and flash white. It killed it for me that they crippled it so that it wouldn't take the highest capacity memory available just so they could sell a different more expensive phone with built in flash memory.
That I did not try - I had a 2GB stick in mine. While I don't have any evidence, I would be more inclined to blame engineering/bugs on the symptoms you had, rather than intentional evildoing. Not that that is loads better, but really, my experience with my W810 has been a charmed one.
Knowing Sony, I wouldn't doubt that they did it purposely. Think about it, if you can sell a phone for more money with built in flash memory as oppose to letting the consumer buying a memory card cheaper and putting it into their existing phone?
I can't really imagine someone buying *yet another* SE phone in a fit of frustration at not being able to use a larger card. If anything, I'd think that would drive customers away from the make completely...
Strangely I see this apparent lack of quality assurance in so many products, from all kinds of companies, it's weird since many of those companies always had quality checks.
Can anybody tell me why this is? I mean a serious attempt and not just sarcasm.
Is there a new move in factories to stop trying when the boss leaves? Or is the shipping so rough parts get loose? Or what? Plastics using new base materials that aren't up to the task? Poorly educated engineers or ones that are using wrong tables of material stress limits?
Stuff like that can take decades to source if nobody does a concerted effort.
@Wwhat
It's the economy. In order to increase profits companies are probably putting in cheaper parts to make up for falling sales. I guess they figure if they are going to sell low volumes they might as well try to make the most profit out of it.
@Wwhat
Mobile phone companies abuse the ability to update a phones firmware.
They ship phones with software that is (in many cases) many months away from completion because the phone simply has to launch on a certain date that has been set by marketing/sales wombles.
Sony Ericsson are notorious for not having software ready when a phone is due to ship. It always plagues their high-end models as these models are alway packed with feature that haven't been tested properly because the software has never been finished.
Nokia used to be really bad at this, but they have got a lot better in recent years.
@Wwhat
Thank god for firmware updates then!
Well the thing is you also hear it about other devices like motherboards for instance, whole batches are faulty, so it can't be just a not botehring with the firmware and trusting on updates.
And even in phones often they are hardware issues, too much pressure on the corners of the screen, loose connections and keys that don't register presses, stuff like that, tolerances miscalculated? Or faulty molds.
@NewL I didn't say "it is", I said "it could be". I have a friend with a 5800 and he has nothing but complaints, and it's the same OS. of course, it could still be problems with drivers and/or the SE media UI
@Redwid Yes it is, it even runs S60 (5th edition)
@Eternity Except they say it's a "software glitch" right there in the article. It doesn't say a software update can't fix it, just that an over-the-air update can't fix it, so it could just be that a USB cable provided update is required and not OTA.
Why the hell isn't mine having problems?! I feel really left out =(
@(Unverified) That makes the two of us, man.
same here .. there are a few glitches .. but NOTHING in comparison to say the initial N97 or even N95 firmware .. I expect the Satio firmware to improve what I've come to use for my main handset. Looking forward to 720P recording at some point too ..
"Until then, you can still purchase the handset directly from Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile... ...but really, why would you? The Satio's not the only dubiously-speced 12 megapixel cameraphone on the market."
Now call up Nilay and ask him toappend the iMac core i7 article with:
"Until then, you can still purchase the iMac from brick and mortar stores and make sure they work... but really, why would you? The iMac is not the only dubiously speced core i7 computer on the market". Go on, Ricker. It's only fair, innit?
Sony consistently has software issues....and they consistently "solve" this by firing regular engineers and retaining the software workforce !!
I bought a SE Xperia X1 through Phones4U about this time last year on Vodafone. I had the handset a month and had to get it replaced because everytime I opened or shut the slider too quickly, the phone used to turn off!
After I got the new handset, I had it for about 2 weeks, then that one had to go in for repairs.. it was only 3 weeks ago, 11 months after I took out the initial contract, that I got my email working properly!
The thing that annoys me the most is that Phones4U are f***ing useless! My MMS STILL doesnt work! I wish I hadn't bought it through them.
I accept that part of the problems may be down to SE but I was told by someone in the Vodafone shop that Phones4U don't get their handsets in preconfigured.... WHY?!?! It causes hassle for the customer!
So basically: NEVER USE PHONES4U!!!
iPhone FTW
These problems are only discovered on the british market!
Having experienced the joy of Sony Ericsson handsets fail on me in the past, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I don't care how nice their upcoming android X10 is, I aint going near it.