Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is likely NTT DoCoMo's best selling smartphone -- ever
By Chris Ziegler 
posted May 13th 2010 8:19PM
posted May 13th 2010 8:19PM
There's no greater evidence of this than the word this week that Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 -- a phone that's been met with lukewarm reviews, including from Engadget Japanese's own Ittousai -- has allegedly become NTT DoCoMo's best-selling smartphone in history, a fact that would seem completely inexplicable in any other market globally. What makes it possible in Japan, of course, is DoCoMo's historically lame selection of true smartphones, a lineup that currently includes localized versions of the HTC Magic, and the original HTC Touch Diamond and BlackBerry Bold. What's more, many of these devices integrate poorly with popular carrier services on account of their super-tight control of the operating systems running across the featurephone lineup, something they've got less control over with a device running Android or Windows Mobile.
In other words, when it's reported that DoCoMo had sold 100,000 X10s in its first 20 days -- and a third-party retailer claims that the Magic-esque HT-03A is the next best seller at 80,000 units in 10 months -- it seems plausible, if not likely (and Ittousai agrees). Yeah, even though the localized device has been plagued with performance problems and bugs, incompatibilities with DoCoMo's i-mode push email, and so on. It's hard to say what it's going to take for these guys to make an honest-to-goodness transition to the brave new world of open platforms and freewheeling third-party development, but they're clearly not there yet.
Looks fugly.
@ComeShot
I think NTT Docomo should thank Google (for Android) and not Sony...ndroid rules
@browserspot they certainly cannot thank Sony... the Rachael UI is awful... Has anyone here other than me actually used a x10?
@ComeShot
fugly? did you think the nexus one, a two-tone grey brick with a trackball (on a touchscreen phone nonetheless) looked good? ha
@Scrtcwlvl I own one and its awesome with Android 1.6 and all. It's a very stable device. Just because Engadget had bad luck with their review unit doesn't mean it sucks.
@Scrtcwlvl
the black gloss on the phone and the "glassy" ui are things known to appeal greater in eatern markets vs western. Personally i dont think it looks too bad.
@ComeShot
Seems like japanese brothers are starting to love Android OS phones.
Thats always good news.
@browserspot
X10 has been out for over a month here. I chose the X1 over it.
@ComeShot Am I actually talking to a comeshot??? Now I know I'm wasted. :P
@Bankai123 If they will release the 2.1 OTA for this on a global scale, then there's some light over this. http://j.mp/xperia-first-concept
@Bankai123
I have used now for a week and could not agree more.
I would not get it for my mum or girlfriend, but for me it's all I wanted.
BTW: it selling well in the UK too, but I am seeing a lot of people buying the desire... In your face recession!
Just bring it to AT&T, thats all i ask
@Stevenk
LOLAT&T
@Stevenk Just get a Rogers one and unlock it...
@Stevenk
Engadget is reading into this completely wrong. The reason this is selling so well is because it's made by SONY! It's the first good smartphone ever made by Japan's own favorite brand so people want it.
Why do you think the XBOX and XBOX360 has had so much trouble getting into the Japanese market. Because Japanese people only buy their own products!
Japan behind in tech? Who would have thunk it?
@SolidSnake There aren't actually behind, just doing it in a different way. Their "feature phones" can do lots of things our smartphones can not. Being able to install apps are not very popular because the phones have so many things inside to begin with. And the phones are very close-tied to the carriers. To embrace the smartphones, they have to change their whole market, and the Japanese aren't very fond of change. =)
@TMOKOTOR
+Reps for truth.
@TMOKOTOR True, even an ordinary phone here in Japan have decent camera, and can be used for "credit cards", which many like iPhone are now trying to have, as music player, internet access, TV access, Video etc.
In fact, it is difficult buying a phone without a camera, which we needed if we have to go factory for installations and testing - as most forbid use of phones with camera.
@TMOKOTOR
Nice points.
@TMOKOTOR
And the world is moving to "things featurephone can't do". Like full web with constantly-changing standards, open services which bypass and replace carrier services, new protocols that needs modifications on OS, so on. Featurephones can't adapt to new ages after they're cooked their ROMs in factory, but you could always get new apps, flash Cyanogen, or WM7, on a dated, obsolete smartphone. Japan's switch to smartphone is too late, and it IS now following others, rather than cutting edges on its own.
@num0
From what I've seen on an Docomo phone (SH-06A), they have everything they need. The firmware is fully upgradeable, full Internet access (not sure about Flash), and there are all kinds of apps to download from Docomo's software store.
The spec's pretty awesome too (for a 2009 phone):
3.3 in 854x480 LCD made by Sharp, with capacitive multitouch;
10MP CCD camera;
1-Seg mobile TV;
RFID wallet;
A comfortable clamshell form factor;
......
I personally would need no other phone if they didn't lock it down so tightly.
@nicholaelaw
I hope Engadget do some hands-on for Keitais... yeah the specs are too good to ever think if it's a crap... User experience is terrible on them. Huge body, irresponsive complicated software, noisy cam... Specs are specs, what makes a device better is innovation, and there's little to none is in there now.
BTW, they do play YouTube. See http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm3632301
I still want one.
"100,000 X10s in its first 20 days"
if it continues at that rate, 1,000,000 people will have that phone before long before the end of the year!
@JW
They wont of course. Phones in Japan have a notoriously short popularity window. Even iPhone tanked after the first couple of months.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143317323034023.html
Spin away, Engadget. We all know you can't say one nice word about Sony because... Puppies drown each time you do it or something.
Open your eyes and look around the internet. You'll find tonnes of satisfied X10 customers. Your crappy experience with a pre-production proto isn't representative of the people who actually paid money for the device and are enjoying it.
@Herr Synnberg
+100
This just in... Engadget makes a desperate plea for Americans to leave their iPhone behind and switch to Android.
Almost...
@Smurf
Troll is bad at trolling
@Smurf
No one needs to beg, I went willingly (yes, i never had an iphone, but i wanted one, once)
"they're still featurephones at the end of the day"
Totally not. Download a few i-appli to mimic what iPhone OS/Android does, and the keitais become just as much of a smartphone than iPhone/Android. Perhaps even more of a smartphone, since you can pay almost everything and watch TV, something Western phones can never hope to do in their lifetime.
How do I know? I own one.
@eddieroolz
Sprint offers sprint TV. Not to mention there's a little device called a slingbox.
@zeroinfinity2
Those services are tied to a carrier. 1seg TV is nationwide, indepenedent of a carrier. You can watch 1seg without having an active contract on some models.
@eddieroolz Yeah, it's a pity Japanese TV is so appalling...
@robbie Since that's matter of preference, I won't go into it.
But I personally think Western TV shows are boring as hell.
@eddieroolz completely agree, last semester my room mate was from japan and he like me play with his phone and i was impress by what it could do. it does everything my g1 does except for apps which i didn't think it needed because it was so... "feature" pack. apps are over rated, these feature phones make the iphone look like a bigger pos.
engadget is just butt hurt over anything not apple as usually.
@eddieroolz I think that being able to pay with your phone and being able to watch TV are services not desired by the western market. Paying with the phone yes but watching TV... just download all your shows to a microsd card and use the built in videoplayer to watch what you want, when you want.That way you don't lose reception when you're commuting as 1seg has little or no reception underground or in buildings. Regardless you can't do a direct comparison because the markets are about as different as you can get.
@Valicore True enough. However, with 1seg it's possible to avoid the entire issue of copyright infringement since it's over the airwaves. Recording 1seg is also not a problem, since that issue has already been worked out.
Either way, I would totally jump onto FeliCa if it was available in NA. Makes life a lot easier.
@eddieroolz Except it's not that smartphone manufacturers aren't willing to put in TV playing features, it's that the infrastructure simply doesnt exist in America yet. Every Chinese KIRF has a DVB tuner, and presumably there will be (or already are) KIRFs out there that can play OTA TV. I'm sure if/when America adopts similar standards you'll have smartphones doing it in no time.
The difference between Japan and America's phones is more one of infrastructure. We don't even have the tech to scan phones as credit cards, for example. If retail stores implemented it, I'm sure smartphones would naturally incorporate it. The difference is your keitai can only ever do what it is manufactured to do, while smartphone operating systems are flexible and can take on any number of unintended uses. HTC can make a phone with a DVB tuner when it becomes popular in America, but a keitai featurephone OS will never feature push gmail, let me download apps like astrid or have free google navigation, manage my mint.com account from a nice interface, or any number of things that are made possible by flexible OS design and downloadable apps.
@billobob All keitais have had GPS and a GPS app built into the phone from ~2004. It can geo-tag, locate your phone when you lose it, and definitely can do navigation. In works worldwide as well.
Keitai OS runs Symbian. It is in fact, just as extensible as Android or iPhone OS - like I said, simply head over to i-mode and install i-applis. In fact, there is even a foursquare i-appli, and foursqure is not even remotely popular in Japan yet. It is possible to install apps when necessary.
Lastly, keitais do not really need to have push mail. If one desires, again, head over and install i-appli. Or simply use the mail feature (equivalent to SMS elsewhere), with a mail address assigned to each terminal. Or, simply use web apps with unlimited browsing.
Though I agree with you on one thing: the markets evolved completely differently. It's just that I for one, prefer the Japanese market model as opposed to the world model.
@billobob
Don't forget that Nokia has had some models with a DVB-H tuner built in like the N77 and the N92 and they didn't take off neither in NA nor the EU. Western audiences just don't really care for mobile tv, it's something that's doomed from the start. Even mobile video is something many people aren't too keen of.
@Dextro
1Seg is not from customer demand. That was designed to stick users onto their phones to improve ARPU.
Too bad it's still a pain in the ass for "foreigners" to buy phones in Japan and too bad they still lock them down tighter than Fort Knox.
And they've also begun to crack down on the "white ROM" secondhand phone market from what I've found out - they are now blacklisting IMEIs - so now when you buy a used phone you need to ensure the IMEI wasn't barred from service for no good reason.
Maybe if those damn 'socialists' didn't drop that bomb on Japan... /s
@dragonfli
As a 'foreigner' in japan, I had no trouble buying a phone.
@dragonfli
>>Too bad it's still a pain in the ass for "foreigners" to buy phones in
>>Japan...
I have being living in Japan for 15 years now and a foreigner (African). I never heard anything like this before.
Until, recently I had two mobile phones from AU by KDDI.
>>And they've also begun to crack down on the "white ROM"
>>secondhand phone...
This was due to crime concern, why will you want to pay for phone in Japan, anyway? and worse a second-hand?
@dragonfli
You're thinking about Korea. They're two different countries, you know.
The real question is does it have an electronic dictionary?
Ok kidding aside... Is anyone really shocked by this? Featurephones seem to make sense in Japanese tech seeing as how tightly they control their tech infrastructures (look at the Wii and PS3 or just Sony in general) They would rather create an entire proprietary system (like a featurephone) than use a standard like a smartphone. I'm still in shock Nintendo used SD cards in the Wii.
Pfft.
Maybe they should take this "success" and actually release a phone on time, rather than 18 months of delays due to a stupid UI on an outdated OS version.
@Johnny Rockets
The X10 was announced in November 200 and released in march 2010. 4-5 months isnt that long is it?