3G VAIO Mobile Phones? 36
chinoodle writes "It seems Sony want to combine technologies from Texas Instruments and Symbian, and merge in their memory sticks to create 3G phones with broadband data and music capabilites. The Symbian press release is here and the TI blurb is here. Sony has licensed TI's low power DSP, and Symbians operating system - should be some tasty product.. "
This is perfect! (Score:1)
Thanks but no thanks. (Score:1)
There's no way I'd ever touch a Sony branded mobile. For sheer style and elegance, Nokia cannot be beaten - phones just don't come any more stylish than the Nokia handsets in The Matrix. Sony's marketing machine may try to convince us otherwise, but the mobile phone cognosenti will choose Nokia, Motorola or Ericsson every time. Besides, Sony will shoot themselves in the foot by building their characteristic unreliability into these phones whilst charging an extortionate price. Nokia have nothing to fear.
USB capable memory sticks (Score:1)
Re:In other news (Score:1)
It's got a form fitting rotary dial that vibrates while it goes round and round.
About the same price as a memory stick, but way, WAY less embarrassing to admit owning.
Re:Bzzt, wrong answer! (Score:1)
There IS no phone.
Re:I'm still going to hold out... (Score:1)
It ain't that great. I played around with one of these at Sony Plaza in Tokyo a week or two ago.
Sony has a real problem with their proprietary hardware. The interfaces are slick, but non-standard. (No keyboard shortcuts, to say the least...)
Before you decide to buy something like this, go see if you can find any drivers for the hardware on their website.
Don't get me wrong, Sony does a fantastic job with most of what they do, as long as you only do what they anticipate. I love my Vaio picturebook, but the little camera is so proprietary that I can't use anything but their buggy software to take pictures with it.
Whatever - you can't have everything...
Jim in Tokyo
In other news (Score:1)
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Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
EPOC (Score:1)
Re:Bzzt, wrong answer! (Score:1)
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BluetoothCentral.com [bluetoothcentral.com]
A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming soon.
Re:I'm still going to hold out... (Score:1)
Well, the only 2 gadgets I carry around are my phone and my Cassiopeia E-105. My Cassiopeia *is* my MP3 player, my web browser, my two way pager/email, and my PalmVII.
Now that Casio and Siemens are making a wireless version of the Cassiopeia...
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Ekapshi.
Maybe, maybe not (Score:1)
I'm not saying this Sony device will fly, but to hit a mass market (which is what Sony is aiming at) it'll be some combo of features and low price that will win the most $, not trendy design (which is instantly dated no matter how cool it is today).
On an unrelated note...
Now if you're a content producer as well as gadget provider you have additional incentive to integrate products. Will it work? We'll need to wait and see.
I'm still going to hold out... (Score:1)
Re:Why do cell phones need interchangable memory? (Score:1)
Tons of stuff that you'll want to somehow get on and off your 3G phone, to swap or archive. You can hope and wait for Bluetooth, or you can also have a slot that creates a new memory location when the old is full.
Re:WHY?????? (Score:1)
Why?
Isn't it obvious?
You've got a choice of carrying round a cell phone, the pda of your choice, and whatever music source you're into today (MP3, minidisc, cd player...)
Or, you carry round one box that plays your music, looks after your addresses and you can use it as a phone. As for the people who think you'll look stupid bopping away with a phone to your ear... have you ever heard of headphone sockets? Don't you think they might just put one in this little baby?
Of course the downside is that you don't get to individually choose your pda/phone/music boxes, but that's the price you pay. If you still want to go around with three boxes, noone's gonna stop you.
Broadband Cell Phones (Score:1)
Japan yes, America maybe (Score:1)
fun fun (Score:1)
Jaeger
http://334.se2600.org
http://jump.to/jaeger
Re:I can't wait. (Score:1)
I also wonder which mobile phone companies will support the technology (remembering that they'll be paying big time for the bandwidth - one to and from the phone and then to and from the main telecoms network). Cost is also important.
I await with baited breath, but this is something I hope will take off.
Richy C. [beebware.com]
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Re:No it won't... (Score:1)
In addition, I have a secure, accountable way to purchase music in digital format (quite cheaply) that guards against theft. Sounds good to me, what exactly is your beef?
Why do cell phones need interchangable memory? (Score:1)
Or maybe it's just a gimmick to get people to buy memory stick devices. Either way, Sony's really overdoing this.
"Assume the worst about people, and you'll generally be correct"
Acton? (Score:1)
what? (Score:1)
15th post!hhah
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
Re:Re:WHY?????? (Score:1)
Also, I didn't say that someone wold be putting their phone up to their ear. You would have a head set on... that is unless you are stupid. Any way you would be shaking your head around and it would look like you're listening to music. Then people will see that you have your head set connected to a Cell PHONE. Then people would think that you are talking on the phone and then get confused. Thus they would shake their head in confusion and think you are a complete IDIOT! Also it will probably look like a Cell Phone. That would aid the fact that people would think you are an IDIOT.
I can understand how handy these gadgets would be, but most of the cell phone market is Business Men, and let me ask this, Why would your average business men and woemen need this. I can tell you right now that if a manager walked in to his/her office, his/her boss would not be to happy to see that they are listening to songs on their cell phone at work.
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hehe, heres a pole.. what to do to spammers.
S-stupid
P-people's
A-annoying
Re:Are we forgetting what a telephone is? (Score:1)
Re:EPOC (Score:1)
Sounds good.... Radiation? (Score:1)
However, I've seen reports about radiation from the phone being transmitted through the hands-free kit. Like most people, I use my mobile phone anyway, however I wouldn't want to use it to listen to music for hours on end with the threat of my brain getting crispy. -TheCrunch
Re:No it won't... (Score:2)
: I cannot for the life of me understand why Slashdot keeps hyping these products, when Sony has shown very clearly that they are never going to make a music player that has even heard of
Three words: CmdrTaco, Vaio, Aibo
Re:Are we forgetting what a telephone is? (Score:2)
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I can't wait. (Score:2)
MP3 playback is nice, as long as Sony doesn't instead go to the ATRAXX playback that caused consumers and reviewers to largely pan their Vaio Music Clip device. Who wants to pay $3 per SONG to listen to music that can only be loaded three times?
Re:EPOC (Score:2)
Re:Yippie! (Score:2)
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WHY?????? (Score:2)
Who needs BroadBand and MP3 players in a Cell Phone.
I can see it now a bunch of people walkning around with a cell phone up to their ear listening to Rob Zombie or something. You have to admit that you would look like an idiot shaking your head back and fourth with a cell phone...
We won't be able to call them cell phones any more eather. We would have to call them something like hand-held computers or something like that.
SprintPCS' Wireless Web was nice, but has this gone to far?
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hehe, heres a pole.. what to do to spammers.
S-stupid
P-people's
A-annoying
Are we forgetting what a telephone is? (Score:3)
Um.. I like gadgets as much as the next guy, but come on! After years of making cell phones smaller, neater, less visible, now we'll be striving to get the one with the most RAM? The fastest processor?
I really can't remember the last time I wanted to listen to an MP3 on my phone.
Bookie (Score:3)
No it won't... (Score:4)
I cannot for the life of me understand why Slashdot keeps hyping these products, when Sony has shown very clearly that they are never going to make a music player that has even heard of the idea that it should be open to the user. I would think that of all places, a site born out of the free software movement would not support machines designed based on the principle that they should control the user to largest extent possible.
Sigh...
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Yippie! (Score:5)
Hey... wait a minute...
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