Disqus
Uh-oh. This doesn’t bode well for Sony Ericsson….
The SE Satio, purported to be a big-hitter in the touchscreen/smartphone/cameraphone space, has been pulled from sale by Carphone Warehouse, and Phones4U in the UK. Given they are (arguably) the two biggest independent high street chains for Mobile devices, that’s a MAJOR problem for the embattled handset maker.
The vague, and frankly somewhat annoying, explanation of “software issues” is apparently to blame – something that many of us, as smartphone owners, will have experienced at one time or another. In actual fact, what they are referring to is a handset that most likely either crashes or locks when certain actions (e.g. opening an app) are performed on it.
However, usually for handsets to get pulled, these software issues have to be consistently bad, and repeatable – along the scale of say, a handset that persistently restarts when you try and make a call on it (yes, that’s happened before on other devices I’ve tried). So we can assume that for affected handsets, there’s a bug that ain’t going away, and that is going to frustrate users a great deal.
Interestingly, as well being for sale in independent retail channels, the device also got ranged with Vodafone, 3, and Orange – none of whom are apparently considering pulling the Satio. Vodafones view is that it has an Operator-variant of the device which has been tested extensively, and therefore doesn’t have the same issues. Anecdotally, the Satio that I had, which was on the 3 network, didn’t have any issues either – actually, it was very good!
Apparently SE is coming with a software update that is going to fix the issue within the next few days.
[Via: Mobiletoday.co.uk]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
