Returning from meeting with Sony I must say I somewhat dig their strategy, the main point being to differentiate their products by offering them bundled with content and services through Sony Entertainment Network. Now I know we’ve heard this kind of stories before, but bear in mind this is Sony we’re talking about, the company which is one of the biggest content producers in the world. In that sense, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Xperia devices selling in select markets with movies and music preloaded. Such thing could cost serious money for other handset makers, whereas it comes free of charge for the Japanese giant.
Sony is already offering a number of services, including Music Unlimited, which catalog counts some 15 millions songs, while also allowing users to listen to premade stations or create their own station.
Furthermore, with Ericsson out of picture, Sony Mobile Communications is also benefiting from its parent company’s brands and technology. Take Bravia Displays for instance, as well as the new WhiteMagic screen, which offers super brightness without sacrificing battery performance. I had a chance to see it in “action,” and it does look awesome. Then again, I’m not an expert on displays so we’ll have to wait for the pros to compare Sony’s technology with those made by Samsung and LG.
Sony’s camera technology is also used in the certain Xperia products, and as you all know, there are PlayStation-certified smartphones and tablets.
The idea on the Sony group level is to offer products and services across all screens, and even make them “talk” to each other — while Sony Xperia phones can be connected to any TV set, they will work best with Bravia TVs, allowing the handset to act as a remote control.
Finally, I must add Sony folks kinda channeled my question on quad-core phones, rather talking about the whole user experience. I understand that but… We used to know Sony as a maker of high-tech gear, and today their phones are still running Gingerbread and lack “a core or two” (if you know what I mean). Sure it’s not all about how many cores a phone has, but the extra processing power gotta count for something, right?
At the end of the interview I was reminded that the Xperia S has started shipping, Xperia U and Xperia P will come in the second quarter, while the Xperia ion will hit markets throughout the world at some point this summer.