Yorch Place

Recently I cahnged my mobile for a Nokia XpressMusic. Nokia in many ways is leading in innovation, Sony Ericsson is good in the music, and a few years ago they had the most innovative products, now they are like catching up.

I'm going to compare the music player since I had a Sony Ericsson W960 (walkman phone) and now I use a Nokia XpressMusic phone.

The sound quality is impressive in both handsets, Nokia has stereo speakers so it is a win here in the external speakers, also Nokia has a 3.5mm jack, which means any headphones fit, another win for Nokia, but, the UI of the Nokia player is really bad, they improve little with time, the list of songs is really slow to show, you can not see album art in the album list, you can't see which song will be next in the shuffle mode, there is no magic play list like the "sense me", rated songs or per year or decade.

Also I miss the TrackID, a great function that I loved, and I wanted yesterday while I was listening the radio there was a great song.

The phone has a lot of functions and possibilities, and since it is a Nokia, it has a great support for software, but the player, which is the reason of the phone, has a lot to improve. Kudos to Sony Ericsson doing such a great player for their phones.

I'm wating for Sony Ericsson new smartphone family based in S60 with touch screen capabilities, great cameras and impressive player, to go back with them.

NOKIA


SONY ERICSSON

The iPhone is an exclusive phone from Telcel in Mexico, they started with a super expensive plan to get the iPhone, of course it costed like $70.00 usd instead of $299.00 usd, but we had to pay like $130.00 usd per month (it included 700 minutes and 100 mb of internet ¡crap!)

Well after not so good sales of the iPhone (still 4th in place of the 72 original countries, but that is because there is 108 million mexicans) also after a study that showed that iPhone users prefer the interent and use a lot of IM (with webapps) they change the plan and now it is cheaper, like $60.00 usd per month and you can get the iPhone for $60.00 usd, in a two year plan, which includes 60 minutes of talk and unlimited internet.

Also they reduced the fee to connect to the internet unlimited from $60.00 usd to $30.00 usd.

Still I had an iPhone to test it, as part of the campaign, it is great in many ways, but sucks in so many others, I tryed to download many stuff from the Safari, and it keep showing me the "Safari can't download..." also when using the GPS (well Google Maps) it sucks that to zoom you have to use both hand (one to hold the phone the other to zoom) they should put a zoom in/out button (virtual of course), also I hated not being able to send photos via MMS, not everybody has a mail on the phone, and the fact that once a friend ask me the phone of another friend via SMS and I couldn't copy and paste it, as in my Sony Ericsson (every model from sony ericsson can do that, even the cheap ones), couldn't save images from a website, because safari is crippled.

The day they have an office suite (Documents to Go or Quickoffice) and a decent better Internet Browser (Safari 2.0 with flash that allows you to download stuff, or better yet Opera Mobile), Copy and Paste, a decent GPS software (Wayfinder, TomTom, Route 66), a file manager (I want the folders and that stuff, because having so many memory you can have files of anything), and a not crippled Bluetooth that allows you to send a receive files, send stereo sound to external headphones or speakers.

I want a Nokia 5800, or better a N97, I also like others like the HTC Touch HD, HTC Touch Diamond, Samsung Omnia, all this phones can do so much, and are cool looking.

Finally Telcel (America Móvil) put the iPhone on sale without a contract, on Sears and Sanborns (both stores propety of Grupo Carso which is also owner of America Móvil)

The price... well thinking of not having a 2 year contract in which you will be paying $70.00 usd per month plus extra charges (more minutes used or sms or data), well as I was saying the price is as follows:

- 16gb iPhone: $1,300.50 usd
- 8gb iPhone: $1,134.12 usd

Not being tied to a contract... priceless

By the way in the post paid plan you can have unlimited data per moth, you have to pay $53 usd to have that, which means, having that credit in your account and sending an SMS (don't remember the number) to activate the data.

I still think the iPhone is overpriced, overvalued, and not worth that. The only innovation it has is the screen, since "full browser" exists since Opera Mobile / Mini and Nokia Browser (actually based in webkit just like safari).

The Samsung Omnia 16gb costs $840.00 usd (in Mexico), and it does so much more than the iPhone and not tied to Apple restrictions in software (just go to handango.com or pocketgear.com to see), also there is the options of N81 and N95 with 8gb each from Nokia, far cheaper, and more powerful than the iPhone, and more software.

I'm keeping my Sony Ericsson W960i (8gb, 3.2mp camera, touch screen, office suite, 3G, Wifi, unlocked, untied, real bluetooth not crap like the iPhone) which by the way now costs $350.00 usd (in Mexico)

Sears Mexico Store
Mercado Libre (Mexican eBay)

In the mobile phone market Mexico is not that bad, it is still more expensive than other countries like USA or half of Europe, still with a market penetration of almost 70% it is a mature market, the bad thing is the providers:

- 80% of the market belongs to Telcel (America Movil)
- 10% is to Telefonica's Movistar (sucky coverage)
- 7% to Iusacell (Grupo Salinas cheaters at SEC) which is also Unefon (they merged) and they have bad coverage too
- 3% to NII or Nextel (which is not Sprint), the worst service, extremly expensive and the worst coverage ever.

Now there is a new player, I don't know if they had their own network or are renting others, it is MaxcomCel which is part of a small telecomm called Maxcom, they had presence (in all their services) in Puebla, Mexico City and Queretaro, but the mobile is in the entire country.

I'm beting they have their own network in their current cities and rent in the others. Still is not the best plan ever, they have only three phone models, all of them from the ubber ugly and useless Motorola.

But still is good that there are other players around. I just hope for better costs data and voice. I'm paying way to much for what I get.

Please a minute of silence...

Ok, now a minute to yell at Sony Ericsson, my new mobile, which I bougth on december 4th this year, stopped working, just because, I plug it to put some song into it, and it never turned on again, dead, totally dead, don't know why, I didn't do anything.

Now everytime I tried to turn it on a red light blinks in the keypad, it doesn't charge, I removed the battery and put it again and doesn't work either.

WHY o WHY!

While looking for a solution on the web, which is useless, since all teh forums think everybody is an IT expert, using terms and giving answers like, "just flash it" can you please explain that... just flash it, I need a step by step thing.

By the way I found the solution to my other mobile, and it is working fine again, but now I like the new one working again!!!

I someone has the answer, tomorrow I'm going to the Sony Ericsson center in Queretaro, I hope is a few minutes problem solution, so I can take it again with me few minutes later at no cost WARRANTY!!