SE Loyalist Blog

Yesterday, Sony Ericsson launched the Xperia X2, its second smartphone based on Windows Mobile.

Boasting Windows Mobile 6.5 and relying heavily on the X Panels UI , a 3.2-inch WVGA display, full QWERTY keyboard, 8.1-megapixel camera with autofocus and photo flash, stereo speakers, Wi-Fi with DLNA, A-GPS, TV-out, Bluetooth and a microSD slot (supports up to 16GB cards), the X2 sure seems to be a winner.



The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 is one impressive device full of industry leading features - it's the first Windows Mobile smartphone with an 8 megapixel camera and WVGA video recording and it's actually the first ever full QWERTY phone to have that sort of imaging prowess as well.
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 is surely one of the most rumored and eagerly awaited devices. It packs top notch functionality with a special incline towards imaging and video recording. That and the larger display and DivX/XviD video support are probably the biggest improvements over the previous XPERIA X1.

The folks at Engadget got a chance to play around with the Xperia Pureness..yeah, the one with the somewhat gimmicky transparent screen. Transparent you say? Yup, you heard right!

Anyway, here's what they had to say:

The capabilities of the phone should come as no surprise to anyone who's used a Sony Ericsson Java-happy dumbphone in the past, and the handset also has that wild variety of face buttons that are typical on a SE handset. Up top, with the d-pad flush on the face, things start to get crowded, but overall the phone is pretty usable tactile-wise. The meaty numeric pad should be a boon to a T9 afficianado, and we even managed to play a game of Pacman on the handset. Overall the materials used are nice and XPERIA-ey, but the most overt luxury item here is the block of glass that serves as the screen.

I had recently posted that Sony Ericsson plans to close some locations and lay off 2,000 individuals. The latest news is that Sony Ericsson has announced it would close down the research and development (R&D) facility in Chennai (India), the global hub for development work on entry level phones since 2007.

The company said the closure was part of its business transformation programme aimed at consolidation and that it was making organizational changes to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. "The principal aim of the company is to return to profitability as soon as possible," it said in a press release. The company will terminate about 2,000 jobs by mid-2010, including around 60 people in Chennai.

"The Chennai R&D centre had engineers working on the development of entry level phones for Sony Ericsson. The centre had less than 60 people working there," Aldo Liguori, corporate vice-president and head of global communications & public relations, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, told TOI.

Sony Ericsson has R&D centres in Japan, Sweden, Netherlands, the US, the UK and China.

When asked if there was a possibility of accommodating these 60 employees elsewhere, Liguori said, "We do not have that detail at this moment. This decision has been part of the initial meetings. But the total plan across the centres around the world is that about 2,000 people will be terminated. Already, about 400 employees were terminated across various locations starting October," he said.

Via: Times of India

Eldar Murtazin, the man behind Mobile Review, has posted another pic of the upcoming Kurara, as well as confirmed previously known specs ie...Kurara indeed runs on an ARM Cortex A8 processor clocking 600 MHz with PowerVR SGX graphics. According to him, Sony Ericsson has fine tuned things and the Symbian S60 interface is said to 'fly'. he also added that the 720p video recording is pretty impressive. As reported earlier,the device is slated to roll out mid February 2010 with a price tag of $670 – $750. Eldar promises to post a more detailed impression and imagery soon. Things are going to hot up so continue watching this space!

Via: Eldar's Blog & Engadget

Sony Ericsson hopes that its upcoming Xperia X10, its flagship device for 2010,based on Google's Android operating system, will help the company return to profit after several loss-making quarters.

The new high-end smartphone, which will cost around 6,000 Swedish kronor ($879) in stores, will be available in the first quarter 2010 in a number of markets, press spokesman Gustaf Brusewitz told Dow Jones Newswires.