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A Raft Of New Products From Sony Japan
my1wong writes "Sony Japan has launched a DoVaio campaign which features a lot of new stuff. ... Main new stuff included wide screen notebooks ( E series), multimedia desktop replacement ( A Series), long-awaited evolution update to the ultra small U101, and this time it's a tablet indeed ( U series). Last but not least, the expected challenger to iPod, it's called VAIO pocket, VGF-AP1. All very sexy... Guess Sony has been woken up by Apple's success with iPods and Powerbooks."
Except for the proprietary ATRAC format killing of your poor MP3 world.
Ever notice that if you choose Sony, everything seems to work really well with if it is also from Sony? In their hardwary kind of way, they are getting as hegemonous as the big M.
I'm all for competition and for things looking desirable. But I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with the two products I checked out (the tablet and the iPod-competitor), especially considering that Sony have a pretty decent reputation for product design.
I own an Archos Jukebox from a couple of years back. It's not the most attractive device. More recently (when I was passing through Singapore and Hong Kong) I got to see and hold the new Archos devices and they are a vast improvement.
From Sony, with a substantial budget and existing stable of industrial designers, I expected a lot more. The buttons are an absolutely crucial component of a device's usability and appearance, and I don't think these two products really stand out. I have an iPod 40GB (thinking of selling it because I don't really need it; but the design and usability is excellent) and it's a very attractive object. I guess I expected Sony to challenge that a little more -- to provide more competition.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
When will some company take a decent processor and throw it into a tablet? I used a Fujitsu tablet the other week and loved it. It makes alot of sense to me to be able to flip the thing over and read like a book. Great for kicking back and reading datasheets. Now, if it just had some gusto- I could put a bunch of design tools on it.
It is all Japanese to me.
I have a Vaio laptop (don't remember the number, but 700MHz PIII in the slimline case with external CD and floppy). It's a really nice machine, but when I went to replace the hard disk I discovered something: Sony tech support is useless. The only thing their hardware support page tells you is where to send the machine back. No service documentation available, and no spare parts.
Contrast this with IBM, where you can download PDFs with full disassembly instructions and parts lists. You can order parts from IBM for reasonable prices, and they show up in a couple of days. They're actually *helpful* on the phone -- I bought a refurbed Thinkpad that had a European keyboard, and they cheerully talked me through finding the US replacement.
Can't tell you if other vendors are as good as IBM, but I can tell you that if you plan to touch the hardware at all, avoid Sony like the plague.
They've done it to me with a tape recorder and a laptop in the last couple of weeks. Numerous other crap before. It's reaching the point where I'm discouraging folks from choosing Sony, 'cos they can't even keep stock of a product for the lifetime of their 'Sony Style' magazine/catalog thing that they have here in Australia.
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I worked in Sony here in Japan. Every division except movies and PS2 is running at a loss. They have NO new ideas and the morale there is rock bottom. Everyone hates the President as an arrogant a*hole. 5 years from now they won't exist. It's goodbye Sony. They'll be bought out soon after they lose enough money... How many Sony appliances have YOU bought in the last 8 years? Not enough to keep them solvent.