Preview of Sony Ericsson Vivaz 2 (MT15i/Halon)
Sony Ericsson has made some interesting phones in the recent past and some of them enjoyed at least acceptable sales. However, some of the models had disadvantages that were not justified taking into account their price and positioning.
An appropriate change is always welcome and it seems that MT15i along with Arc represent a step in the right direction. For the first time in its history Sony Ericsson has developed and is about to launch truly cutting edge devices and the company has almost nothing to fear in the hardware department as well.
While that may not be entirely true in Arc's case since pricewise it will have to compete against LG Optimus 2x with Nvidia TEGRA 2 power, the Mt15i is at least positioned against "easier" opponents.
MT15i can be called the successor to Vivaz, a phone well designed, which nevertheless fell short mostly due to its OS deficiencies. This time around, MT15i kept the same design philosophy with some changes, but received a significant hardware upgrade dumping S60 in favor of Android.
That fact combined with some software tweaks and a proprietary Sony Ericsson interface on top of Android produced a well balanced and skillful device, something that we had not seen from Sony Ericsson for a long time now.
This time Sony Ericsson came up with a phone that really has much potential to become a bestseller in its segment. Both design and feature wise MT15i has all bells and whistles expected from an Android device. The phone will hit the market during the period (April 2011) when rivals will have similar features, but MT15i will bet on its design, several color options and the reasonable price (€320-350). It has been a long time since I saw a mid-range solution from Sony Ericsson to successfully compete with rival solutions. While this will not be true for Arc in MT15i we have a balanced device that can fulfill everyone's needs almost without any compromise.
Some of the promotional decisions of Sony Ericsson may have a negative effect on its sales, however this time the promotion will be backed up by the device itself.
An appropriate change is always welcome and it seems that MT15i along with Arc represent a step in the right direction. For the first time in its history Sony Ericsson has developed and is about to launch truly cutting edge devices and the company has almost nothing to fear in the hardware department as well.
While that may not be entirely true in Arc's case since pricewise it will have to compete against LG Optimus 2x with Nvidia TEGRA 2 power, the Mt15i is at least positioned against "easier" opponents.
MT15i can be called the successor to Vivaz, a phone well designed, which nevertheless fell short mostly due to its OS deficiencies. This time around, MT15i kept the same design philosophy with some changes, but received a significant hardware upgrade dumping S60 in favor of Android.
That fact combined with some software tweaks and a proprietary Sony Ericsson interface on top of Android produced a well balanced and skillful device, something that we had not seen from Sony Ericsson for a long time now.
This time Sony Ericsson came up with a phone that really has much potential to become a bestseller in its segment. Both design and feature wise MT15i has all bells and whistles expected from an Android device. The phone will hit the market during the period (April 2011) when rivals will have similar features, but MT15i will bet on its design, several color options and the reasonable price (€320-350). It has been a long time since I saw a mid-range solution from Sony Ericsson to successfully compete with rival solutions. While this will not be true for Arc in MT15i we have a balanced device that can fulfill everyone's needs almost without any compromise.
Some of the promotional decisions of Sony Ericsson may have a negative effect on its sales, however this time the promotion will be backed up by the device itself.