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I think Sony could realistically do both in one product. They already make flagship smartphones that are hardware-competitive with everyone else's flagships. Th
by kenhwang 7y ago
I think Sony could realistically do both in one product. They already make flagship smartphones that are hardware-competitive with everyone else's flagships. They supply the camera sensors for everyone's flagship product. They have the best DSLM and reasonably competitive lenses.
Just take their current flagship smartphone, double the thickness to fit a halfway-between-smartphone-and-full-frame sensor, an SD card slot, ability to export RAWs, and a compact zoom lens, and sell it for like $2000. For extra credit, make a standard lens mount and make it swappable and now you have the manufacturer lock-in that keeping Nikon alive. The margins on the camera business plus the refresh cycle of the phone business might actually save both those divisions.
Instead Sony's camera division and smartphone division are too busy trying to not step on each other's feet and both are suffering for it.
- wlesieutre 7y agoThe Sony smartphone I used to have put its low-light noise reduction behind DRM keys and if you unlocked the bootloader it irreversibly turned the camera into a piece of shit. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I buy another smartphone from them, especially for anything camera related. Plus the built-in camera app was awful to use, but 3rd party camera apps had awful image quality. I don’t know if that was Sony’s fault or related to general Android fragmentation. Either way, I got the impression they weren’t trying very hard.
- jacquesm 7y agoAfter the rootkit debacle I'm surprised that anybody on the tech side would still buy Sony gear. As a brand they're burned for me and I used to be quite the fan.
- B1FF_PSUVM 7y agoSame here. Never bought anything Sony again. I also remember the poor kid who had a portable CD player almost red hot trying to play the Columbia/Sony music CD he had bought - riddled with purposeful errors to avoid PC copies. Making war on customers, indeed ...
- wlesieutre 7y agoI should add that I do own a pair of Sony headphones that I like quite well. But there's an app for configuring some settings, meaning they're starting to border on "smart" gadget enough that Sony could find a way to screw it up if they tried hard enough. Definitely wouldn't have bought them without thoroughly checking reviews for anything dumb.
- megaremote 7y ago> Just take their current flagship smartphone, double the thickness to fit a halfway-between-smartphone-and-full-frame sensor, an SD card slot, ability to export RAWs, and a compact zoom lens, and sell it for like $2000. And no one will buy it. It has been tried before, by Nokia.
- chendragon 7y agoI was under the impression the Nokia that did this failed because it ran Windows Phone and not Android.
- IgorPartola 7y agoYeah just like nobody would want a social network because MySpace and Friendster tried it. And nobody would want a tablet, Apple already tried that with the Newton. Not saying you are wrong but “Nokia tried it” is not any kind of marker.
- incompatible 7y agoI'd sooner get a pocket-sized camera like a Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II or Sony RX100 VII for half the price (although like the iPhone, still out of my price range).