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This would look great if it wasn't made by SONY. They have a history of building devices that seem great, but on closer inspection it usually turns out that the
by jwr 13y ago
This would look great if it wasn't made by SONY. They have a history of building devices that seem great, but on closer inspection it usually turns out that the user interface is horrible, overall usability is poor, and to use the device you have to install a proprietary piece of Windows-only SONY software that might be maintained and updated for a while — or not. So after a couple of years you might be left with no way to access your data.
After I had this experience two or three times I figured I'd stay away from SONY products.
- blisterpeanuts 13y agoI'm just worried about Sony's long term viability. They don't seem as competitive as they once were, and as you say, they have this not-invented-here culture similar to other old line companies that are no longer dominant (Nokia, IBM).
- ekianjo 13y agoIn 2013 (or 2012, not sure anymore), they made more money off their financial services than all of their combined product lines. That says how much Sony sucks at making products nowadays.
- josu 13y agoAccording to their annual report [1] only 14.8% of their sales came from financial services. What are you exactly referring to? [1] http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2013/shr/pdf/AnnualReport_E.pdf http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2013/shr/pdf/An...
- ekianjo 13y agoI need to find the source again, but it's not about revenue but actual profits.
- josu 13y agoI believe that you may be referring to this article: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-10/sony-tv-unit-loses-money-while-sony-financial-exceeds-profit-forecasts http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-10/sony-tv-unit... EDIT: Changed to correct link. Thanks e12e for pointing it out.
- e12e 13y agoWrong link?
- jabagawee 13y agoTo be fair, that could also mean that the market for financial services is extremely high margin or has an extremely large potential size rather than being an indictment of Sony's product lines.
- WoodenChair 13y agoHa, does that keep you up at night? I'm surprised any company, save Apple (for cultural reasons), produces this sort of angst in people. What's your emotional attachment to the long term success of Sony? Where does it come from (serious question)?
- ekianjo 13y agoWell, Sony used to make cool products (the first Walkmans were cool. Even the first Playstation was cool. The Sony Trinitron TVs were fantastic. The Sony VAIO line of PCs were hotter than Macs back in 2000...) - but that time is long gone. Maybe it's nostalgia?
- GFischer 13y agoSony was the Apple of the 80s :) ... their consumer electronics were objects of lust, as you mention, the Walkman and the Trinitron lines. http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/430757/rise_fall_sony/ http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/430757/rise_fall_sony/
- scholia 13y agoAnd the company that Steve Jobs most admired ;-)
- shaneofalltrad 13y agoI think there are some major changes being made to regain this position and it is backed with some really cutting edge products, along with smarter financial decisions. I think the only thing they are lacking is the respect due to past mistakes, mistakes that have been removed from the line completely over the past year or are in plans to cut in the next few months. They plan to marked high-end only and it looks like serious thought in filling the need of better software and developers. I have no inside, but I would not be surprised if you start seeing HackerNews worthy projects popping up from Sony Developers in the next few years.
- Geee 13y agoI feel strongly that Sony has been changing in the past year and finally getting in the game again with genuinely great products. PS4 (best console), Xperia Z2 (best smartphone), Project Morpheus (forward-looking innovation), and now this.
- amartya916 13y agoSony's digital cameras are very innovative (the RX range and the A7 ranges come to mind)
- stox 13y agoThey bought into Olympus, that investment seems to be paying off.
- te_chris 13y agoYou sure? They outright acquired Minolta.
- robomartin 13y agoMight be appropriate: http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece-of-shit-that-doesnt,14309/ http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece... I too have stayed well away from Sony products. Last I bought was a PS2. I don't think i own any Sony products past that.
- diydsp 13y agosee also: http://www.theonion.com/articles/sony-unveils-matteblack-box-of-red-and-green-light,9135/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/sony-unveils-matteblack-box...
- bananas 13y agoHa ha ha ha - that's so true :) I've got a Bravia EX that doesn't work properly (random failures, won't record to hard disk) and a dead VPC-J1 all in one at the moment. Spot on.
- logfromblammo 13y agoThe PS2 was also the last Sony thing I purchased. Shortly after that, the music disc rootkit scandal became public, and I have never forgiven them. Every so often, I see something like this by Sony that looks so cool, but then give it a pass because it is too expensive and because a forever boycott is forever. Later, I find out that I saved myself some minor amount of aggravation when Sony screwed up the software and/or user experience in some completely boneheaded way. While it looks like a fun toy, I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up one morning and it no longer supported EPUB, with no warning or explanation.
- sizzle 13y agoI only got a ps2 for GTA 3, what about yourself?
- eob 13y agoThis was my immediate reaction as well. I want to love SONY products. But for the past decade, it seems as if they actively try to piss their users off by building a perfectly good product and then crippling it with arbitrary vendor-specific lock-in. Remember ATRAC for Minidiscs? If I recall correctly, Sony's first flash-memory music players tried to force you to use ATRAC instead of MP3. I wonder if this lock-in makes sense in the local Japanese market and it's simply a matter of poor international understanding. Or if their local market gets similarly annoyed.
- ekianjo 13y ago> If I recall correctly, Sony's first flash-memory music players tried to force you to use ATRAC instead of MP3. Yeah, and they were even claiming "MP3 compatible" which was blatantly false advertising since you had to convert your tracks to ATRAC with Sonicstage before you could transfer your MP3 on your device. My ass still hurts. Sony, never again.
- sizzle 13y agol remember having to dish out twice as much for memory stick and memory stick duo when everyone else has cheaper SD card support. Minidisc player was pretty cool but was a luxury before it because obsolete.
- ekianjo 13y ago> and to use the device you have to install a proprietary piece of Windows-only SONY software that might be maintained and updated for a while Let's not forge the Sony Music CDs which installed a rootkit on your computer to prevent you from trying to copy the CD. Where they went is just unimaginable. > After I had this experience two or three times I figured I'd stay away from SONY products. Even if it were not for that experience, the Sony Ebook Readers have been very, very poor and very slow every time I looked at their latest models. Sony is supposed to be a company run by engineers, but seriously I'm wondering if they know their shit.
- theg2 13y agoWell IBM, Ford, Coca Cola, and Kodak helped the Nazi's so hopefully you're boycotting them too.
- incongruity 13y agoIndeed. I will never buy another Kodak product again.
- theg2 13y agoSigh, poor Kodak. I was in their offices 3 years ago giving a presentation and the place was a boarded up ghost town. It was surreal to see how many floors were simply closed off.
- ihsw 13y agoSony's hardware is top-notch, however their software deserves every bit of criticism it gets. It's universally awful and as such universally reviled.
- ekianjo 13y agoYeah, its amazing they don't even think a second about contracting their software needs out.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoI had the same feeling after I had to return my brand new Sony Z1s phone due to an ongoing/unsolved touch screen issue plaguing the Z1 and Z1s: http://johnhaller.com/blog/2014-03-06--sony-xperia-z1-z1s-touch-screen-issue http://johnhaller.com/blog/2014-03-06--sony-xperia-z1-z1s-to...
- anon4 13y agoThat's why when I was looking to buy an e-reader I settled on a PocketBook. Yes, the Russian ones. It's the most-open e-reading device I've seen. You literally just plug it into your pc with a standard USB cable and it appears as a normal drive that you can upload whatever you wish to. Including normal binaries. There's no rooting steps involved or anything, it's plug-and-copy-an-ELF. It runs a normal everyday Linux. There's a vibrant community (though you might need to be somewhat familiar with Russian) of all manner of customization possibilities and different applications you can install. It also comes with snake. When they start offering A4 devices, I'll definitely buy one (unless someone gets an incurable brain tumor and makes them closed).
- lucian1900 13y agoTo be fair to Sony, my PRS 350 is not far off. It shows up as a drive and I can copy any ePub or PDF to it. No modding, though.
- xtracto 13y agoI've got a PRS 950. Back when I bought it was really good. Bigger screen, supporting SD cards and reading ePub and PDF. The other options like the Kindle were very locked-up.
- progman 13y ago> I settled on a PocketBook Interesting. Which model?
- f137 13y agoIt's not a Russian, but a Ukrainian company.
- neves 13y agoOr they install a Rootkit in your computer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...
- scholia 13y agoI guess that puts paid to the PS4...
- windexh8er 13y agoConsidering Sony just shut down their Reader platform I'd like to say: Dear Sony, fat chance. Having been one of the only heavy-weights in the eReader market that focused on a good ePub experience I'm disappointed the product didn't mature. This just looks like a bad product migration to me and I will make sure to steer clear of Sony's niche products that don't make it more than a few years.
- novaleaf 13y agoyep. i'd venture a guess that the screen will be plastic, and it won't have a built-in flip-cover, and no micro usb port so you can't manage the contents from a computer
- boredinballard 13y agoDon't know about the screen or cover, but it does have a Micro USB port and transferring files is done through file explorer. Simple drag and drop stuff.