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Sony dropping feature phones with Ericsson buy out, going all Android?


Guest hecatae

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Guest hecatae

October 2011, Sony buys Ericsson out of their 10 year joint venture for 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion; £964 million).

So what's happening next?

In an exclusive interview with Times of India; Kristian Tear, executive VP & head of sales & marketing of Sony Ericsson has advised that feature phones will be dropped completely by mid 2012 with the Sony rebrand.

Kristian Tear said:

A lot of planning goes into getting the branding right but we will be done by middle of next year. It will also mean that the marketing and advertising investments will go up. We haven't been as fierce as we were a few years back but we will step it up, refocus and invest more in brand-building in select markets and India is one of those markets.

The first Sony only Android has been spotted, the LT22 (current codename Nyphon), pictures of it are scarce, but mobile.it168.com has found one:

Posted Image

Specs, and more details are available after the break :lol:

The current unit runs Gingerbread, but we would hope to see ICS on it at release. Sony Ericsson currently have about 2% Global Market Share, hopefully a string of new Cybershots, Walkmans and Playstation Android devices next year will improve their position.

Rumoured specs are:

  • ST-Ericsson 1GHz dual-core U8500

  • 4" qHD display

  • 8 megapixel Exmor R camera

  • 1GB RAM

  • 16gb Storage

It's a pretty brave move from Sony, although they don't seem afraid of evolving. They met major criticisms when they sold their share of Symbian to Nokia in December 2008, history speaks for itself there as to the wisdom of that move.

The ST-Ericsson joint venture should produce some very specialised chipsets, for example, the NovaThor U8500 mentioned above is:

  • The first mobile platform with full High-Definition 1080p progressive-scan camcorder capabilities.

  • and Dual camera support with Integrated ISP 20 Mpixel and 5 Mpixel

We want a 20 Mpixel Cybershot Android! :D

Source: Times of India, mobile.it168.com

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