As I said in a previous post, I will be talking about what I consider ‘The Cool”, “The Bad” and the "Let’s See" of the GSMA 2009 in Barcelona. My previous post talks about the introduction of MIFI by Telefonica as “The Cool” however yesterday night I came across something that as of now, it seems that it deserves the not so cool title of “The Bad”.
It is the Sony-Ericsson IDOU, the new handset introduced by the Japanese/Swedish handset manufacturer (can’t wait for the news saying that this is the new iPhone Killer!... some journalists love to write that without even wondering why is it that the iPhone is so successful). Ok…so, lots of you might be thinking why is it that I consider the IDOU a bad product, it looks pretty cool on the pic; and the truth is that it does look really cool and I am sure that it has some awesome functionalities (I own a K790 and it is a very good phone).
Also, I should say that the IDOU is not even in the market yet, Sony-Ericsson is just showing it off at the GSMA (IDOU is not even the commercial name… most likely they will launch it as something else), so a good judgment of the phone cannot be made as of right now.
Now taking this in consideration, the phone does have a feature that I believe makes it bad…a 12.1 MegaPixel (mp) camera!!... yes I consider that a bad thing! Why?? Because the only thing that a 12.1 mp photograph does is occupy memory in your phone or memory card and increase the price of the handset. Photographs with such high resolution only are needed if you are going to print the picture in huge dimensions…let’s say a billboard or a poster…and I really doubt that you will be making a poster of the picture that you took of your colleague sleeping in his desk or you and your buddies in the middle of a bar.
Most pictures that are taken with a phone are for Facebook or your computer…that is if they make it out of your phone!… just think about how many pictures you have in your phone that you haven’t transferred to your computer. In fact, why don’t you try this…. Just start browsing right now, I promise you that you will laugh… it is like taking a drive down memory lane.
And even if the pics do come out of your mobile, how many have you printed? and of those… how many have you printed in a size bigger than a standard A4 piece of paper?... Very few right?? So would you need a phone with a 12.1 mp camera?...don’t think so… a 3.2 mp camera is more than enough resolution for the use of mobile generated photographs.
So why pay the price of a high-resolution camera and need to buy a high capacity memory card to hold the super heavy photos of your drunk buddies? At least I don’t see the point…
Entradas
Desde un punto de vista técnico, no, una cámara de 12mp parece bastante incoherente. Realmente, después de varios estudios de impresión poca gente puede distinguir la diferencia en impresión (a escala fotográfica estándar) entre una cámara de 2, 5 y 20mp (usando la misma cámara y el mismo sensor).
ResponderEliminarDesde un punto de vista económico la cosa cambia. El usuario/comprador medio no tiene ni idea de ello. Habitualmente el comprador usa su "propia lógica" y heurística básica, es decir, más mp = mejor (en todos los sentidos). Los megapíxeles son el barómetro de calidad para la mayoría de los compradores. Cuando IDOU salga a la venta (que aún le queda bastante dado que solo enseñaron un ridículo prototipo en la MWC09) la campaña de marketing tirará de tres cuerdas:
- El primer teléfono táctil de SONY
- La relación que se prevé que tenga con otros periféricos de SONY
- Los 12mp de su cámara digital incorporada
En resumen, si yo trabajara en SONY hubiera hecho algo parecido, intentar diferenciarse desesperadamente en lo que han sido mejor reconocidos últimamente: sus cámaras móviles. Samsung y su OmniaHD tiraran de cuerdas similares aportando algo más de calidad… pero a fin de cuentas son 8mp (que son bastantes…).
Un saludo!
Hi Juan,
ResponderEliminarThanks a lot for your comment an insight about cameras and mp, I do agree completely with you that Sony will focus on those 3 functionalities when launching the IDOU. However, I still don't see why Sony is still trying to compete on hardware functionalities while having it's PC division (VAIO) its Media (Sony Music and Sony Pictures) and its gaming division (Playstation)....the buzzword in the industry is convergence, Sony (which is one of the few players if not the only one that has a PC, Media and Gaming under one corporate umbrella) is still behaving as if each business unit doesn't know that the other one exists instead of finding synergies among them. Something like itunes should have been launched by Sony, not copied by it... they are too late in the music and movies... and thanks to this now they depend on iTunes to sell its content. The gaming for mobiles I believe is still open... however they won't win it, if they keep focusing on useless hardware functionalities!
Saludos!
I do agree Alberto,
ResponderEliminarIf Sony can find a the winning combo and converge all these functionalities together I believe they'll become more competitive. Look at Microsoft, their XBOX 360 can be synced with any Media Center capable PC, which in my opinion is awesome! Or their WinMo and Mindows sync capabilities. So here is a huge opportunity, PSP and PS3, I believe that is a missed opportunity (but not just yet). The PSP is supposed to "talk" to the PS3, but the actual functionality is very limited. Now imagine how cool it would be to have the PSP with the GSM dongle and be able to send your GSM local to your buddies PS3. Or what about having the camera on the PSP and streaming live content to a Viao. These are just some ideas, but the possibilities are endless, and if Sony can bundle and market these functionalities, it will become even more competitive in the market place.