Sony-Ericsson has sold more than 4,000 of its Xperia handsets since its domestic release last month, but consumer response has been mixed. / Korea Times |
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Sony-Ericsson is touting Xperia as a mobile phone for the ultra-cool, but frustrated South Korean users are saying substance was sacrificed for style.
Thanks to a lavish marketing campaign, Sony-Ericsson has sold more than 4,000 Xperia handsets through SK Telecom, the country's biggest mobile telephony operator, since its domestic release last month.
However, the bright start is being clouded by mounting consumer complaints that the slick-looking handset hardly justifies its 820,000-won-plus ($612) price tag, considering the sub-par functionality and technical glitches.
Xperia is one of those expensive gadgets that are categorized as ``smart'' phones, which allow Internet browsing, and multimedia and other data services on top of voice. But it's hard to promote the sophistications of the device when consumers are constantly griping about everything from weak reception, slow data rates, poor video support, battery power and even an apparent error in keyboard design.
``Everything about Xperia is slow,'' reads a review from Gizmoblog, a high-tech blog on Naver (www.naver.com), the country's most popular Web site.
``The boot time is slow, typical of handsets using the Windows Mobile operating system and the menu navigation seem to be a step slow as well. The Xperia panels are very convenient and beautiful, but the screen transition is far from smooth.''
Slow reaction has been the most common complaint among Xperia users, but the mistake in the design of the phone's QWERTY keyboards is clearly what has embarrassed Sony-Ericsson the most. They have two different keys for semi colon (;), and although the company retorts that the error will have little effect on user experience, it is still allowing users to swap to new keyboards through its service centers.
Sony-Ericsson also said that the widespread claims about poor reception are merely a misunderstanding, stemming from the difference in the design of reception bars on the screen.
Xperia shows signal strength using four bars, unlike the six-bar system used more widely, and Sony-Ericsson claims that the handset has no particular problems regarding reception.
``We have tested the complaints with SK Telecom, but came to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with the Xperia phones regarding reception,'' said a Sony-Ericsson spokesman.
However, a number of high-tech bloggers are still suspicious and are posting results of their independent tests on reception.
Sony-Ericsson is not the only foreign mobile-phone maker to find tech-savvy South Koreans to be a tough crowd to please.
With the country retiring its homemade standard specifications, dubbed as WIPI (wireless Internet platform for interoperability), for data-enabled handsets starting in April, foreign electronics companies are aiming for a bigger slice of the Korean market.
However, early results are under-whelming.
SK Telecom sold about 2,000 Blackberry 9000 Bolds, a highly-anticipated smart phone by Canada's Research In Motion (RIM), since its domestic release last December, clearly a disappointing number as the wireless carrier has been expecting a better response from business users.
And although SK Telecom refuses to give exact numbers, its daily sales of the Touch Diamond touch-screen phones, produced by Taiwanese maker HTC, are known to remain in the lower double-digits.
KTF, the No.2 wireless operator, began providing Nokia's 6210 Navigator phone from earlier this month. However, with local regulations regarding the export of digital maps forcing Nokia to exclude the key location-based service applications on the handsets, the consumer response has been timid.
``Foreign handsets makers should be well prepared before coming here as Korean users are proving to be harsh judges, and Nokia would certainly know this from its previous experience here,'' said an industry official.
``You can't make too many mistakes, and Sony-Ericsson can't make any excuses for its keyboard blunder, which can only be explained by poor readiness.''
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
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