Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 delayed for a year?
Is Sony Ericsson at it again?
I mean, will it be delaying their newly announced Xperia X1 handset beyond any reasonable amount of time?
SEMC Blog, which claims to have received the table with the release dates of the current Sony Ericsson phone line-up, thinks so.
According to the data in that table, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is scheduled to start shipping only on Feb 10, 2009 - full year after it’s announcement:
|
Name: |
Announcement: |
Release: |
Expire: |
|
X1 |
10/2/2008 |
10/2/2009 |
10/2/2013 |
|
R300 |
24/01/2008 |
29/09/2008 |
29/09/2011 |
|
R306 |
24/01/2008 |
21/07/2008 |
24/01/2011 |
|
W980i |
10/2/2008 |
14/07/2008 |
14/07/2011 |
|
T280i |
24/01/2008 |
2/6/2008 |
24/01/2011 |
|
T270i |
24/01/2008 |
2/6/2008 |
24/01/2011 |
|
C902 |
10/2/2008 |
26/05/2008 |
26/05/2011 |
|
C702 |
10/2/2008 |
26/05/2008 |
26/05/2011 |
|
W760i |
7/1/2008 |
26/05/2008 |
26/05/2011 |
|
G700 |
10/2/2008 |
26/05/2008 |
26/05/2011 |
|
G900 |
10/2/2008 |
26/05/2008 |
26/05/2011 |
|
W350i |
7/1/2008 |
5/5/2008 |
5/5/2011 |
|
Z555i |
7/1/2008 |
24/03/2008 |
24/03/2011 |
|
Z770i |
10/2/2008 |
17/03/2008 |
17/03/2011 |
|
W380i |
6/11/2007 |
3/3/2008 |
3/3/2011 |
|
K660i |
6/11/2007 |
25/02/2008 |
25/02/2011 |
|
W890i |
14/06/2007 |
25/02/2008 |
25/02/2011 |
|
W580im |
28/01/2008 |
28/01/2008 |
28/01/2011 |
Speculation is already starting around the net, about the reasons behind the delay, with fingers pointing to Microsoft and the delay with the shipment of their Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.
So how credible is this info?
While the release dates for the most handsets in the table look legit, I have some serious doubts about the SE Xperia X1 bit. There are several reasons for this.
- Sony Ericsson X1 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. And while WM 6.1 planned launch at Mobile World Congress in February was postponed, it won’t be delayed for long. It will be announced at CTIA in April. Windows Mobile 6.1 has been completed in January and has already been shipped to at least some cellphone OEMs. I’m preatty sure HTC was one of them.
- SE Xperia X1 will be manufactured by HTC, and (HTC Shift experience notwithstanding), has a pretty solid track record of getting mobile devices to the market. And it certainly won’t risk it’s new relationship with Sony Ericsson by by significantly delaying the shipments of a SE’s flagship handset.
- Xperia X1 phone has been developed by the team behind Sony Ericsson feature phones, which, contrary to the department behind SE Smartphones, also has a pretty good record of getting the new phones shipped.
So, IMHO, a full year’s delay for SE Xperia X1 is very unlikely.
On the other hand, who knows?
As history with both SE smartphones and HTC Shift shows, delays do happen sometimes. Let’s just hope that XPERIA X1 is not such case.
Add Your Comments
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Well, X1 was since the very beginning announced as a phone to be launched at the fourth quater of 2008. So a couple of months of delay because of a couple of months of dealy of WM 6.1 seems reasonable.
I think that the early announcement of X1 had several reasons. First. SE needed something to give to the people to talk about. Let’s be honest, the currently announced models aren’t any surprise and very few of them are actually worth mentioning. So they needed some buzz.
Second reason is that SE knows, that UIQ3 is really outdated and not a very modern user interface. Again, they needed to show their customers that they have something better coming for them. There won’t be a new version of UIQ this year, contrary to Nokia S60 touch UI.
And the third reason is that SE wants to give more support to their e-mail capable phones. X1 is a flagship, but even other lower models you can now find Exchange support. So the X1 is for the top management while Z770 is for the other employees…
I agree, that in the end, few months delay may not matter much.
Still, there’s a Christmas season in between, and quite a few new and exciting phones will be coming out in the meantime.
S60 Touch, Android, iPhone 3G, I’m sure HTC will have something really interesting with WM 6.1 by the time.
So what sounds new, powerful and really exciting for Q3/Q4 2008, may be a rather boring proposition by Feb. 2009.
Especially since this is the time next years MWC will be generating the buzz about the new generation of handsets.
And buzz for the sake of buzz, without a product available, won’t help much with market share or bottomline. And may even hurt it.