I just want an Xperia Play 2. Make it a foldable this time around—and as thin as a Samsung Fold 7 (with screens just as large)—and I’m completely sold.
The original was an excellent idea squandered. Had Sony continued to invest in the idea, I could see future Play phones not only being a proper followup to the Vita we never had, but also a major competitor to the Steam Deck.
Come on Sony, be innovative again like you used to. Give me what I want, no, what I need.
Sony has generally made awesome stuff. The number of groundbreaking concepts or tech is incredible, although they have been outputting less “wow stuff” lately. I get the impression that their marketing sucks balls lately.
Lately? Everything from rollout, branding, naming suuucks with Sony. Consistently. Their most recent phone is Sony Xperia Z VI. Their most recent headphones are WH-1000XM6. Wtf fuck. Their competition is Pixel 9, iphone 16, air pods pro, etc. …doing things differently could be done better.
They are a poorly run great company. They make genuinely gpod tech but every business decision is poor.
As an exampl, Sony own a lot of music, like a huge amount of through their labels. The could have made Walkman a streaming service to rival spotify and Apple and stuck it on every Xperia phone for a year for free and got market share. They just suck at getting it out there. They could have been the company to fill the luxury android spot to rival iphone.
Sony got big enough to see themselves become the villain. They’re no longer the plucky company pushing technology forward by releasing off the wall or risky products that become groundbreaking. Rather, now they’re the highly conservative greedy assholes who are always last to market with anything, are obsessed with trying to make their version of everything proprietary (cables, memory cards, batteries, software…), try to install rootkits on your computer if you want to listen to music, and sue people for watching a Youtube video.
Sony deserves to crash and burn, so any talented employees they may have left can be released from the shackles of lifetime employment at a massive Japanese conglomerate and freed to work somewhere where they might be able to make some positive contribution to society again.
Fuck Sony. Never give Sony a single red cent.
Yeah, but after the rootkit fiasco, would you really want to?
Its a real shame the handset market is completely fucked and void of creativity
The scandal from 20 years ago, instigated if I recall correctly by a CD manufacturer ran by BMG (that Sony had a 50% stake in)? Sony-BMG hasn’t existed in almost 2 decades dude.
Additionally, Sony Mobile is pretty open source friendly. Despite them being a tiny player in the smartphone market, they’ve contributed more to AOSP than any corporation outside of Google. They allow bootloader unlocks, they do prompt releases of kernel source code, and they even release bootable AOSP ROMS for their devices.
I won’t certainly excuse the rootkit scandal that Sony was semi involved in, but it’s crazy that people still clutch pearls about it 20 years later, while simultaneously happily signing into Steam and downloading games with kernel-level anticheat.
Are you talking about the scandal from 20 years ago, or something new?
Oh right, 20 years ago 👴
The old one, for sure
I would instantly buy an Xperia Play 2 at any price.
Need more non-American companies making top of the line phones!
how work with tariffs?
What tariffs? Non American phones have no tariffs.
We already have a Korean mega-conglomerate.
Most phones are Japanese, Korean, or Chinese.
All the good phones are dying. I still quite enjoy my 1 IV, and honestly the Xperia line would probably be my choice in a couple years when I am ready to upgrade if they are selling them in the US at that point.
I’m hoping Fairphone gets US support at some point because they seem like the best option.
It really feels like design peaked a decade ago. Headphone jacks, micro SD card slot, removable batteries, front-facing speakers. Everything good has been removed and the phones are 5x more expensive. The few phones left with some of those features are the cheap weak models for people who only use their phones to call and text.
My favourite phone was an xperia, they are poorly marketed, overpriced and thebmost recent iterations are sub par in terms of components. It is so disappointing.
You’ll have to go through Murena for the Fairphone 4. More details on my comment here about US coverage.
Taking the opportunity to shill for Sailfish OS, which supports various Xperias.
My daily driver since 2020.
edit: only a few select models. Don’t get your hopes up.
Any idea what their support lifecycle is? Wondering how long they usually support a device.
The one I started with 5 years ago, the already venerable XA2, is still fully supported - since 2018.
As an Xperia 5 III user I’m feeling very left out
As an Xperia 1 iii user I am feeling very left out.
Owned an Xperia 5 III and liked it enough to replace it with a 5 IV. Miss having options for a compact flagship like the 5 IV or Zenfone 10. Headphone jack ftw.
Owned that phone as well but had to return it twice due to the pink stripe issue, otherwise I’d probably still use it to this day
More compact phones please!
I loved my old Xperia X when I bought it. The camera was amazing, the weird aspect ratio of the screen was comfortable to hold…
My current pixel is close but it’s still a big unit of a phone!
If only there were still US models, I would absolutely buy the VII. I love my IV but dropped it a few too many times and have some cracks and occasional weird screen issues because of it. The price point is pretty bonkers but I make enough to afford it and haven’t regretted what I spent on it at all.
I was about to pull the trigger on the VII, but it’s currently sold out with no end in sight other than importers. The price is what kept me back from updating to it, but clearly it didn’t stop enough people to keep it in stock.
They stopped selling them in NZ years ago, I have a grey market mk6 and it works fine here and in the US
I heard the VI works fine in the US but I guess not the VII? The Xperia subreddit seems to constantly recommend against it
Meh. I have a 10 VI. The phone is good, compact and great battery which is all I want. Except the software is bad. And it’s a software issues the hardware isn’t slow enough to explain why it takes a couple second everytime I unlock the phone before I can actually interact with the screen. Or lock the phone again.
Makes something like replying a simple “ok” to a message a chore. L
Their midrange phones were never good
OUCH. I had Z1 and what I liked about that phone was how buttery smooth it was
The SP was my first Xperia over a decade ago, I had several other phones since then, but now back to Xperia with the 5V, love it. And I’m still good for some years I think. So it’s nice the Xperia line still has a future. I just hope the price is not too premium…
I’m done buying them tho
