I went to the SonyStyle Store in NYC yesterday.
I’m very curious about the Sony Xperia T2 Ultra that Best Buy is selling for US$249 (note that the website price of US$299 is incorrect).
But all they have are dummy units. I really wanted to experience that TriLuminous screen.
So, to their store.
It was a miserable experience.
I go into an Apple Store dressed as I am and I’m welcomed. All smiles and Hello.
I go into a Best Buy and I get the occasional, Do you need any help? But I’m left alone.
I go into SonyStyle and for god’s sake why don’t they just say they want to frisk me entering and leaving? I’m stared at like I’m a goddammed gangbanger!
Aside from that, it’s just a miserable store. It’s dark and badly designed.
And worse: No Xperia T2 Ultra to fondle.
Their excuse?
It’s been discontinued.
Look, moron, I figure that. It was originally an outrageous US$500. You don’t drop the price by half without anyone not understanding you’re orphaning customers!
Discontinuance is no damned excuse for not having a live demo unit when it’s still being flogged at Best Buy. Do you want them to sell or not?
So I had to look at their other Xperia phones. Which in a time of big screens — like the iPhone 6 Plus — all Sony is offering are screens of 5.3-inches and below.
What the fuck?
What year is that company living in?
As for the vaunted TriLuminous screen …
First, is Sony’s wallpaper designer color blind? I’m not joking. When I see a Samsung tablet or phone screen, it’s so appealing and attractive that I nearly want to lick it. Samsung has an expert designer who knows what combination of gorgeous colors to use. Sony’s wallpapers look like puke. The colors are dull and sickly and repellent. Whoever is doing them should be fired. Hell, everyone who looks at them and OKs them for public display should be fired. Tasteless eejits.
Second, where’s the luminous in TriLuminous? The screens are not nearly as bright as Samsung’s. And there is something that screams “machine” about them too. They irritate my eyes. Whatever Sony-only technology is in these screens, they’re not breakthrough like the Trinitron was.
As for Sony’s phones: Too small. Anything below 5.5-inches just doesn’t interest me. Why did Sony dump the T2 Ultra and its six-inch screen? That’s madness! If they’d bumped-up the CPU from the Snapdragon 400, increased the RAM to 2GBs, and improved the camera, they’d be selling tons and tons of them for an unlocked price of US$300. Even with that not-so-luminous screen and sickly wallpapers.
As for Sony’s tablets: They’re so lightweight, they’re almost ethereal. But Sony is not right in the head. Thinking they can get US$500 for an eight-inch tablet? Yes, that’s the price they had on the Z3 Ultra. Please! I also tested the camera on it. Are they serious? Apple is now using the iPhone 6 camera in its ads. Sony couldn’t use their tablet camera as a selling point if the company’s life depended on it (which it actually does!).
As for the Xperia T2 Ultra? Although it’s more than double the price of the ZTE Zmax, what it has in its favor is the ability to be rooted, custom ROMs, AOSP Lollipop, and I like the dedicated camera button. The camera itself is no selling point, from posts I’ve read. But neither is the camera in the ZTE Zmax.
I’m still undecided about a cheap smartphone. I just know that time is on my side. Something better in the same price range will come along and the Sony and ZTE phones will be left behind.