Sony Ericsson "divorce" is good news

BigRonW

I'm a longstanding "3" customer, and for years waited until my contract came to an end, went into their shop, picked a "free" upgrade phone, rolled the contract over into a new one and went on my way rejoicing. No longer. Alas the cost of the best new phones has risen dramtically; obviously the carrier has to make enough money from the contract to pay for the phone... so when I picked the new Samsung Galaxy, I was slightly surprised when the sales assistant said "That'll be £129 as an 'upfront' payment". I backpedaled frantically. Certainly, with a new phone in my pocket, I could sell the "old" one on EBay and raise most of the £129... but I already had plans for the income from selling the old phone: buying a new 7" Android tablet!

I noted with interest that Sony's very recently released new phones - the "Xperia" range have now dropped the word "Ericsson" from the brand and in my view (bear in mind I'm a retired phone techie) the new models' lack of a replaceable battery OR memory expansion through microSD cards kind of misses the point of what Android's about. Given the choice between the very latest model and the one released late last year (the "Xperia Arc S").... I'd chose last year's model. It's a hell of a good phone! But, it does feature that word "Ericsson" - advertising that it's NOT the absolutely LATEST model. But on the other hand... it's available on a £22 pcm contract with absolutely no additional payment.

It's curious.The Sony Ericsson is an ANDROID phone. Paying WAY over the odds for something that's clearly not worth the additional cost.... isn't that the hallmark of an Apple and/or iPhone user?!