Party Vibe

The 3210 and 3310 are similar looking and easily confused with one another. Having used a lot of mobile kit even ETACS analogue mobiles, I found that originally Nokia and Ericsson GSM equipment was the most solid and reliable; but both companies went tits up because they ran their business models on people constantly upgrading and wanting more features, and the real reason that stuff was reliable is they still had the government run PTT in many countries and no manufacturer could sell any sort of telecoms kit until it has been approved and part of that was ensuring that it worked. Nokia and Ericsson also had a proven track record in building communications radios for the civillian and military uniformed services.

But all these companies (and Sony) were going downhill by 1999 or so, Sony would sell professional kit like a €40 000 VCR used for TV studios and that software had bugs in it, and they wouldn’t support other system integrators (who had to make equipment to control it).

TBH I find all modern smartphones to be less reliable than their predecessors; although I managed to obtain a “rugged Android phone” as I invariably end up dropping any mobile phone on the floor of the comms room at least once it does not have a great deal of memory and too many apps are memory hogs; its camera is also very basic. It also seems harder to make a telephone call with the damn thing (i rarely use SMS as I always found it fiddly) – I often end up dialling a wrong number, though it is to be fair robust and has a strong loudspeaker (as it is often used for checking that a telephone exchange works correctly); and dual SIM capability means it will work when you get network blackspots on one network.

I still prefer to use a separate device for listening to music or taking photos; these are now small enough to be portable as well as the phone and work better.

@Gylfi Sigurðsson 561913 wrote:

My mission will take a long time, possibly 2-5 years, but I’ve become SO angry with Sony, I’m putting great thought in to asking a friend of mine who works for some very very nasty people to ruin Sony UK’s image.

they’ve already wrecked their own over the last 20 years.

Although their stand alone video cameras and hi fi separates are OK (although made by what was Aiwa in Malaysia) those are tried and tested technology. So were the Ericsson mobile phones. All that exists of Sony UK is one factory in Wales when they used to have loads of others and the bulk of their European research centres were closed in 2008. The parent company is always giving out profit warnings as they have tried to charge a premium price for a product which has many promised features but does not always work as expected. Unfortunately nearly all high tech companies do this nowadays. I normally wait 1/2 years before buying any “new” technology as the first customers are always used by companies as unpaid testers. TBH as I don’t use my phone for playing computer games and very rarely listening to music (its most often used as an online dictionary for looking up words in other languages) the cheap Android phone I purchased from a supplier of electronic components seems to be no worse than the ones from big brand names.

What I do find worrying is how quickly all gadgets are made obsolete and support stopped, and there is no longer any company you can trust to consistently deliver a reliable product. Most likely due to the excessive use of freelance staff and “startups” instead of the big companies like Phillips / Sony etc and/or the PTT investing in training for young workers. It may mean things got delivered a bit slower but they were more likely to work or at least get fixed when there were problems.