Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

It’s interesting to watch Sony Ericsson juggle the blame for its recent dive in profits. The company is essentially saying that it’s all The Economy’s fault, but that explanation doesn’t feel right to me. Is it really fair to blame the entire world for your company’s pathetic performance? Maybe that’s okay in a universe where your orchard-based competition isn’t posting record profits, but alas, we don’t live in that universe. The explanation lies elsewhere, and the logical place to look is within Sony Ericsson itself. Specifically, the products it offers to consumers.

This is all a roundabout way of asking Sony Ericsson: Who or what within your corporate infrastructure is responsible for this piece of shit?

Regular readers know how rare it is that I drop the S-bomb on this site. For those of you who are not regular readers, let me put this another way. The Sony Ericsson W518a is, without question, the worst electronic device I have ever had the displeasure of using. The W518a is a slick-looking piece of plastic whose inner workings were designed by the worst sort of corporate moron to be as absolutely wretched as possible.

I have never been a phone snob. A computer snob, somewhat, and a software snob, absolutely, but never really a phone snob. Give me a device that makes calls, sends text messages, functions as my alarm clock, and looks good, and I’m happy. I found my perfect match in the Motorola RAZR, until its accidental destruction in a vat of soapy, churning water. I replaced it with the W518a and almost instantly regretted it. Within three hours of purchasing it I had already made the decision to exchange it for something else.

For the benefit of Sony Ericsson’s QA division, I’ve compiled a list of phrases you do not want associated with your product:

• Regret
• Buyer’s remorse
• Hatred
• Oh sweet God Almighty get it off me

Now then. Let me explain to you why your quarterly results look so bad.

First, the name, or rather, the lack of one. “W518a” is not a name. In fact, the more I type it the more it sounds like the technical designation of a highly infectious virus. Naming your phones as if they’ve been designed on an assembly line (never mind that they obviously have) does not do much to inspire brand loyalty. Give your products actual names, even if the names are meaningless. The auto industry has been doing it for decades.

Stop forcing music player functions on me at every turn. All I wanted was a phone. I already have a music player. It’s called an iPod, and you are never going to be able to compete with it. You don’t have the software, you don’t have the hardware, and you don’t have the store. That’s a steep set of hills to climb, and you just don’t have the equipment for it.

Second, if you’re going to stick a button on your phone that has only one function, you’d better be damn sure that everyone is going to be using it. Case in point: the hold and volume keys on the exterior of the phone. On the W518a, the volume keys will adjust the phone’s volume when it’s flipped open, but when closed they only adjust the volume of the music player (which, again, I am never going to use). On my old RAZR, the exterior volume keys could be used to quickly shift between Silent, Vibrate, and other ring modes. Likewise, the sole purpose of the hold switch is to activate or deactivate the exterior music player buttons. WHICH I AM NEVER GOING TO USE.

A central “soft button” surrounded by four directional keys has become standard on flip phones. These are five buttons whose functions can change depending on the user’s current needs. On most phones, the directional keys can act as four configurable shortcuts from the home screen to the user’s most-desired features (my standards were Address Book, Text Messaging, Alarm Clock, and for the hell of it, Sound Profiles). So you can imagine my rage when I realized that you made the Up button non-programmable and permanently locked onto your asinine MEdia Store. WHICH I WILL NEVER USE.

Then there’s your software, which looked and felt like a condemned house covered in a hasty paint job. I especially liked how within the the “Settings” menu there was a submenu called “Tools,” and within that, another submenu also called “Tools.” What gives? Do your software engineers have a thing for fractal jokes? Because that is a small audience, let me tell you. Oh, and for the life of me, I couldn’t find the menu item to transfer my contacts from the phone to the SIM card. I program psychophysical neuroscience experiments on a weekly basis, and I couldn’t navigate your menus. Go sit in the corner and think about what that means.

I love my iPhone, but the funny thing is, I didn’t set out two weeks ago wanting to buy one. The sheer crappiness of my options made the iPhone the only logical choice. I wanted a phone that could do the following:

1. Phone calls
2. Text messages
3. Alarm clocks

Why isn’t there a phone that performs this small set of functions really, really well? Give it a nice big screen, a solid, responsive keypad, and a simple but well-designed operating system. Make it slim, fashionable, and surprisingly sturdy, just like Madonna. Skip all this rebate nonsense and just slap a low price tag on it. I would have gladly bought this phone two weeks ago, if it had existed. I can’t possibly be the only person who feels this way.

I know what you’re thinking, Sony Ericsson. “It’ll never sell. It’ll never work.” Really, Sony Ericsson? Really? Is what you’re doing now working for you?