Indeed. AOSP, SailfishX, easy to fetch some officially published repositories on GitHub, compact size devices (i.e. XZ2 Compact), decent tech specification and balanced "bloat" [1] on their smartphones is really compelling to me.

Sadly, competitors like Xiaomi (IMHO, one among the worst manufacturers [1]), Nokia HMD Global, Huawei, Samsung, Apple and many others do not give many opportunities to Sony Mobile be profitable business. I wish they will improve marketing and sales channel.

[1] Annoying telemetry that you cannot opt-out and does not care if your Internet uses mobile data or Wi-Fi. Ridiculous permission requirements for apps, i.e. Weather requires permission to make a phone call (https://en.miui.com/thread-1851703-1-1.html) and Calendar to send SMS messages.

You should absolutely never run a phone with MIUI, or any other similar OS which you have absolutely no idea what it's doing under your nose. First thing you should do is wipe it and install Lineage.

> any other similar OS which you have absolutely no idea what it's doing under your nose

This seems to be most OSes, sadly :(

Xiaomi has Android One models with Google software. Though I’m not sure that they don’t bundle some malware there.

I have A1 (Android One phone), if there is malware, they hide it well. There is no obvious MIUI stuff

The thing about their Android One offering is that they don't bring their A game hardware-wise, they don't really advertise them, and it's confusing to find them in their other phones.

Here's some context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19452806 I'm not sure if it's a bad software, but there was some packages that I have no idea about, definitely not from Google.

Installing AOSP wipes some DRM keys and bricks camera on some models. Also effectively voids warranty.

Not since the Pie updates.

Perhaps for the OS, but from a photography point of view not at all. The Xperia’s do not fully support the camera2 api, and none support camera raw. I cannot understand why Sony would choose to do this on a camera centric phone. Bulletin boards are full of people who came to this realization after purchasing phones and begging for raw support.

> The Xperia’s do not fully support the camera2 api, and none support camera raw.

Actually on AOSP (the version Sony releases), they all support both of those things.

That makes the lack of support in the stock ROMs doubly bizarre.

It's because they use completely different camera stacks. Stock has DRM-protected enhancements but minimal Camera2 support and no raw while AOSP has no enhancements but full API and raw support.

Sony is well known for avoiding cannibalization of other divisions to the point of shooting itself in the foot. E.g. the PS4 doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive because Sony also sells Blu-Ray players at roughly the same cost at the PS4 (keep in mind the business model for the PS4 is to sell at a loss and claw back profits on the games)

The XBox pays royalties for it's blu-ray drive - and a significant sum goes to Sony who it part of the Blu-Ray consortium, go figure!

PS4 has a blu ray drive, and will play standard blu ray movies. What they didn't do is support 4k blu ray in the newer PS4 Pro. Unclear why they made the choice, could be cannibalization, could be cost cutting.

I stand corrected. That said, I do remember that while the OG PS4 shipped with the Blu-Ray hardware, the PS4 would not play the Blu-Ray format. I guess at some point they started shipping a software update to support the format.

Maybe it couldn’t for a week or two. It launched early November right? This article is from mid November saying it’s possible with the firmware update. https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=12614

BluRay playback was enabled in the Day One patch, which also basically contained the rest of the OS. The hardware was shipped as a brick, essentially, and the Day One patch was mandatory.

There was really no period of time where it couldn’t play movies. OP is misremembering facts to fit a conclusion they they’re reasoning backwards from.

I think you're misremembering things. PS4 was able to play blu-ray films from its day 1.

The ps4 definitely has a blu ray drive, not sure where you got the impression it doesn’t?

PS4 has a bluray drive since day one.

Forgive me, you are right, it does now. When it shipped it did not support Blu-Ray for the reasons mentioned above.

This is still completely incorrect. It obviously shipped with BluRay from the beginning, as all PS4 games are distributed on BluRay disc. Further, launch reviews mention not only the slot-loading BluRay drive but the day one patch enabling movie playback:

https://www.engadget.com/2013/11/14/sony-playstation-4-revie...

There are also launch contemporary reviews of the movie playback experience on the PS4:

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=12614

PS4 supported Blu-ray from day one. You just needed to get a free software update.

https://www.quora.com/Can-a-PS4-play-DVD-or-blu-ray-disc

They were in the middle of fixing that before this however: https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/sony-xperia-phones-final...

Yeah, their stuff was more open from the Ericsson lineage. My first phone was a SE t68i, my last Sony Ericsson was the Arc. Then I went through a bunch of Sony android phones.

In the US they were fucking garbage. I went through 3 replacements with a Xperia Z5 some years back that kept burning through the screen.

My Z3 had the glass on the back crack, and no repair shop could adequately glue the thing back onto the phone. So I converted it to stationary use. It eventually died after I used it as a AP wedged into a window, and water got inside.

Sony has one incompetent repair center in the US. Turnaround time averaged around 40 days, a time in which we'd need to contact Sony to keep moving the process forward. This was my experience with the Z series right on back to my old featurephone K-series in the mid-2000's

Good riddens, I won't miss them.

I had two water damages with my Z5 Compact that were arguably my fault. Got it replaced both times by a new phone at the Sony Center in Berlin.

That's awesome that they are so great in the Fatherland where you have strong consumer protection laws. As they are not legally required to do that in the US, the message is more like: "It's your fault for having problems, fuck you"

The screens on front also spontaneously crack, all the time. My first phone, I thought it was a fluke, so I bought another. Then I had to RMA it. Then I stopped buying Sony.

Yeah seriously, my issue isn't that the phones failed. My issue is that the company has a terrible repair center and leaves you over a month without a phone to use. Then when it's an obvious engineering defect, they don't offer a replacement to a model without the issue (or a refund)

I've been lucky (for someone that buys phone direct) that I usually have a backup and a backup for the backup. Many don't have that luxury. I remember I had a Xperia Neo V cook the 3G portion of the radio and get denied for replacement under warranty (corrosion). All this leaves a terrible taste in my mouth.

To contrast, my Phillips 43" monitor had the screen go (backlight mura), it's a comparable $600 device. Know what they do? Advance replacement, I had a new panel in 2 days and could ship back the defective. Sony could do this, but they don't. Since they lack local repair centers you're just left without a working device.

Years back I had a friend with a 40gb ipod photo. It kept failing on him, Apple would replace. Eventually on the 3rd time they upgraded him to a 60gb ipod video, at no cost. He never experienced another failure. To date, he is still an Apple customer, still upgrades to their new devices every couple years. Sony doesn't even try in the US.

Off topic but I just wanna say, oh man the T68 and especially the later T618, one of the most beautiful phones of all time. Apparently sold tons as well.

I still have my T68, I used it for many years after it's phone lifetime as a bluetooth remote for my audio system.

Out of ones I owned with the best aesthetics... the Nokia N9. No other phone matched OS to hardware as well. Mine died, else I'd probably still use it as a desk clock. It inspired the design of the entire later Lumia line.