If there is one thing that is really interesting about the new age of app and game development, it in how much room for experimentation there is.

Before, game developers could not afford to just play around while making games. There are plenty of game producers who had great ideas, but innovation was stifled by high productions costs. During a time when game distribution was limited solely to actually producing floppy disk/CD installers, there was no room for making games that were not certified to make a profit –and even then, there were plenty of games that still flopped.

However, the emergence of the internet, better data transfer speeds and impressive hardware on smart phones have encouraged the growth of a new industry; the app market. Apple and Google are benefitting a lot from this business model, and many small companies are poised to earn plenty by coming up with plenty of downloadable games –thanks to the internet and smart phones, micro-transactions has become the lifeblood of many development companies and individual developers.

Now, developers are able to create games that are more than just money-making programs, there are plenty of developers who are trying out genres that could not be delved into before and surprisingly; there is also money to be made with simple artistic games.

While the hardcore gaming market has also been a strong influence for the demand for the creation of games with artistic value or genuine depth, it is the app markets on smart phones that have provided the financial foundation for this new era of artistic mini-games.

This development has also become a stepping stone for many small game companies. Thanks to app markets, developers can now have their works made and noticed –and some of the best success stories end with tie ups with major developers such as Sony.

Ah, self-made promotional videos, is there a branch of film that deserves to die a more horrific, painful death? Short answer: no. Short reasoning behind proposed violence: the video below for the Sony Ericsson Jalou.

Look at it… just look. Does the world get any more patronising? Are metaphors ever so brutally disgusting. Is the complete absence of anything, absolutely anything at all redeeming really possible.

There is, in fact, so little subtlety, so little depth to this thing, that there can actually only be one intended outcome, one hoped for response from the viewers of said video. The conversation would have gone something like this, in fact:

Slimy Sony Ericsson Suit: So, what we want, what we need the consumer out-take here to be, is, you know, success, fashion, style, you know, high fashion. We want our demographic to walk away from this thinking, ‘that’s it, I want to be that stylish, that’s how I envisage myself in a perfect world: as a successful model, with successful model friends (although they’re not quite as successful as me), living on a rollercoaster of beaches and bars.’ And we want them to realise that they can have this life, they can tap into is by purchasing the Sony Ericsson Jalou

Director: I like, make pictures. Picture films with the ladies with the nice parts. Pretty ladies with no clothes.

Suit: Quite, yes, well, we know your reputation. However for this film the ladies must be clothed. Not that much, mind, but with their, well, you know, parts – as it were – at least mostly – covered.

Director: Okay, yes please. I sign now where? And you tell judge I good man in next week trial?

Etc and so on and so forth. See? Do you see now?

Hopefully that cleared it all up. If you actually want to know anything about the phone (idiot!) then have a little gander at this Sony Ericsson Jalou review. It’s not as bad, to be fair, as the video suggests. But then, unless the phone actually commits hate crimes and massacres after you purchase it, it couldn’t really be quite as bad as the video suggests.

Sony Ericsson have always annoyed us and pleased us in equal measure. But with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X3, it looks like they’re heading towards pleasing us more than annoying. Which, well, makes us happy.

For so long they’ve created phones that are really great in some or even most areas, but that have been crippled by annoying quirks that we just haven’t been able to forgive them for. A phone of there’s might have a fantastic music player, for example, but then it’d have no 3.5mm jack socket and you’d have to use and/or buy Sony-specific headphones. Or another model might have a superb, high-mega-pixel camera, but then you’d have to buy Sony Ericsson memory cards (at a far higher cost than the industry-standard microSD cards). Not so, in both cases, for the Sony Ericsson xperia X3. Quite why it took them so long to realise that it’s a good idea to allow the use of the kind of technologies the rest of the industry is happy to support is beyond us. Actually, it’s not: is what simply about them being greedy and wanting more profit for themselves, but let’s not hold that against them.

Oh, and did we mentioned that the X3 is a Google Android phone… well, it is. And if you follow this blog regularly you’ll know how happy that makes us. So, all looks good for this little beauty, as is expanded on in this Sony Ericsson Xperia X3 review. The sad thing is it’s not due out for a few months yet, but you can still have a look at these Sony Ericsson Xperia X3 deals in the meantime, or take a sneak peek at what the UI is going to look like.

We are very perceptive, if we do say so ourselves. Which we do. Because we are. And we have perceived something, in the official press release for the Sony Ericsson T715, that might not actually be there. But then again, it might be. And we think it is. Some background: the Sony Ericsson T715 is an entry-level 3G phone. That is, it’s cheap, but it’s got some mod cons. And will, because of these facts, be aimed at places where people don’t have as much money as us lucky folk in the so-called developed world. Sony Ericsson doesn’t quite say that explicitly, but it’s true. And, knowing this, read this:

“Building on our current 3G portfolio, the T715 allows us to bring 3G mobile phones to even more markets giving them high speed internet access wherever they are.”

Now, here’s the perceptive bit: the sentence at first seems to be talking about markets: we, the almighty Sony Ericsson, are bringing the almighty T715 to markets. But but but – then it shifts to talking about ‘them’ and ‘they’ in terms of high speed internet access. And this ‘them’ and ‘they’ is meant to mean the people of these markets, rather than the markets themselves. So not only is this quote ungrammatical, it’s also slightly, well, dismissive of this ‘them’. Right? It all just smacks a little bit too much of Christian missionaries spreading the Word to the dark continent. Anyway. There we have it. A little bit of perception for you. How did you like that?

Want even more perceptivity? Read this Sony Ericsson T715 review. Want even more shiny flashy Believe in Us type nonsense? Then watch the inane marketing video below.

Two phones have gone under our noses recently, both of which raised more than a little wrinkled of, if not quite disgust, then certainly a little annoyance. First up was the Samsung Pixon 12, with it’s from-the-rooftops shouting about its having, well, 12 megapixels onboard. So what! we shouted back, you’re still not a camera, never will be, so there. Then we had the Aino, from Sony Ericsson. Which, while impressive in many respects, was pretty much a daft buy unless you owned a PS3. So, what about the Sony Ericsson Satio? Does it claim to be something it’s not? Nope. Does it pander to a small and smug portion of the population exclusively? Not a bit of it.

So, what does it do, and how does it do them? Well, the short answer is: a lot of things, very well. (Read this Sony Ericsson Satio review for the long answer!). That’s because the Satio is very cleverly being positioned as a phone that excels at ‘visual communication.’ A-ha! you say, I like watching videos on the way to work, therefore this phone is definitely for me. Or, wahoo! you scream, I like surfing the internet and using things like Flash while I’m doing so, this will be exactly what I need.

And that’s where Sony Ericssion have got it so right with the Sony Ericsson Satio. Because, to look at the thing (have a peek at the video below) you’d be very much forgiven for thinking, oh, it looks just like a camera, it must be primarily a cameraphone. And with the pretty damn good camera onboard, it is a fantastic cameraphone. But it is also a fantastic music player, video recorder, email checker, media downloader and… well, it does just about everything it attempts more or less spot on. So we’re all for the Sony Ericsson Satio, and we have a sneaking suspicion you will be too.

• 3G
• WiFi
• 8MP camera
• Very decent battery time

…start as you mean to go on is something our gran always told us, and seeing as how the only way we’ve been able to get our head around the sheer number of things the Sony Ericsson Aino’s promising is to listulate it (that means to make into a list, obviously), we thought we’d do just that. Anyway, the more vital list runs as follows:

• Remote Play – Basically, Remote Play gives you access to all your PS3’s media content on your Aino. Whether at home and linked in to your usual network, or anywhere else in the world where you can get a decent internet connection, you can access all that stored PS3 goodness in an instant
• PlayTVservice – Again, a PS3-owners one. You’ll know that you can watch certain free TV channels on it , but now with the Aino you can watch these channels on the phone itself, just by hooking up via the internet. Impressive
• Media Go – A simple way of controlling (i.e. watching / playing / transferring) all the media files on home computer using the Aino itself as a kind of funky little remote control
• Media Home – a means of Synchronising your PC with your phone to make sure you’ve everything you want with you, wherever you go.

The Sony Ericsson Aino, then is about as media-tastic as it gets. And luckily, as that first list at the top suggests, it ticks all the other boxes you might want ticking too. Keep an eye out, but this should be released sometime in the autumn. In the meantime, check out the teaser of a video below, or just have a look at this Sony Ericsson Aino review.

Sony Ericsson seems to be doing pretty well in the looks department as far as mobile phones are concerned. The announcement of the Sony Ericsson Aino marks yet another handset that is destined to become a firm favourite with Son Ericsson lovers everywhere.
So what is so special about the Sony Ericsson Aino? Well it seems that Sony are keen to create a phone that will work alongside its PS3 console. The Aino does just that, allowing users to control their PS3 remotely using their mobile device. So is this the rumoured PSP phone? Sadly not, although it will allow users to interact with their PS3 when they are not in the room. The only feature that I have found so far is the ability to turn your PS3 on or off, but I am sure that plenty more features will be announced in due course.
But what is you can’t wait for this handset to be released? Then we suggest you try one of the Sony Ericsson W995 deals that are available to consumers right now. Okay it won’t turn your PS3 on or off, but you do get an impressive 8.1 megapixel camera and all those great walkman features that we have come to know and love from Sony Ericsson.
Why not check out some of the latest mobile phone contracts at Moby1 today and see how much of a saving you could make?

Yawn…. Another handset trying to grab market share by adding a better camera. I don’t know if it’s just me, but bolting on more megapixels onto an old model doesn’t really do it for me. Yet that is exactly what Samsung have done with their “all new” Samsung Pixon 12. It seems that in a bid to increase market share, Samsung is releasing the Sony Ericsson Satio which is expected to be released later this year. Overall both handsets promise to offer great image quality, but is there really much more room for increased pixel quality images on your mobile phone. I feel that we should now be looking beyond purely just megapixels. We should be looking at optical zoom, new filters, better flash quality and more besides. 12 megapixels is great, but without a high quality lens, you will not see a marked difference image quality. I have mentioned before in other posts that we may not be far off a truly universal device that will allow users to leave their digital camera at home and just take a phone out with them. However if handset manufacturers are determined to simply increase the resolution on their handsets and not offer other features, it may take us a little longer to achieve this. So can we say that 12 megapixels is going to be the highest spec? I very much doubt it!

Sony Ericsson announced the addition of a new member to its Walkman series, the W395. Just like its sister models within the Walkman collection, the W395 also comes complete with the ultimate music experience. Sony Ericsson has yet again given utmost priority to the youth and developed a mobile phone that connects communication as well as entertainment.
Giving the best of media experience and making music the center of it, the all new W395 sports an awesome sound system with high quality stereo speakers and its own HPM-64 headset. The specifically assigned music player keys make maneuvering up and down your menu quite easy. Further the TrackID service helps you to identify the song names you don’t know. You can also easily switch over to the FM radio from the music player.
According to the The offical press release it carries a 2 inches touch-sensitive, scratch resistant screen which can display 256k colors and looks quite funky and trendy making it attractive to the young crowds. Users can get it in either Dusky Gray or Blush Titanium colors. It also supports a 2.0megapixel camera and 10MB of internal data storage capacity with the ability to increase it with microSD slot. You get a 1GB memory card along with the phone. You can get access to GPRS, EDGE and HSCSD networks and use 2.0 Bluetooth to transfer files to other mobile devices. The battery is Li-Ion with standby time of 48hrs & talk time of 8hrs.
W395 is expected to reach the markets in the 1st quarter of 2009. If you’re planning on buying this phone, you’d be happy to know that now there are Sony Ericsson W395 Walkman deals available now. You have to check out the various offers made by the UK service providers and select the best Sony Ericsson W395 Walkman deal that suites your needs. Further, if you don’t have enough cash to pay the amount lump sum, you can choose a Sony Ericsson W395 Walkman contract where the value of the phone is spreaded over a period of time. If you’re one of those loyal Sony Ericsson user, you can even check out some other Sony Ericsson phones that are available on contract at the moment.

For network specific deals, follow the links below:

Sony Ericsson W395 on Orange
Sony Ericsson W395 on O2
Sony Ericsson W395 on T-Mobile
Sony Ericsson W395 on Vodafone
Sony Ericsson W395 on 3 Mobile
Sony Ericsson W395 on Virgin

The Sony Ericsson Idou, though it did face a bit of competition from the Samsung OmniaHD, seems to have come out trumps during the MWC 2009 mainly due to the magnificent 12 MPIX camera. Let’s have a deeper look at it.

Though the Idou which was shown at the MWC 2009 was just a prototype (meaning it’s not the final version), it did have enough to get a lot of people excited.
The new interface of the Sony Ericsson Idouis something that is bound to wow people considering that it’s the first time that SE have gone away from their boring old UI.

The slickness of the touch UI on the 640×360 3.5 inch screen is what grabs most attention, having no lag when switching between apps. Since it’s just a prototype, it makes it all the more interesting. Contacts can be customized in such a way that favorites come first. The homescreen has a media player plug in so that the music player or the video player can be accessed with a single touch.

The phone has an M2 memory card for expansion, and also makes use of the new SE features set i.e. the PlayNow Arena and the MediaGo software which enables the user to sync easily with a device on the home server. Sony Ericsson is really stretching the limits and competing with the likes of PS3s and the Bravias, but it will also be compatible with any DLNA-enabled server. The Telegraph has a point when saying that the phone does spell the doom of the digital camera with a whooping 12 MPIX camera.

The Idou is expected to make its appearance in the spring, although it should not be counted on as the Xperia launched nearly 1 year after being announced.

Once it does come, you should look for some good mobile phone deals so that you will get the Idou at a great price.

For network specific deals, follow the links below:
Sony Ericsson Idou on Orange
Sony Ericsson Idou on O2
Sony Ericsson Idou on T-Mobile
Sony Ericsson Idou on Vodafone
Sony Ericsson Idou on 3 Mobile
Sony Ericsson Idou on Virgin