I just want an Xperia Play 2. Make it a foldable this time around—and as thin as a Samsung Fold 7 (with screens just as large, so it just looks and feels like a normal phone when closed)—and I’m completely sold.
The original was an excellent idea squandered. Had Sony continued to invest in the idea, I could see future Play phones not only being a proper followup to the Vita we never had, but also a major competitor to the Steam Deck (Edit: Switch 2 as well).
Come on Sony, be innovative again like you used to. Give me what I want, no, what I need.
No way. Apparently heads will explode if phones aren’t thin enough to act as a knife and perfect boxes…
Seriously though, that would be sick.
I think my dream phone is an Xperia play style slide out keyboard, instead of gamepad, and a “bulge” design like HTC used to do.
Sony has generally made awesome stuff. The number of groundbreaking concepts or tech is incredible, although they have been outputting less “wow stuff” lately. I get the impression that their marketing sucks balls lately.
Lately? Everything from rollout, branding, naming suuucks with Sony. Consistently. Their most recent phone is Sony Xperia Z VI. Their most recent headphones are WH-1000XM6. Wtf fuck. Their competition is Pixel 9, iphone 16, air pods pro, etc. …doing things differently could be done better.
They are a poorly run great company. They make genuinely gpod tech but every business decision is poor.
As an exampl, Sony own a lot of music, like a huge amount of through their labels. The could have made Walkman a streaming service to rival spotify and Apple and stuck it on every Xperia phone for a year for free and got market share. They just suck at getting it out there. They could have been the company to fill the luxury android spot to rival iphone.
Headphones have always had stupid names because no one ever knows what they’re called anyway. Meanwhile Xperia Z VI, well overly obese is exactly in line with all other phones.
iPhone 16 Pro.
Galaxy 18 ProI disagree that modern headphones have the same naming issues.
They have an unnecessary blast of letters and numbers in comparison to some others. Even though others have long names they are still better because it is somewhat natural in terms of Brand>Product Line> Current Product.
- Sony WF-1000XM5
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen)
- Technics EAH-AZ100
- Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4
- Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro
- Google Pixel Buds Pro 2
- Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC
- Nothing Ear (a)
Again with the phones, I was actually wrong. Sony used to use the letters to show their range and it was again unreasonable but we all recognised that Z was the flagship. Now they use Xperia as Brand then 1, 5 or 10 to show place in the range and then Roman numerals to show their iteration within the range.
Sony Xperia 1 VII which is spoken as “Sony Xperia One Seven” which creates an issue with current naming conventions to align with years so they appear 8 years behind the Samsung Galaxy S25.
Sony Should be selling the Xperia 25, 25 Pro and 25 Ultra or some variation or play on this. If they want to stand out fair enough but its not like they are.
Sony got big enough to see themselves become the villain. They’re no longer the plucky company pushing technology forward by releasing off the wall or risky products that become groundbreaking. Rather, now they’re the highly conservative greedy assholes who are always last to market with anything, are obsessed with trying to make their version of everything proprietary (cables, memory cards, batteries, software…), try to install rootkits on your computer if you want to listen to music, and sue people for watching a Youtube video.
Sony deserves to crash and burn, so any talented employees they may have left can be released from the shackles of lifetime employment at a massive Japanese conglomerate and freed to work somewhere where they might be able to make some positive contribution to society again.
Fuck Sony. Never give Sony a single red cent.
Need more non-American companies making top of the line phones!
We already have a Korean mega-conglomerate.
Most phones are Japanese, Korean, or Chinese.
how work with tariffs?
What tariffs? Non American phones have no tariffs.
All the good phones are dying. I still quite enjoy my 1 IV, and honestly the Xperia line would probably be my choice in a couple years when I am ready to upgrade if they are selling them in the US at that point.
I’m hoping Fairphone gets US support at some point because they seem like the best option.
It really feels like design peaked a decade ago. Headphone jacks, micro SD card slot, removable batteries, front-facing speakers. Everything good has been removed and the phones are 5x more expensive. The few phones left with some of those features are the cheap weak models for people who only use their phones to call and text.
My favourite phone was an xperia, they are poorly marketed, overpriced and thebmost recent iterations are sub par in terms of components. It is so disappointing.
You’ll have to go through Murena for the Fairphone 4. More details on my comment here about US coverage.
Yeah, but after the rootkit fiasco, would you really want to?
Its a real shame the handset market is completely fucked and void of creativity
A good chunk of the target market didn’t yet know what their own fingers were for 20 years ago, if they were alive at all. I don’t think that scandal has anything to do with their current market position.
The scandal from 20 years ago, instigated if I recall correctly by a CD manufacturer ran by BMG (that Sony had a 50% stake in)? Sony-BMG hasn’t existed in almost 2 decades dude.
Additionally, Sony Mobile is pretty open source friendly. Despite them being a tiny player in the smartphone market, they’ve contributed more to AOSP than any corporation outside of Google. They allow bootloader unlocks, they do prompt releases of kernel source code, and they even release bootable AOSP ROMS for their devices.
I won’t certainly excuse the rootkit scandal that Sony was semi involved in, but it’s crazy that people still clutch pearls about it 20 years later, while simultaneously happily signing into Steam and downloading games with kernel-level anticheat.
I agree with anti cheat in video games. 100% spyware designed as video games. I always install games like that on my PlayStation(lol)
However, the united states government did the Alabama Syphilis Experiment (that they like to refer to as the town it was in, Tuskegee so you think it was some far off place when you look at the name) and I straight up wouldn’t ever trust their ass again either. (Shit, MK Ultra, Agent Orange the verified list goes on and on)
Different situation for sure, but same energy. The lack of caring and lack of any repercussions cause these types of things to happen over and over again.
Sony definitely knew what was going on during that shit. They were pissed that you’d burn your friends CD and get to sell copies of it at school and shit.
And yes I do use a PlayStation only as a anti cheat gaming device and would never put any information into it I wouldn’t want 800+ companies to know about. They get hacked all the fucking time so I have a card that doesn’t even work as the payment method listed and just use gift cards.
Because I don’t trust them all the way. And that rootkit bullshit will always be why. You make it sound like they didn’t know. No sir, check out the wiki and all the bullshit covering up of it they tried to do.
I didn’t know about their AOSP contributions, cheers!
Agree on the kernel anti cheat, but those games always seemed unsatisfying, personally
Are you talking about the scandal from 20 years ago, or something new?
Oh right, 20 years ago 👴
The old one, for sure
Taking the opportunity to shill for Sailfish OS, which supports various Xperias.
My daily driver since 2020.
edit: only a few select models. Don’t get your hopes up.
As an Xperia 5 III user I’m feeling very left out
Any idea what their support lifecycle is? Wondering how long they usually support a device.
The one I started with 5 years ago, the already venerable XA2, is still fully supported - since 2018.
As an Xperia 1 iii user I am feeling very left out.
More compact phones please!
I would instantly buy an Xperia Play 2 at any price.
Oh don’t worry, with Sony’s history I’m sure it’ll be around $2500.
Exaggerating of course but they do tend to put the top premium dollar amount on all their phones. Even if other brands phones have better specs you can probably bet the Sony will be more expensive.
Owned an Xperia 5 III and liked it enough to replace it with a 5 IV. Miss having options for a compact flagship like the 5 IV or Zenfone 10. Headphone jack ftw.
Owned that phone as well but had to return it twice due to the pink stripe issue, otherwise I’d probably still use it to this day
I loved my old Xperia X when I bought it. The camera was amazing, the weird aspect ratio of the screen was comfortable to hold…
My current pixel is close but it’s still a big unit of a phone!
If only there were still US models, I would absolutely buy the VII. I love my IV but dropped it a few too many times and have some cracks and occasional weird screen issues because of it. The price point is pretty bonkers but I make enough to afford it and haven’t regretted what I spent on it at all.
I was about to pull the trigger on the VII, but it’s currently sold out with no end in sight other than importers. The price is what kept me back from updating to it, but clearly it didn’t stop enough people to keep it in stock.
They stopped selling them in NZ years ago, I have a grey market mk6 and it works fine here and in the US
I heard the VI works fine in the US but I guess not the VII? The Xperia subreddit seems to constantly recommend against it
Meh. I have a 10 VI. The phone is good, compact and great battery which is all I want. Except the software is bad. And it’s a software issues the hardware isn’t slow enough to explain why it takes a couple second everytime I unlock the phone before I can actually interact with the screen. Or lock the phone again.
Makes something like replying a simple “ok” to a message a chore. L
Their midrange phones were never good
OUCH. I had Z1 and what I liked about that phone was how buttery smooth it was
The SP was my first Xperia over a decade ago, I had several other phones since then, but now back to Xperia with the 5V, love it. And I’m still good for some years I think. So it’s nice the Xperia line still has a future. I just hope the price is not too premium…
I’m done buying them tho
