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 would instantly buy an Xperia Play 2 at any price.

We already have a Korean mega-conglomerate.

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

how work with tariffs?

Are you talking about the scandal from 20 years ago, or something new?

The old one, for sure

What tariffs? Non American phones have no tariffs.

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.

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.

Oh right, 20 years ago

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.

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.

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.

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.

I didn't know about their AOSP contributions, cheers!

Agree on the kernel anti cheat, but those games always seemed unsatisfying, personally

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 Pro

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.

I 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.