Sony Ericsson LIVE VIEW

Firstly credit where its due, this is a fantastic idea, and well done Sony for bringing the idea to market. If they got this right, this has the potential to be massive especially at this price point.

The hardware is in my opinion very well made, and actually looks good. The screen is okay and functional and the buttons feel solid. Can't complain on the hardware side other than battery life which is average at best (6-8 hours). Not great if you are using it as a watch!!

The software is quite frankly a disgrace. Its like they came up with the idea, got vey excited about it and then couldn't be bothered to finish it! To be quite honest when it actually works its pretty good, but this is a rarity. I agree with other reviews regarding connection problems. I use the HTC Desire HD and have to (try) and reconnect regularly. Very annoying.

The frustrating thing is that its such a cool gadget, and I really wanted this to work. I will be holding onto mine to see if it improves with updates over time, but it will most probably stay in my drawer until this time comes. In the mean time another company should step in, copy this idea, make it work and make a killing (HTC please are you listening), Sony will be kicking themselves.

I give this a generous 3 stars for the innovation and the potential, would love to come back and update with some positive news after updates. If your a gadget obsessive like me buy one to play with, otherwise forget it

I was very excited about this little gadget and thought that the Sony Ericsson brand and the cost of the device assured me of its quality. However I am actually very disappointed in it.

Firstly the screen, although AMOLED, really is quite poor. The resolution is low and the colours are all washed out. The strap that comes with it is a bit crude and when worn as a watch looks very unstylish.

Next and most importantly, connection; I succesfully connected to my HTC Desire HD but as another reviewer stated, it loses this connection - a lot - and it's not because I am too far away either. I can't stress how the process of reconnection is extremely frustrating and takes a lot of attempts. It defeats the entire purpose of this device. Now I know there have been issues with BT connectivity on my particular phone but I see other makes and models having similar problems with this gadget.

As for transferring of data, that seems to be fine once connected, but don't expect all features to work with non Ericsson phones. I could not use media player function and calendar reminder for example.

The user interface is a bit fiddly too and one feature to 'remote control' your phone to show the full version of an article you have on the LiveView, is hit and miss too.

Now obviously this is a new device with a lot of potential from developers to introduce their own plug-ins and software updates may eradicate some of these problems. But for now, I feel that it's too buggy to be useful and you are best waiting for it to be more established. It may be fine with SE phones but as it clearly states it is compatible with all Android phones, so I expect more reliability.

I followed this since it's announcement some months ago, it looked like Genius. A second screen you could wear as a watch which showed your text messages, RSS feeds, Facebook updates, Twitter messages and controlled your music as well - count me in!

Then I followed the progress and problems people were having with phones that were not Sony Ericsson - despite the fact that SE said they were supported by the device.

Bad reviews, but I thought I would give it a punt, not everyone was having problems.

After a day of playing with the device I have a dilemma - Genius or Junk.

I am sorry to say, that whilst the IDEA is pure genius, the execution and in particular the software is junk.

Most things would work to a certain extent for a few minutes, and this I could perhaps have lived with. But the one thing that was a deal breaker for me was the fact that it seemed impossible to hold a bluetooth connection for more than 15 minutes at a time, and when it did disconnect it wouldn't reconnect unless the thing was reset.
The device doesn't tell the time natively, it pulls it from the clock on your phone, so when it has disconnected you are left with a watch screen showing 00:00 until you can reconnect, hardly the slick, stylish operation I was expecting, having to hold buttons down for up to 20 seconds just to see the time.
Even when the bluetooth was stable it has the shortest range of any device I have ever used.... The music player application was the one which most interested me and the device worked fine with the watch on my left wrist and my phone in my left trouser pocket - about 50cm apart at full stretch, but switch the phone to my right pocket and the bluetooth disconnected - I am a big bloke, but I didn't think I was dense enough to shield a BT signal completely.

Sony seem able to produce bluetooth headsets with a range of upto 10 meters, so why so poor with this item - one of the apps is 'Find My Phone,' an app which sounds your text message alert so you can pinpoint your phone if you have lost it. Not much use if it will only work if the phone is within half a meter of you, you could probably see it in that situation.

The liveware software (free from the android market) which controls the unit seems particularly flawed, causing both the unit and my phone to hang up several times, requiring a battery pull and deletion/re-installation of the software, and on several occasions refusing to recognise that the LiveView unit was paired at all, even though my phone clearly said it was.

In addition to this, the build quality is not wonderful, if this is worn as a watch for any length of time then I can see the screen and body becoming scratched VERY easily. And lets be honest, we all try to protect our time pieces, but you do occasionally give it the odd, accidental smack when you are not being careful. I don't think the Sony LiveView would put up with many before the screen or body broke.

At the moment there is no updated firmware for the Sony LiveView available, though the unit is mentioned on the Sony Updater site, so there is perhaps hope for the future.

Until then I'm afraid I shall be returning my LiveView, and would perhaps advise others to stay away for a couple of months to allow Sony to iron out the bugs in what seems to be a product rushed out for Christmas with Alpha rather than Beta released software.

People have also reported very poor battery performance, units lasting about 4-8 hours rather than the 4 DAYS stated by Sony. I can't comment on this directly as the battery longevity was the least of my worries, and I didn't run it down completely before re-connecting to the charger.

One star for the idea, and one star for the fact that it did work, every now and then, if it wanted to.

Will I buy one again if they sort out the problems?

Hell yes!
Didn't you hear what I said? It's a second screen you can use as a watch which shows your text messages, RSS feeds, Facebook updates, Twitter messages and controls your music as well!!!!! Read more ›

A great concept, which might be fixed with a future software update but for now avoid it.

1) Reception of notifications is unreliable.

2) It frequently loses connection and has to be manually reconnected.

3) Most importantly it sporadically renders the phone totally unresponsive by sending the bluetooth system process /system/bin/btld into a spin whereby it consumes the entire cpu. This eats battery and requires a reset of the phone or a battery pull to fix it. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S under Froyo but I have anecdotal reports of identical behaviour on a Desire Z and a Wildfire.

Wait until you know that this bug is fixed before buying one.

On the plus side, it has enormous potential, and Kudos to Sony for not tying it to a proprietary API.