Joel Spolsky Reviews the LG Fusic From Sprint

Joel Spolsky of joelonsoftware fame reviews the LG Fusic from Sprint, and frankly, this is one strong and very straightforward review. Now Joel is know for his knack for design and usability, particularly when it comes to user interfaces. He should–he’s into software design and development. So you can expect him to feel strongly about the shortcomings of a device and the network’s mobile service when it comes to usability.

Joel was actually reluctant at first to review the phone. After all the marketing people were having a field day sending off (free) review units to bloggers, hoping to start some buzz about their music- and video-download service. It turns out that they were in for some negative publicity.

The phone they sent me, an LG Fusic, is really quite awful, and the service, Power Vision, is tremendously misconceived and full of dumb features that don’t work right and cost way too much. So I’m going to review the dang phone anyway, even though if anybody from Sprint is paying attention they’re going to lose their lunch and some executive bonehead over there is going to go nuts and I sincerely hope that this doesn’t put an end to the entire free-phones-for-bloggers boondoggle, because I’d hate to get beaten up at Etech next year by all the other bloggers who would hate me for spoiling all the fun.

So what’s wrong with the phone and service, anyway? Joel thought the phone’s built was too cheap, and the interface unintuitive. The Fusic is supposed to be an MP3-capable phone, but it does not offer the usual functionalities one would expect from an MP3 player such as bookmarking and even basic capabilities like playing music with the clamshell closed.

Joel found the video aspect lacking, too, with no decent movie titles and a screen too small for viewing. The pricing for both music and movies was prohibitive, too, especially in light with the de facto standard that Apple had set, at $0.99 a pop (for songs).

I consider Joel to be quite fortunate. For one, he’s a blog A-lister. Secondly, companies are sending him freebies for review (hey people, if you’d like me to review some of your gadgets, I’d be glad to send you my postal address). But Sprint was probably wrong to send him a Fusic for review. The phone might have been considered decent and even cool by a younger, less tech-savy user, but it wasn’t meant for a tech- and design-savvy individual.

Here’s a lesson to companies who are starting to turn to blogging and bloggers for word-of-mouth marketing. Do your research first. And make sure the product you plan to market thru blogs are aptly targeted.

September 23rd, 2006 Posted by J. Angelo Racoma in Reviews, LG, Telco at 2:33 pm 9 Comments »

Ericsson Gets Deal to Exapnd Chinese Mobile Network

When dealing with the Chinese market, most American and European companies would be criticized for succumbing to the whims of this strict regime. Even Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! weren’t spared from this. But the general response to such criticisms is that it’s better to open up the market, such that some information flow and exchange would occur–this is better than having nothing at all.

BusinessWeek has a brief report.

Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson on Monday announced deals worth more than US$550 million to expand mobile networks in 17 Chinese regions.

Ericsson said the contracts were signed with China Mobile during the first half of 2006, and includes providing the country’s major cell-phone operator with GSM network equipment and technical support. The expanded networks will support more than 200 million subscribers, Ericsson said.

Ericsson, which is in the top leagues in wireless equipment manufacturing and sales, has been dealing with China Mobile since 1987, and this deal would further strengthen their position as a top equipment provider. And arguably, helping improve on the Chinese telecommunications infrastructure would be helpful to the country’s citizens, in general, as this would help in communications and information exchange.

August 14th, 2006 Posted by J. Angelo Racoma in News, Sony Ericsson, Telco at 7:10 am Comment Now! »

Mobile Outage in New York

If you’re seeing yourself banging your cellphone on your head in frustration because it just won’t dang work, it’s probably because you’re in New York and you’re using Sprint. Apparently, some damage to underground network equipment have caused outages in some parts of Queens, NY.

Sprint Nextel Corp. said an outage of its cellphone service in parts of the New York borough of Queens on Thursday was caused by water damage to network equipment due to a burst pipe.

The outage came amid intensified airport security after British police said they had foiled a plot to blow up several aircraft flying between Britain and the United States. Two major New York airports — JFK and LaGuardia — are in Queens.

The service interruption, reported earlier by the New York City police, was caused by damage to equipment in Verizon Communications Inc.’s wired network, Sprint spokesman Mark Elliott said.

Sprint and Verizon (which runs the wired network that carries the data from cellular towers) have confirmed that the outage is due to waterlogging and not because of terrorist acts.

[From Reuters]

August 10th, 2006 Posted by J. Angelo Racoma in News, Telco at 4:59 pm Comment Now! »

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