The Sony Ericsson LiveView: My Experience.
A couple of days ago there was a post on Twitter from one of the few tech sites I actually follow on Twitter, they are called Eurodroid and they frequently report the deals on mobile technology. This time I found myself presented with a deal for a Sony Ericsson LiveView for £12.99 on play.com reduced from £70 (£12.99 is about $20). I naturally was intrigued because somehow I had never heard of this LiveView before; so I read up about it, watched Sony's official video about the device and took the plunge, I thought the concept was good, I even convinced my girlfriend to get one for when she's out on runs.
It was at this point I became concerned, firstly because I hadn't updated my Play.com account so my card was rejected... fail, I know, but secondly because I started reading reviews. These reviews weren't good at all, PCMag.com pegged the device at 1 and a half stars out of 5 bringing up a poor rating. But these review were from early 2011 and Sony Ericsson, as the company was then, had promised a software update and noone had bothered to re-review the device since the initial reviews. So I stuck with it and I kept my order and as luck would have it my girlfriends unit got to her before mine arrived to me, I was jealous.
But the device arrived today and I've turned it on, paired it and have been playing with it non-stop since I took it off charge about 5 hours ago and I'm genuinely taken with the little thing. It goes off before my phone does so I know to get my phone in preparation for reading a text and I can even open the text message from the LiveView so that when I unlock my phone the text is on the screen (yep I'm lazy). I have also had a play with the music controls and they work flawlessly and the battery, which was a major complaint from a lot of early reviewers hasn't gone down a bit, but I'll reserve judgement on that for another day. The one problem I've had, which others before have also suffered with, was that I lost Bluetooth connection once and it was because the LiveView app on my phone crashed.
I must say that I really am impressed, I have been the envy of all my friends today showing off the music controls. But, one thing I will say is that the wrist strap is cheap-looking and people have noticed, much to my distaste because I really have an instant affection for what Sony Ericsson tried to create here.
I will report back, perhaps next week, and give you a full overview of the device and whether or not I am still using it as my watch and wireless controller for my phone, but so far I have only taken it off for my shower, because as of day one, I think it's a great little accessory
