[XPERIA X10 General] Ether_Man:
Right so let's follow up on that argument shall we? The average wage in the US is ~$2000 for a full time employee... After all static costs (like rent, loans, electricity, heating and so on) and taxes are paid, an average person is down to a third of that. An average citizen spend ~$300 on food each month. An average citizen is now down to roughly $400 that they COULD save up towards upgrading their phone. So in 3 month, you're up to those $1088, and even have a wopping $112 left for the period to use on other stuff... Now, the problem with that is that the person is now not getting anywhere.. Not even to or from work because hey, fuel costs. A night out with some friends? forget that... Your way of thinking means that your phone is your life... your ENTIRE life outside work... And well, let me tell you something, people dont live like that... If you earn enough to buy a new phone every few months in that pricerange and still actually be able to live a normal life. You have it very good financially. That does however NOT make you special, it does NOT make you privileged, and it certainly does not give you the right to tell people to live YOUR way of life and that they're selfish for not earning as much money as you do. Id suggest a reality check if you really believe them to be selfish for earning an average wage and actually want a normal social life instead of one in seclusion.

Let's also do a little more math about your reasoning in regards to SE shall we? Now, you say one sale would pay the salary of one receptionist. While I dont know what kind of receptionists you have at your workplace, I can tell you that it certainly wont pay more than about a third of any normal salary and certainly not even a third of the salary of one the techs. But let's count it high shall we and say 5 phones, per month.. Per employee. Intrestingly enough, SE is a swedish company and all swedish companies have to report the exact number of employees. Looking at 2009 figures (since 2010 exact figures are not in yet), Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications had 10 264 employees. Together with international with its 952 employees, that's roughly 11k employees. 5 phones per each of those, that's 55k phones per month. Now, looking at the sales is actually very intresting now. In JUST japan, in JUST the first 3 weeks... 120k X10 was sold.. That's JUST X10 phones, JUST japan, JUST 3 weeks.. SE has also stated that during the entire 2010, they sold 9 MILLION Xperia android phones.. In just Q4 alone. That's 3 million phones per month.. Only 55k of those was needed to pay the salaries of the entire SE corporation, worldwide..

But ofc, we cant calculate like that really. Right now, the calculation is that of an assumption that the phones are free to make. SE have already admitted to having one of the highest profit margins on the market, but wont say exactly what. We know however that apple have 40% on the iphone so SE is higher than that. But let's count for the sake of argument that they only have 40%. That means they have to sell 2.5 times more to cover the production cost of the phone as well. That's about 140k phones needed to cover the costs of all employees, counting in that the phones do cost to produce. That means that more than 40% of the remaining 2,86 million X10 phones, is profit on the phone sales. That's about 1.25 billions EACH MONTH in the Q4, that goes to profit and development.

If you now bothered to read and comprehend this wall of text... Do you still hold on to your view that a 3 month lifetime would be acceptable? I doubt all that many will agree with you on that point knowing these things.

You are however right in that SE doesnt really have any obligations to provide any newer Android. They promised 2.1, they delivered 2.1. The support for the phone is also not dropped as some seem to think just because it wont get a newer android version. Support goes on, just as they are bound by laws to continue it, but supporting something does not have to mean upgrading the OS version further.

In the end, SE lived up to their promise, but dont do anything beyond that. Just as they have ALWAYS done in the past. If you cant stand that type of attitude, then SE is clearly not a brand for you. As for if that attitude will win customers or not, time will tell. (this is not aimed at you loneLEE but to everyone that whines on SE not releasing newer android)