A video I’ve already uploaded on YouTube talking about the phone

Here’s a hugely delayed post on the SO-04E, Hatsune Miku phone! As this was posted so late, I’ve done and provided a lot more screenshots of the features that I had planned to make up for it. This phone is part of the Xperia A series of phones, which is a range only sold within Japan. Unlike other phone collaborations with popular media, this Hatsune Miku-themed phone has been specifically tailored to the needs of their target market; Hatsune Miku fans. This post will detail all the specific functions the phone carries, as well as weigh it’s positives and negatives. As promised, I will provide more information on its features that I have had a better look at since the video. There were a reported 39,000 units of this phone created. At the time of writing, stocks were still available via the distributor, NTT DoCoMo.

Contents:

1. The phone: Visuals and packaging.
2. Features: What’s exclusive.
3. Pros and Cons: Is it worth it?
4. Summary

1. The phone: Visuals and packaging

The design of the phone has been created to be quite subtle in it’s display to others. The back has one of her ponytails swaying across, and for those unaware of her, they wouldn’t be any wiser if they had a look at it.  The package includes an exclusive green stand for the phone, which is usually in another colour, and also comes with special green coloured earphones, all housed in a square box with Miku gracing the front. The interiors of the phone are nothing special, though the reverse side of the back is the same green colour. As appealing as the body is to fans of Vocaloid/Miku, this is about all there is in terms of the physical visuals.

 
The phone box and contents, in all it’s glory

2. Features: What’s exclusive?

The first section is indeed tiny, because everything else that’s amazing about this phone lies in the software contained in the phone itself. I have split each feature under a headline each to make browsing more easy.

Splash screen/Lock screen

To start off, the moment you turn on the phone, you are greeted with a sweet splash screen with Miku (you can see it at 7:05 in the video). Right after this is a warning screen tell you to ensure the caps on the phone are closed for the phone to be waterproof. This warning screen has a picture also specific to the phone. The lock screen, has a unique picture in the background as well as unique (coloured?) buttons.

The lock screen. The buttons and background pictures are unique.

Ringtones

Ringtones are a big part of this phone, as there are many sounds which have been created by people all over for others to use. These sounds can be used for many things, though most of it is designed for your phone’s ringtone, your alarm’s ringtone as well as your message tone. In addition, more sounds can be added to your phone via the Find Your MIKU application, where you can import the sounds from there into your phone.

The first screenshot shows the tones list for the Miku Alarm. The second is the same, but has sounds from Find Your MIKU

Miku Home

Next up is the Miku Home. By default you will use the original Xperia home theme, which works like any other device. However, there is something called the Miku Home, which is a custom theme that can utilize unique panorama wallpapers that stretch 5 home screens. The first obvious problem with this is that it also means you’re limited to 5 screens (and only 5 screens) for shortcut icons and widget to use on your home screens, unlike the default theme where you can make any number of them. For the wallpaper, you can choose from 6 different artists; Takumi YOZA, iXima, 吟, KEI, eruri and Nidy-2d-. Each of these artists have lent their talents for other parts of the phone as well, whether it be for it’s advertising, splash screen, widgets, etc. Many of them are seen very often in other Miku related products and promotions. As these picture were specifically drawn for the panorama wallpaper, you can rest assured they fit very well on the home screen.

All of these wallpapers were created for Miku Home.

Miku Widgets

Next, let’s have a look at the list of specific Miku widgets available. None except the Miku Downloader are installed at the start, though you are supposed to use the Miku Downloader to get the rest of them. In total there are 6 Miku widgets, and they can be placed in the Miku Home. As if the time of writing, it does not appear that any new widgets will be added in the future.

The six widgets

Miku Downloader

As stated above, this widget gives easy access to the rest of the exclusive widgets through the Google Play store. On top of this, it acts as a news feed for any new updates to the other features, which I will go into detail below. The widget updates automatically with new information once in a while.

The first screenshot is of the download page, and the second is of the news feed

Miku Antenna battery

Strangely missing it’s capitalised ‘B’, this widget displays your mobile’s current status. The first 4 bars from the left on the top and bottom row seem to only be for decoration, though the latter bars on the top row signify signal quality, and the bottom row lights up according to its remaining battery life. As both of these information can easily be seen by looking at the top of the screen, it’s not the most useful tool you’ll have ever used.

The Miku Antenna battery (middle). Note the different number of lighted bars based on the signal and remaining battery

Miku Weather

One of the more cuter widgets, it displays the weather for today and tomorrow as a picture with Miku. The picture changes according to the weather. The first picture represents rain, then shine, which the second one represents sunny. It also changes at night when the moon makes an appearance, and there is also an emotionless cloud character for the cloudy days. Though the weather has not come up yet, I could imagine there being a snow chaaracter.

A rather uncommon sight, they have even prepared a picture for ‘strong winds and rain’. In case you were wondering, there was indeed a typhoon at that time

Miku Clock/Miku Alarm

The Miku Clock is quite self-explanitory, it displays the date, day of the week and clock. The widget also links with the Miku Alarm, which is an alarm with customisable ringtones from made by Vocaloid artists, once again specifically created for this phone. On top of this, there is are a ton more ringtones that can be added via the Find Your Miku application, which will be explained below. There is a unique screen when setting the alarm time as well as whilst the alarm is ringing, though the functions of the alarm don’t really differ from the usual.

The setup and ringing screens for the Miku Alarm. The Miku Clock is as seen in the screenshot above this one; there’s nothing special about that one

Find Creative News

One of the more unique features of this phone. In one week intervals, you will receive information about the top ranking Vocaloid music from the NicoNicoDouga website, as well as an update on the top ranking Vocaloid pictures from the Pixiv site, both of which have the largest community for those mediums. The video list updates do a good job in summarising the latest trends, though you’ll find that some of the same clips will appear week after week (since popular songs can stay in the rankings for ages). The Pixiv summary is also nice, though there are only about 7 or so pictures each time, so it doesn’t last very long for entertainment.

The icon as seen from the Application menu lists Movie, Illust and Other, though at this time there has not been anything announced under the Other category yet.

The picture and video rankings are updated once a week. Still no sign of what falls under the ‘Other’ category

Find Vocalo-P Player

Definitely one of the better features, this widget takes up a whole home screen by itself. It is essentially a music player, but just about once every week, it updates itself with a new playlist. The playlist contains full versions of a few songs by a Vocaloid music producers for sampling. On top of that, there is an information screen which gives a brief introduction of the producer, followed by an interview. The songs are also linked to their video in the NicoNicoVideo site, so you can also browse the video if you like. To add to this, the songs featured can also be easily shared by a button on the corner As of the time of writing, there has been playlists of Vocaloid producers tilt-six, 立秋, でか大 and Kusemono, with more sure to follow. It makes for an interesting read, especially for those like me who haven’t kept up with the Vocaloid scene in a while.

You can also use this as your music player, though you’d probably do better using a different one from the Google Play store.

The playlist, songs list and interview

Find your MIKU

This application (it doesn’t exist as a widget) is definitely the part that stands out the most for this phone. During my video tutorial there were errors in the Google Play page that prevented me from installing the application, though that has since fixed itself. This application is, as the name suggests, an application to find YOUR Miku to customise the phone. There are a library of pictures and sounds that you can use to customise your home screen, ringtones, etc. It is unclear whether this application will refresh itself with new content or not, but each item is linked to Piapro, another Vocaloid community site. Any of the content downloaded from this application can easily be dragged out of the phone and into your computer. It is also possible to browse the content on the Piapro site directly, most likely by typing the correct tag.

 
A Miku jumps up and down while the application loads, and the pictures gallery and sounds gallery

All the pictures you can see in the background of the pictures gallery are viewable and downloadable onto your phone. Since these are all user-submitted art, the general quality can range quite a lot. You can choose to swipe in all four directions to browse the next picture, and reaching the bottom makes the list loop to the top if you swipe it. By pressing the musical icon at the bottom, you will switch to the sounds gallery. The sounds gallery I found was more interesting, and many made for great ringtones. Some were simply tones, and some used Miku’s voice together as well. Once again, there were a range of sounds to listen to and you can swipe in all four directions again to listen to the different sounds.

As good as this feature is, it will not last long if there are no updates to the content, or user submissions stop. However, it is a unique feature that really brings together the community feel together.

“Talking Concier”

One last feature is giving me mixed feelings, but has to do with DoCoMo’s own ‘butler’ mascot. Quite similar to a desktop mascot, they wander around the screen of your phone and are interactive. For this phone, the butler has been changed from the usual sheep/ram to the same thing except with long green hair like Miku. To add, they are also in Miku’s attire. I had never taken a liking to the mascot so it just comes out looking weirder and weirder for me. By tapping on the butler, it acts very similar to Apple’s SIRI, and you can ask for simple information or command it using limited conversations.

As much effort as they took to change the butler to look like Miku, unfortunately they had not changed it’s voice to Miku. Instead, it uses the default female butler voice. The settings can of course be changed so that the butler stops appearing on the screen should you prefer not to see it, though since it’s an exclusive I decided to just let it wander around. The butler can be spotted in some of the screenshots above.

After tapping on the butler, you can ask it something in Japanese

The phone is capable of changing its language settings to English, though I have not tested whether it changes the spoken language of the butlers.

Keyboard

One more exclusive thing to the phone is the keyboard that comes installed with the phone. This feature comes with some pretty simple changes such as the keyboard being green, yellow, red, pink or blue, but the dictionary contained in this is what makes it unique. Bundled in its dictionary contains many Vocaloid-related phrases including producer names, song names and popular phrases. Though it won’t really make all that much of a difference, it’s still a nice feature to add in.

The keyboard, with a list of suggested words when I type ‘miku’.

3. Pros and Cons: Is it worth it?

In this section I will list the pros and cons I have found while using the phone. I have been in possession of it for over a month now and have tried to use as many features as I have found. In this pro and con listing, I will be talking about aspects of the phone that are not Miku-specific as I think these points are important when decided whether you want to invest in this phone.

Pros

The phone looks beautiful: Needless to say, the fact that the phone is in limited production and of a very unique design will attract a large array of fans. The green works surprisingly well, and the ponytail swerving across the back is just as effective in captivating fans. The phone’s design is subtle enough to bring out into the open and not spell you out for looking different, though fans will be able to recognise the patterns on it quite easily and become engrossed by it.

Boasting rights: As with anything limited edition, collectors will be able to feel proud of obtaining something as exclusive as this. With only 39,000 units in production, with some time the phone will be become so exclusive many fans won’t even know of its existence. No fan will be able to question your love and dedication once they see Miku has gone as far as to take over even the phone you use.

Miku on-the-go: Many people are simply too busy to find time in their lives to browse the many Vocaloid videos out every single day, with the chance that the music wasn’t up to the level they had hoped. Now, via the Find Creative News widget, all the more popular songs are presented to you weekly in a format that is easy to browse and watch, no matter where you are! Not only that, but even the best illustrations weekly are neatly organised for your viewing pleasure as well.

The people behind the music: Every week, not only are you presented with a list of music from producers you may not have known about, each of the featured producers are interviewed about what motivates them, how they started producing music, why they picked up their genre of music, amongst other questions. Even if you had already listened to and know the producer, there’s still a good chance you’ll go away learning something new about them.

Find your MIKU: As the application was intended to do, you may be able to find a new favourite artist in the large number of pictures and sound samples available while browsing. It is unknown whether the list in the application will refresh itself or not though.

Cons

Cost: Needless to say, when you buy a new phone with the newest specs, it comes with a steep price. The official provider, DoCoMo requires you to sign into a 2 year contract, which attracts a fee should you wish to cancel the contract before it is finished. Though it’s nowhere near as much as well, don’t forget to add in costs like the case and screen protector since you’ll most likely not want to damage the phone.

Specs: Though the phone is fast and carries with it some nice specs, it falls short to its competitors, the Samsung S4 as well as the iPhone 5. With each at a very similar price. if you were to buy a phone for the specs alone, you would find it hard to convince yourself to go for this over the others. Spec comparisons can of course be easily done with a search on a search engine.

Freezing: This is one of the most important points to note about this phone. For whatever reason, sometimes the phone completely freezes over when you press the power button on the side to get to the lock screen. The duration it freezes and the rate this occurs seems to be random at this point, though if you had wanted to do something in a hurry it is especially vexing, I have not had something like this happen for any other phone in my life, so I think it has to do with some buggy programming on Sony’s end. The freezing does seem to occur more likely when you try to bring up the lock page soon after just locking it.

I’ve missed chances to take some neat photos of things (such as the real Miku-dayo during the Tokyo Game Show!) because of this. Another example is say you simply wanted to use the phone to check the time, but had to wait one minute (sometimes I has taken this long) for your phone to sort itself out, it becomes very, very annoying.

Probably the most important thing about this problem is in the case of emergencies. To find yourself having to wait one minute to make an emergency call is something that could influence life or death.

Data allowance: This time we head to a questionable decision on DoCoMo’s part. This phone has a function that encourages fans to view videos, pictures, sounds, etc. all relating to the Vocaloid world. However, as the phone uses the newest Xi broadband technology, there is a maximum 16GB data transfer limit or less depending on your contract. This, to be frank, is nowhere near enough to do the video browsing that is available for you. After your data limit is reached you are capped at a lower speed.

As a central theme to the phone, I had hoped DoCoMo may have thought they had the foresight to prepare something to overcome this problem such as a higher cap for the extra 1000 yen a month. Though this may seem like giving these customers special privileges over others for data usage, it’s something that seems almost necessary, especially they are asking customers to drop down a ton of cash for a whole brand new phone and contract to go with it.

Summary

My final thought about this phone are very similar to my YouTube video thoughts. Overall, I would NOT recommend this phone to people. There are many problems with the phone itself and the data limit on your contract will make it so you are constantly juggling your data for Vocaloid videos or other uses. With its price tag, there are many other phones you may look to as the specs don’t perform as well as others in a very similar price rage. If you find yourself often browsing the videos at home and don’t need to use your phone for it, then that only makes the phone less worth its purchase.

I would only recommend this phone for those who are hardcore into Vocaloid. By hardcore, I of course mean for those who would think putting down effectively $1000 down for a Miku phone to be worth it. If the thought of that seems good to you, then by all means revel in the goodness this phone may bring.

The interviews with many producers is updating every week along with new video and pixiv summaries. Maybe in the future, there may be more widgets added into the list, which at that point I would say this purchase would be a lot more worth it.