- [Narrator] From Star Trek Discovery
to Minority Report to The Expanse,
if there's one thing science fiction agrees on,
it's that our future will be run on transparent displays.
So imagine my surprise
when I learned that a clear screened cell phone
was not only just an eBay away,
but also from 10 years in the past.
(upbeat music)
iPhone 3 GS,
Motorola Droid,
Palm Pre.
The smartphone world of 2019
was a calamitous maelstrom of upheaval,
but for all that excitement,
the number of Americans who actually carry the smartphone
was still less than a third of the US population.
So there was still plenty of money to be made
for those companies still playing in the dumb phone
or more politely, feature phones space.
Enter Sony Ericsson,
eight years into a strategic partnership
that would produce some of the decades
most distinctive devices.
To propel that reputation into the new decade,
Sony Ericsson decided to target the same market
as Motorola did with its Aura design the year prior.
And namely, people whose desire to stand out
burned just as brightly
as the cash burning a hole in their pocket.
On a TOS release,
Sony Ericsson's Xperia Pureness
cost a Hamilton shy of a thousand dollars.
And right out of the box,
it wasn't clear what you were paying for.
Unlike the Aura with its painstakingly etched steel casing,
or Nokia's Vertu phones with their gem studded leatherbacks,
the Pureness comes out of the box
and it's just another creaky plastic candy bar.
The glossy finish feels cheap and prone to skin oil smudges
like a happy meal toy.
There's no GPS,
there's no memory card slot,
there's not even a camera.
Chris Hall at Pocket Lint said it had a feature list
from 10 years ago and he wrote that 10 years ago.
But all that fades away
like frost on a warming car windshield.
When you power up the Pureness.
There's no color to the 1.8 inch display,
but it doesn't matter in the slightest
because there's also no back to it.
The interface just floats in space suspended in this frame,
glowing a futuristic white
to match the back lighting under the keys.
It looks kinda like an ice sculpture.
(music box music)
And yes, turn the phone around
and you can see the display in reverse.
It makes sense, right?
It shouldn't be surprising, but it is.
It's a bit like Google glass, RIP,
or Focals by North, also RIP,
in that it almost looks like a heads up display.
When the Pureness debuted,
it slashed Gear's Chris Davies suggested
that this would be a great phone for augmented reality.
You're a true man of the future, Chris,
I'm sorry the world hasn't caught up with you yet.
You weren't just paying for the display.
Like Vertu, Sony Erickson was keenly aware
that the kind of person
who had $990 to drop on a dumb phone,
oh that's probably the same kind of person
who would use a concierge to book travel,
make dinner reservations,
or deal with quote,
all manner of lifestyle related requests,
as long as they are deemed to be legal and moral.
Talk about casting a wide net.
That's right, I want the original vinyl pressing
of Brent Spiner's Old Yellow Wises Back
and I want it by 4:00 PM.
- Rich guys.
- [Narrator] So yeah, when you purchased the Pureness,
you got a year of said legal and moral assistance
from a firm called Quintessentially.
Incidentally, Quintessentially is still in business today.
In 2017, it arranged for the Sydney Harbor Bridge
to be closed so one of its members
could propose to his fiance.
- Rich guys.
- [Narrator] Back in 2009,
the membership tier that came with the Pureness
actually cost about as much as the phone itself
and you were getting it for free.
And if that didn't do it for you, well,
maybe the age old minimalist pitch would.
- You wanted to create a movement
that drives it towards purity, simplicity.
You want it to renew the preciousness of simplicity.
- [Narrator] I sometimes think
the true test of a designer's metal
is how well they can revamp in a warehouse interview
with a camera man intentionally drifting
in and out of focus.
I'm sorry, it's just a really 2009 video.
And I don't mean to lampoon these designers at all.
In many ways the Pureness does accomplish its aim
of manifesting a minimalist intent.
It's very restrained.
It's very intentional.
And with the exception of the cheap plastic,
it's executed fairly well too,
from the matching chamfers across display and chassis
to the clever one per side volume up and down keys.
I really liked those.
It's just that what manufacturers of minimalist phones
are usually doing
is shipping a significantly less capable device
at a significant markup
and all the while just peppering in these platitudes
that don't really mean much.
So what's it like to actually use the thing?
Well in refreshing change of pace,
this phone actually registered on T-Mobile's Edge Network
here in Brooklyn.
Once I found a SIM adapter of the right size
to convert my modern day nano SIM
into 2009's standard size footprint.
Hey, all right.
And remember how much I complained
about the cramped keypad on the Motorola Aura?
Well, it only took me a few minutes on the Pureness
to beg to be back on that phone.
These keys are horribly cramped with poor travel
and more often than not a creak with each click.
Wait, oh, this D-pad dude.
On top of that, like all Sony Ericsson chargers,
I remember this one attaches with the timidity
and hesitation of a kindergarten on the first day of school.
And as cool as the display looks
and really does feel futuristic even today,
it's almost totally useless
in direct sunlight
or on a white table
or really in any situation that's not a moodily lit casino
in the middle of the night in Montenegro.
Yeah, that's a Casino Royale joke,
Bond and Sony Ericsson went hand in hand for awhile.
Maybe it will get to it in the future
but don't worry about it.
By virtue of its era though,
the Pureness did pack a couple cool capabilities.
Plug in the included headset and the wire act as an antenna
to pick up FM radio broadcast.
(radio channels coming in)
And I forgot about this,
Sony phones shipped with an app called Track ID
that could identify songs that were playing on that radio.
It's kind of like an FM version of Shizam.
Sadly Sony shuttered Track ID almost three years ago.
So like your drunken missive to an ex
in the middle of the night,
your music query will be waiting for response forever.
I wish I could say the prospect's looked better
for a resurrection of the Xperia Pureness,
but they don't.
There doesn't seem to be any mobile manufacturer
contemplating including clear screens in the near future.
And who can blame them, right?
I mean, while it's novel to browse the web
on a heads up display,
the limitations far outweigh the benefits.
And that also seemed to be Sony and Erickson's
ultimate reasoning concerning their Alliance.
In 2012, after over 10 years producing phones together,
the companies went their separate ways
with Sony spending $1.5 billion
to take ownership of Ericsson's side of the business
so it could focus on smartphones.
And that's a battle Sony is still fighting
under the Xperia brand to this day.
And you can see the results of its efforts
as recently as this month in my review
of the company's Xperia one mark two.
As for Sony Ericsson and the Xperia Pureness.
Well, not only are they precious mementos
from a time when phones were fun,
but I tend to believe
that they'll always be a part of us like air.
Thanks to all the people who suggested this phone,
which I got for a pretty penny on eBay over $400 bucks
more than a decade after production.
Yowee!
As always the manufacturer
had nothing to do with this video,
no compensation or copy approval, none of that.
In between my regular reviews,
I'm just making videos about old phones
and I hope you're enjoying them.
Next up, before smartphones really took hold,
but after everyone was already sick of T9 texting,
there was the wonderfully weird world
of the Querty messaging phone.
Subscribe to The Mr. Mobile on YouTube so you don't miss it.
Until next time, thanks for watching.
And please, if you can't stay home,
then at least stay safe
and wear a mask while you stay mobile my friends.