Amidst pressure from the government on the size of wireless carriers and their deals that prevent other carriers from offering certain handsets, Verizon has decided to lighten up on the exclusive deals. Now their deals with phone manufacturers will last no longer than 6 months, hopefully still giving the little guys enough time to grab on to popular phones. Members of the government have been looking at the deals saying they may be hampering competition and putting other carriers at a disadvantage. Verizon had exclusive deals with Samsung and LG, but after 24 small wireless carriers asked them to get rid of the deals, Verizon seems to have met them in the middle. But, Verizon wasn’t about to give a leg up to their major competitors. The shortened deals apply only to small wireless companies. Meaning if a wireless carrier has less than 500,000 customers, they can get the phone. Otherwise, the big companies like AT&T or Sprint will just have to stare longingly at the exclusive phones.

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The wireless industry hasn’t quite got it yet. I’ve penned countless editorials on this site, dating back to 2003, begging the industry to wake up on the importance of a steady stream of firmware updates.

One reason Apple is kicking the industry’s butt is that iPhone keeps getting firmware updates. No, not iPhone 3G, and not iPhone 3GS, but the first iPhone. Apple continues to backport firmware for a device they don’t sell anymore. Does HTC do that? Nope, they’ve already cut support for their first Android phones on most carriers. Does Samsung do that? It took a community white paper to convince them to fix the bugs in their SCH-i8910 Symbian superphone.

No, folks, the industry still doesn’t get it. People expect their phones to last longer than their contracts, and only Apple delivers that. Granted, Apple does a lot of stuff that can only be described as communistic. But, one thing they get right is what average users expect… and they typically beat that.

Case in point is today’s buried failure of the SMT5800. The average eBay value of this phone has fallen below the Motorola RAZR. Why? Because the firmware wasn’t maintained. Had it been maintained, we would have seen EV-DO Rev A, Windows Mobile 6.1, and yes, dare I say, Windows Mobile 6.5 and beyond. GPS should have been there in the first place, no excuses there.

Companies try their quirky tactics, such as forced firmware updates. It doesn’t matter if it’s Palm or Verizon, we nail them for their lame efforts that miss the mark. Palm got our message and stepped up with native code. But where are the carriers stepping up, promising that devices will have to launch with firmware support timeframes? Where are the lifecycles that go beyond the contracts?

In short, I’m angry. The SMT5800 should have been a killer phone. It should have seen a successor. But the industry still has its head stuck in a pre-iPhone mentality. At PhoneNews.com, we’re already in a post-iPhone mentality… and we’ve butted heads with far too many in the industry that just don’t get it.

So, for 2010, we’re going to buck the trend. We’re going to bring consumers through this, and let the chips fall where they may. We’re going to tell consumers how to rise above this mindset that plagues the industry. Hopefully, maybe, just maybe, the industry will wake up in the process.

Announced back in July, the W902 is Sony Ericsson’s flagship personal stereo phone in support of the tip of 2008, and the elementary personal stereo to fall with a 5-megapixel camera. We loved the in advance pre-production sample we were known several months past, and boast been desperate to catch our hands on the W902 increasingly since. Now we boast. You can catch single straight away with contracts from O2 and Orange.

This is a solid quad belt phone. It feels tough, rugged and built to final. At 100g it’s not hugely light, but we’re glad — it’s the kind of build with the intention of repayment from being lately a little heavier than selected, with a full of chunks, well-spaced-out place of keys with the intention of are down stress-free to catch used to.

Excellent too is the W902′s 66mm (2.2-inch) 320×24-pixel pose, with a tense pixel density resultant in a cold, cheerful screen. Even small text is stress-free to read, and your photos or well-encoded videos will looks smashing, though we’ll cover with the intention of selected more shortly.

The W902 lost a large amount inscription in support of its lack of a standard earphone socket, though. Sony Ericsson has, previously again, used its proprietary USB-cum-headphone socket, worth you’ll need to enjoy a haggard bundled adaptor if you lack to plug in your own headphones. Would you take pleasure in using a car with the intention of obligatory an adaptor to fit its wheels? No, us neither. But selected out-and-out personal stereo keys see to by the side of smallest amount present using song skin texture a little a reduced amount of bothersome.

The adult promotion sense in support of the W902 is its 5-megapixel camera, and it comes paired with a classic LED exhibit and a slighter secondary front-facing camera in support of cassette calling. The exhibit is single of the solution differences relating this and the Sony Ericsson Cybershot range, which often skin texture high-quality Xenon flashes.

You can save your photos and media to a pitiful 25MB domestic remembrance, or the bundled 8GB Memory Stick Micro M2 remembrance license. A out-and-out personal stereo button will take you into a clean media executive interface in support of browsing song, cassette, pictures, Flash games and RSS feeds.

Support media formats in at this point include MP3, WMA (including protected WMA), AAC and WAV. Bear in mind single DRM-free songs from the iTunes Store are compatible, and there’s thumbs down gapless playback, so live albums experience a little pause relating both track.

You’ve furthermore got a 3.6Mbps 3.5G HSDPA data connection on hired hand in support of browsing the Web (we advise installing the at no cost Opera Mini browser), downloading song, or in support of watching YouTube clips via the built-in YouTube app, which workings tremendously well.

Of program you’ve furthermore got the usual roster of personnel apps, calendars and alarms, an integrated FM broadcasting, stereo Bluetooth 2.0 and built-in email. What you haven’t got is integrated GPS navigation, which was something we praised in the W760i — our favourite personal stereo phone increasingly. There’s furthermore thumbs down Wi-Fi.

With these minor disappointments outdated of the way, we on track taking selected photos. The 5-megapixel lens is on par with the Nokia N95′s, and offers three-photo-wide scene shots, too. Outdoor images are faintly more natural looking, but the N95 offers more element and a reduced amount of blare by the side of filled decree. It’s still nowhere adjoining as clever as even an mean 5-megapixel compact, but in support of a phone — particularly a song phone — it’s exalted.

And since it’s a song phone, we’re not massively disappointed. True, the phone, like all Sony Ericssons, loses major inscription in support of not using a standard earphone socket (and will stay to lose inscription until the design guys catch the message), but its personal stereo interface is clean and stress-free to enjoy, as are the take a break of the phone’s menus, despite being sluggish by the side of time.