Sony Ericsson P1i

The Sony Ericsson's(SE) P1i is the long awaited replacement to the P990 and in my opinion, the most functional phone with pretty good looks on the market today.

When you first look at this phone you will immediately notice the high quality of materials used. The front face has a metal look rim with piano black centre piece. The back has a shiny crossbar covering the speaker phone and a black matt finish. It feels weird - i have never seen a phone with this type of finish.



Having owned the second generation of the P series in the form of the P900, i did not expect this phone to be of such quality.The P series has always been a handy pda style phone, but has also been a bit bulky and dim on the software front.


Sony have reduced the phone by about 25℅ and made the phone feel very solid. When holding it in the palm of your hand, it feels good and you can tell everything feels like it has been ergonomically designed just for you. They have got rid of the flip based keyboard from previous models and added a two key roker styled qwerty keyboard.


This basically means that there are two letters assigned to each key, which are raised slightly on the edges. Having taken this from the previous W series of phones, it was questioned if they would improve the usability of the keyboard. Most users say it has, but it still a matter of you either like it or hate it.

Physically, the phone has the traditional jog dial on the left, with a back button just underneath it. On the right there is a short cut button which you can assign and personalise. Underneath, this there is a memory card slot and camera button - which controls the 3.2 million pixel camera on the rear or be assigned to use the video calling camera on the front one. There is a 2.4 inch touch screen with and improved trans-reflective screen and a stylus neatly tucked away on the left of the handset.

Sony purchased UIQ Symbian software sector of the Symbian company. Therefore, the front end is UIQ and back end Symbian, similar to that of the Nokia N95 and Communicator. The difference is that Sony have personalised their own version for their own phones. Its pretty obvious Sony Ericsson have not wasted any time trying to make the interface sexy or even friendly. As the phone can be personalised so much, they have left it to the end user, do what they want. So if you take a look at mine, i have the i-phone theme and if you go to the SE site you can even access a development area to make your own theme.



There is enough software on board to keep you busy. Doc editor, pdf reader, compatible spreadsheet creator and even a business card scanner. The provided external 512 mb memory will be enough to install any extra software. So far i have added google mail, ebuddy, new themes and ring tones, google maps and opera mini 4. There is already a opera browser pre installed and even a online media player, which allows you to stream online music or videos via the inbuilt 3G connection or wifi capabilities.

This phone has had little software enhancements, which make this phone a little gem.For instance if u cant take a call, you can reject it and set it up to send an automatic response via text. Like “cant talk spk later“ or the fact that when you miss or reject a call you can set a automatic reminder to call back. The phone even allows you to have predictive text input in english and a second language of your choice. The second language will be detected automatically and is handy if your trying to learn a new language.



The RSS feeder is handy for people like me who love to get the latest info on the go and it will even update audio feeds, when required (like podcasts). The RSS feeder also has a time schedule, which means you can set for it to update your feeds in the middle of the night. If you have average 3G coverage it will take about ten minutes to download 30mbs of data. That's equivalent to about one hour of a podcast.

Specification

Size 106 x 55 x 17 mm
4.1 x 2.1 x 0.7 inches

Weight 124 g
4.4 oz

Available colours Silver Black

Screen 262,144 color touchscreen
240x320 pixel

Memory Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) support
Phone memory 160MB*
*Actual free memory may vary due to phone pre-configuration
Networks G
SM 900
GSM 1800
GSM 1900
UMTS 2100

Performance Talk time: Standby time:
UMTS 2100 3 hours 30 min 250 hours
GSM 900 10 hours 440 hours
GSM 1800 10 hours 440 hours
GSM 1900 10 hours 440 hours

Compared to the Nokia N95

The Nokia is a lot larger as a phone and offers GPS and HDSPA, allowing you to browse and download at 1.5 mbps instead of the more common 300k found on the SE. That aside the Nokia does not have a touch screen and is ugly. Yes it has a 5mp camera and cover unlike the SE - but its a camera phone and if that is what determines your choice of phone, i would think again. Camera phone wont be better than a standalone camera.

I played with Nokia for a day and i did like it, but not enough. It has no class and is boring. Having a PDA with internal GPS is good, but i find it takes too long for a signal. The Nokia is action packed but it is a shame it looks like a mobile phone from the early 90's.

Compared to the iPhone

Not sure what to say really, check out the opera Mini Browser - it does what the iPhone apparently does so well. Now look at the TWUIK video. Yep, these are Java based applications that will eventually sit on most phones and allow you to add widgets. Actually, you can already add midlets onto most phones as it is.

The iphone has wifi, but no 3G. No, keyboard or numeric buttons. Yes, it is a very eye catching phone, but when you look at it again and again -you think it is just an ipod. I am sorry, but i don't think this phone is all that. In your hand it is very delicate and does not offer half of the features as some of the other phones on the market.

Applications are already out there to allow you to personalise your own phone with features like the iphone, so what is so unique. : )

Check the TWUIK video out - these type of applications can be added to any phone.


In conclusion this is a slim feature packed phone that can be used not only as a business phone, but also as a little handy personal phone too.

www.expansys.com - £370
www.o2.com - with contract £30

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