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

See more pictures and videos at www.ablag.com

Inspector Gadget Basic Training Part 1

Thought this may bring back some memories

Google Part One - iGoogle

In the last few weeks I have been discussing the latest range of Google tools with my friends and family. To my amazement, the majority were unaware of them and did not understand the benefits. With this in mind I will try and cover off some of the tools in my future posts.

Part one iGoogle

There are so many tools out there these days to make your life a lot easier. So far the handiest one for me has been iGoogle. Google’s homepage personalisation site has been around for sometime now and is becoming popular with those who use the Google search engine.

In essence Google is allowing you to create your own Google homepage “iGoogle” , and allow users to view exactly what they want too – personalised for their eyes only. You can search from hundreds of little gadgets and widgets and add them to your own personalised page. All you need is a Google account and a few minutes to set it up.

So what is the point?

Well if you take a look at my page for instance, I have added my gmail in one corner and a feed from my blog in the other. So for instance my blog is at http://www.ablag.com/ and if you go to iGoolge and add “a gadget” feature you can add my feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ablag) (alternatively subscribe to email updates from my site). So as soon as I update something on my blog, you will see it on your iGoogle homepage.

Click image to enlarge

The beauty of it is, it is not just me. There are thousands of feeds, gadgets and widgets out there that you can add onto your homepage. From the latest BBC News to the weather in graphical form or your facebook profile with updates from your inbox.

As the site is personalised to your account, once you have logged out, you can go to another machine anywhere in the world and log in and view the same info.

It is brilliant for reducing surfing time and those who are information junkies like me - You go to one page and see everything. Instead of logging in and out your mail, writing your own paper based reminders and going through websites for the latest weather. Google have even gone to the extent of creating an off-line version and a web history feature. The web history feature I immediately turned off as it seemed a bit spooky that I could logon anywhere in the world and view my last search history. Okay not spooky but I do have some data retention and privacy issues with it.

One thing I must recommend is the bookmarks feature. Bookmark something at work and when you get home, you can access it – just by logging back into iGoogle. Those who use a great deal of RSS feeds will also benefit too – whether they be sound based or graphical.

Give it a go and if you have any problems, give me a shout.

BBC iPlayer Part II

Friends who have used the player have said it is a handy tool to watch programmes again. However, only being able to watch them again for up to seven days is a bit limited.Other big problems include the beta only works on Windows media player and you have to download the whole programme you are watching. This could be up to 400mb and could be a big issue for those with bandwidth and download limits.On the positive side, the quality is excellent and you will get to watch top gear or heros again. What i would like to see is the availability of watching repeats over longer than seven days and to be able to stream the programmes over the web instead of hogging the bandwidth and waiting for downloads. With today’s cheap storage and the BBC being one of the worlds most used site –why are they not streaming? The technology is there and we could even go a step further with repeats on your mobile. Come on the license fee itself is worth it if you can get all this.

Worth downloading but not sure if it is worth the hassle of waiting around for programmes to download. Part I

BBC iPlayer

The BBC iPlayer registration has been launched.

"Catch-up on the last 7 days of BBC Television... on your computer

BBC iPlayer Beta is in the final stages of testing and we're now opening it up to even more people around the UK" http://www.blogger.com/www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Bose Ipod Dock

I was given an Ipod for my birthday, mainly due to the fact it was the only music device that was compatible with my car. Not being much of a big fan of them i kinda surprised myself how much i used it compared to my previous Sony NWH3.

Anyway, being a bit of a techno freak i purchased a dock.

The Bose dock is probably one of the more expensive docks on the market at nearly £250, however, with the exchange rate,you cant go wrong purchasing this over in New York. It has connectors for most ipods and comes with a fairly plain and simple remote, which allows you to go skip to the next track or album. The actual front slot where the ipod docks is slightly flimsy and i don't like the fact the functions on the remote are pretty limited - Forward,back,volume and power.

It's a small piece of kit which don't look bad and provides some major clear sounds. The clarity is excellent and would come on par if not better to the Denon stereo we have in the house. I just could not believe how loud this little device will go without any distortion. It can get a bit basey when the track is more intense, however, you can use your ipods music settings to change this.

I really like this device, however, i can understand the dilemmas people have when buying this. The sound quality and compact size compared to others, such as the apple dock, make this an accessory everyone should think about.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Picture courtesy of http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/