February 22nd, 2007
Sony Ericsson P990 review
Highly awaited as it is, Sony Ericsson P990 is going to be the flagship of the Sony Ericsson product line. Equipped with every possible current connectivity features, an autofocus 2 megapixel camera, a second video calls camera, a conventional keypad and a QWERTY keyboard, Memory Stick slot, FM radio with RDS, the latest Symbian 9.1 OS, and last, but not least with a large 2.76″ TFT touchscreen with a QVGA (240×320 pixels) resolution it surely made the news for many impatiently waiting fans when it finally hit the market. The handset has a lot to offer, our job is to see if it’s got what it takes to become a bestseller among the sophisticated smartphones which are now offered on the mobile market.
Traditional competitors of the Sony Ericsson P-series smartphones are the Nokia Communicators such 9300 and 9500. Some Windows Mobile-based devices however such as the HTC TyTN (a.k.a. Qtek 9600) which has been previewed on GSMArena.com not while ago are also really strong contenders for the communicator class title. Windows mobile devices have begun to earn their own place in the hearts of the smartphone fans and in some cases they offer even better functionality over the similar Symbian-based devices. Lately the Nokia Symbian S60 smartphones are also becoming a strong competition - one of the rivals of the Sony Ericsson handset would most definitely be Nokia E70 which we reviewed not long ago and. It doesn’t have a touchscreen, but it comes equipped with a great folding QWERTY keypad and on functional level and pure speed it comes to equal terms with P990.
As is the case right now, both the latest versions of the Symbian S60 UI and the Symbian UIQ 3.0 have a limited amount of third-party software available. That is of course expected to change in the course of this year, but nevertheless it is a fact that must be noted because it is one of the most crucial aspects when making a buying decision. And that may definitely tip the scales in favor of the Windows Mobile OS for PocketPC which traditionally has a wide fan base supplying it with tons of software - both free and paid.
We were very excited when we got the opportunity to make a review of the eagerly awaited Sony Ericsson smartphone P990. It turned out though that the test handset is obviously a rather early prototype since we experienced frequent crashes in various situations and applications. Nevertheless, we decided to go on with the review since we realized how interesting a material like that would be to the fans of the P-series smartphones all over the world. We would mention the bugs we encountered while using the phone but we have a good deal of confidence that these would be fixed in the final version.
The retail package would most probably include a USB cable, a Desk Stand, a stereo headset, a spare stylus, a flip replacement cover, and a 64MB Memory Stick PRO Duo card. There is also going to be a special screwdriver which will be used for removing the flip. Of course, as with any other cellphone, the contents of the retail package remain strictly market and country dependant.
The desk stand that also comes with the retail package is rather convenient since it can be used to make video calls with the phone sitting on your desk. At the same time the desk stand is connected to the computer USB port and not only charges the battery but serves for synchronization purposes.
Sony Ericsson would be offered in three market-orientated versions: the standard P990i for Europe, Middle East, the Americas, and Latin Asia which would be also available with a Russian numeric keypad; the P990a for North and Latin America and working in the GSM 850MHz band; the P990i Chinese for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore; and finally, the P990c for China. The first two models would offer Latin characters handwriting recognition only, while the last two would have Chinese keypads and support for Chinese handwriting recognition.
The Sony Ericsson P990 retains the classic looks of its forerunners P800, P900 and P910. The smartphone measures 114 x 57 x 21 mm without the flip and has a thickness of 26 mm with the flip. It weighs 155 g with the flip which is almost the same as the one of the previous models. Its main difference with the Sony Ericsson P910 is that the QWERTY keypad is located on the body itself and not on the inside of the removable flip.
The left side of the phone incorporates a Music player shortcut key, the traditional Jog Dial, a hardware BACK key and a hardware keylock sliding key. Sliding it down locks the keypad no matter whether the flip is opened or closed. After your slide the button returns to its position by itself.
A nice feature is that the Music player shortcut key function can be customized to the user’s needs - up to certain limits, of course. It can be set to turn on the Music player, to automatically start playing the last track or turn on the FM radio. An interesting change is that the Jog Dial can no longer be used in 5 directions as in Sony Ericsson P910. Now the only available directions are scroll up, scroll down and press. We think that the 5-way Jog Dial was a great navigation tool and stripping it of two of its functions would most surely disappoint many people that are already used to it.
According to the manufacturer, the battery should supply the smartphone with enough power for up to 400 h standby in GSM networks and up to 300 h if 3G networks. The total video call time supported by the battery is 1 h and 40 min, while in regular calls it should last up to 9 hours in GSM networks and up to 3 hours in 3G networks. Furthermore, when using or editing emails with the backlighting turned on or when listening to music using the headset, the battery should last up to 9 hours. Unfortunately, we couldn’t test the phone’s battery life since we used the phone heavily during our tests and thus the battery life we experienced was not indicative for the real-life performance of the phone. But judging on our experience we might say that when using the phone normally, taking the occasional pictures with the camera and using the Wi-Fi for an hour per day, the smartphone won’t last more than full 2 days.
Flipping it
The numeric keypad features a 5-way navigation D-pad, two soft keys and the traditional BACK and C keys. Writing a message with it is relatively easy since the keys are large enough and nicely spaced. All the keys are somewhat unevenly lit in light blue. The mechanism of the flip operates nicely and there is no problem to open it even while holding the phone in one hand. Opening it reveals the QWERTY keyboard with tiny plastic keys. The keys themselves have again light blue backlighting and although they are rather small they are easily used even with big fingers. Each key has two characters assigned to it - one letter and one special symbol such as a bracket, a hyphen, a slash, a question mark, an exclamation mark, currency symbols. The top row of the keys has the numbers as alternative symbols. All the special symbols and the numeric symbols are typed by holding the ALT key pressed in the same time. The keyboard also has a SPACEBAR, which activates the phone application when pressed longer. There are also two arrow keys and a CAPS LOCK key. The DEL and BACKSPACE functions share one key, as well as the OK and ENTER keys. There is no BACK key, but you can use the back key on the left side of the phone for that purpose. It is easily pressed with your index or middle finger while holding the phone in hand.
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