SONY ERICSSON P900

The P900 was quite possibly the worst kept secret of 2003. Rumblings of a new successor for the aging P800 started many months ago, though nobody ever seemed quite sure as to what the device was to be named. It seems that Sony Ericsson was not so sure, either, as we saw images and documents referring to the device as both the P810 (the name most seem to prefer) and the P900 (the name actually chosen).

So here it is, the end of October, and the P900 is finally here. Sony Ericsson was nice enough to ship me a P900 the day after it was announced in Las Vegas, and I have been busy testing and photographing it ever since. The unit I have is seemingly not running the very latest version of software: R1A05 for the PDA, R3A024 for the phone. The PDA software is dated from the 12th of September, so it is well over a month old. I'm not sure how old the phone firmware is, but I know that R3B has been out for a while. So with that in mind, I must remind you that what you see on your very own P900 may well be different from what I see. Especially when it comes to bugs and such.

Some of the highlights of the P900 are its 65k color display, 16MB of internal RAM, and triband GSM support. More complete P900 specs are available in the P900 Preview.

Not your father's brick....

First up, lets tackle some of the physical aspects of the P900, since they are the most obvious. The body of the P900 is nicely sculpted and has a brushed metal like finish to it, though it is made of plastic. It is reasonably comfortable to hold, owing to its additional width when compared to a typical handset, and is in my opinion quite good looking - especially when compared to the original P800.

The fit and finish of the P900 is very good, much like the T610. It seems that Sony Ericsson heard the complaints about creaking noises and squeaks with the older handsets and has made a concerted effort to change that in the newer line of devices. The paint seems quite resistant to scratching, as I was unable to make a dent in it with my fingernails. It even resisted my attempts to scratch it with a key. Whatever that paint is made of, it certainly is tough.

Another quite obvious feature of the P900 is its new electronic keypad. This new keypad is much like that of the Nokia 8910 series, only bigger and better backlit. It is not nearly as comfortable to use as the keypad on the Z600, but since it takes up about half the space, that is quite understandable. Because of this new keypad, the P900 has a larger portion of its display visible than the P800 does when the keypad is closed. This is good for making use of the phone features, to be sure, but it does expose more of the touch screen to potential pocket damage. While we have seen that the painted plastic can hold up to a key, I wouldn't want to run that same test on the touch screen. Now more than ever, a screen protector is needed. But overall I find the keypad to be quite nice. The "OK" and "Menu" buttons act as the main navigational buttons, and the "back" and "C" buttons augment their functions.

Like with the P800 before it, the P900's keypad can be removed to save some weight. The P800's keypad weighed about 10g, bringing the weight of the device down to about 148g. The P900's flip seems to be a bit heavier, maybe 15g total, and should save even more weight. Unfortunately, at this time I still have not received the new digital scale that I ordered, so I will have to post the actual weights later on in an update. Removing the keypad is relatively simple, and requires a small screwdriver - one of which has been included.

Aiding further in navigation is the wonderful 5-way jog-dial, located on the upper left side of the phone. I say 5-way because you can, of course, scroll up and down with it, as expected, but you can also move it forward, back, and in. The forward and back movements often function as a way to move from menu to menu, while the in direction is usually an alternative to using the OK button on the keypad. This was one of the great features of the P800, and I still find it to be wonderful today in the P900.

Other things of note in the body of the P900 are the power switch/IR port on the left hand side, and the camera and Internet buttons on the right hand side. Also on the right had side is the Memory Stick DUO slot, which can accept MS Duo cards of up to 128MB in capacity (and can not use Duo PRO sticks). On the rear of the device is the camera lens and self-portrait mirror, directly above the battery compartment. Lastly, we have the new stylus. The P900's stylus is more conventional than the P800's, and stores in a silo in the right hand corner of the top of the handset. The new stylus is awfully thin and short, though, and I found it to be fairly uncomfortable for extended use. I imagine my hands will get used to it eventually, but it led to some hand pain after a day or playing with the device. I eventually switched to using my iPAQ's stylus since I kinda need my hand to type up reviews.... I would say it is an improvement over the P800's stylus, but not enough of Wrapping up the P900's physical layout, we have the headphone jack and the charger/SyncStation port. The headset jack is for use with the included stereo headphones (with answer button) that are shipped with the P900. They are very nice, as far as stereo ear buds go. The headphone jack is located directly above the Jog dial, so that it is easily accessible when the P900 is being worn in the included belt holster. The bottom port of the P900 is standard Sony Ericsson fare and supports not only the normal Sony Ericsson chargers, but the included SyncStation stand that is used for USB connectivity to your computer.

Multimedia Matters

Of course no phone would be complete without a display and a speaker. And no modern phone would be complete without a camera, it seems. The P900 has all of this covered quite well, as we'll see.

First up, the new display. The P900's 65k color 208x320 pixel display is relatively small when compared against typical PDAs on the market today, but quite massive for the typical phone. The display probably covers a good 75% of the face of the phone, and is used as the primary input device for many of the P900s functions since it is touch sensitive. It is decently bright, though not as bright as some of the current PDAs on the market. It is pretty viewable in just about all lighting conditions, though again perhaps not as much so as many current PalmOS or Pocket PC devices on the market. One thing it does do better than many, though, is display colors properly. The color balance of the display is quite neutral, unlike the horrible blue shifts seen by many other devices (including the P800). Overall I would consider this a good display, if not a great one.

A picture might indeed be worth a thousand words, but these days a great picture isn't worth much if it doesn't have some great tunes going along with it. To that end, the P900 has a fairly powerful speaker located on the rear of the device. It is used for cranking out both some very nice polyphonic ringtones and MP3 files, and for serving duty as a speakerphone. It actually serves best as a speaker phone, enabling rather comfortable conversations without the need for a headset. The volume is more than adequate for most situations, and the quality on both ends of the conversation is quite good. When playing ringtones and MP3 files, it does a decent job. It is probably not quite loud enough, and could surely use more bass to make the music and such more accurate sounding. Not to say that it isn't loud enough for ringtones, but just that it could be louder and a bit more realistic sounding. But if you want more realism, you can wear the stereo headphones. With the headphones on, everything sounds perfect.

Of course you can't always find the sound you want prepackaged for you. Sometimes you just have to create your own. Luckily, the P900's recorder function works rather well. You can use it for recording voice notes, if you like, but I think more people will use it for adding their own sounds to MMS messages and their ringtone portfolio. The audio quality is pretty good, considering the lack of an external microphone. The recordings are stored in WAV format, but MP3 and MIDI files can also be used as ringtones and such.

The audio player app is fairly robust, being able to play a variety of audio formats. There is also some limited playlist management abilities, too, but I would not consider it as advanced as the Windows Media Player that is installed on Pocket PC devices, even if you ignore that program's streaming media capabilities.

The last of the major multimedia type components of the P900 would be the camera, which does double duty as a still camera and video camera. As a still camera, the P900 is capable of taking photos of up to VGA (640x480) resolution, at one of three quality settings. The camera can also be used to take smaller 320x240 or 160x120 sized images, too. When shooting MPEG4 video clips, the image resolution is 176x144. When shooting video clips, the image quality can be set to one of three levels, and the audio to one of two levels or off. Whether using the camera for video or still images, you have the choice of a number of other settings, including a few manual white balance options (indoors, outdoors, fluorescent, automatic), TV flicker control for both 50Hz and 60Hz sets, adjustments for contrast and brightness, and an option for compensating for a backlighted subject. Overall, quite impressive for a camera phone. Another great feature is the intelligent use of the jog-dial to switch between the various white balance options and the video/still modes of the camera. The image quality itself is decent, but certainly not the very best available on the market today (an honor held by the Sharp GX-20 currently). Lastly, you have the option of muting the shutter sound and using a self-timer mode, should you want to get in on the action from a distance greater than the length of your arm. If your arm length is sufficient, the little mirror located under the lens will help you frame up the image to make sure you get everything in the image. But that might be hard, because the lens' view is not very wide. You might need a long arm indeed to get everything you want in the image.

You can, of course, look at the video clips and images on the P900 itself, too. The video player, supplied by PacketVideo, does a good job of playing the MPEG4 files. It has a full screen mode, too, and can be configured for left or right hand orientation when in full screen. The image viewer that comes with the P900 is adequate, and also supports full screen mode (in which you can use the jog-dial to move from picture to picture). In addition to viewing the images, there is also a basic image editor that you can use to modify your photos or download images. You can draw lines, add stylized text, rotate, crop, etc. I did not find a way to create new images from scratch, though.

Once you have an image or video clip created, you can easily and quickly send them off to another person via MMS, Bluetooth, or infrared. I was able to use all of these quite easily, sending myself MMS messages (to a mobile phone and email address, both) and to my various Bluetooth/IR capable computers and PDAs. You can also move these onto your PC by way of the USB SyncStation. More on all of these later in the review.

Behold, the OS

 There are generally two things that separate a device like the P900 from a typical phone handset. Those being the OS, and the User Interface (UI). The OS that the P900 runs is Symbian v7.0, just as the P800 before it ran. The UI that the P900 uses, though, is an updated version of the UIQ design - and it is the combination of this OS and UI that takes the P900 beyond the realm of mere smartphones and propels it into that of devices with true PDA capabilities, like any PalmOS or Pocket PC handheld.

Symbian has been making a lot of noise in the mobile handset industry lately, thanks to Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and others. While they never had a firm hold in the North American PDA market, the Symbian OS is no stranger to Europe thanks to the Psion handhelds that were available there for years (though Psion no longer makes many consumer market devices these days). The Symbian OS has a large available software base, and an even larger base of fans. Applications have been ported from one Symbian platform to the next with seemingly little trouble, something that has resulted in a wealth of applications for P800 users, and now, P900 users.

UIQ is the front end that the P900 user interacts with. It is the system that determines what the menus look like, how the device reacts when you tap the stylus somewhere, those kinds of things. This version of UIQ that is running in the P900 is a slightly updated version of that found in the P800. P800 users will feel instantly at home, but will likely notice a few random small touches that make the total experience better. Things load a bit faster, some options are grouped together a bit more intuitively. While I still think UIQ has a lot of work to do yet in terms of intuitiveness, I think the P900's updated version is at least a step in the right direction.

The system itself was designed to be used primarily with a stylus. The jog-dial certainly allows you to scroll through options, but you will maneuver much faster through most scenarios if you use the stylus - diminutive as it might be. When the flip is open (or removed), you can use the stylus to tap on and thus activate the main series of menus at the top of the screen (by default: messaging, contacts, phone, calendar, Internet, main menu). When in the main menu, you can select from all of the applications that are installed in the device. This list, which by default shows all applications, can grow extremely long. Thankfully, you can organize the applications into folders such as: business, tools, media. Users of the PalmOS will know exactly how this works, as it is virtually identical to their system. While there is an icon view mode, I would have preferred another option where the menu could be viewed as a combination of icons and folders, similar to what is possible with a Nokia Series 60 device. That, to me, is a more intuitive system than the list organization used by UIQ. That same list theme is used throughout the device, not just for main menu. It is certainly workable, though I do not believe it is optimal.

Things change dramatically when the flip is closed. With the screen size drastically reduced, and the touch-screen aspect disabled, the interface has to go through some major transformations. In this scenario, where you are using the P900 like a more traditional candybar shaped phone, you have to rely on the keypad and jog-dial for control.

First up, you need to unlock the keypad. You can do this by either hitting the OK and then the * keys, or by pressing back and then in on the jog-dial. I find the jog-dial method to be much quicker and I was quite pleased to find it. Once that is done, scrolling the jog-dial up or down will bring up customizable 5 item menu, which defaults to include: messages, contacts, call list, calendar, and applications. The first 5 bring up abbreviated versions of the functions you get when using the full screen stylus interface that we discussed previously. The 5th option, applications, sadly brings up only a small subset of applications from the main menu. These are the CommuniCorder (camera), Music player, Messages, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Jotter

Sumber : MobileBurn

SILAHKAN KIRIM TANGGAPAN/ PENDAPAT ANDA MENGENAI PRODUK INI