 "Sony Ericsson P990i")
The Sony Ericsson P990i is the much awaited upgrade to the popular P900 and P910i business Smartphones. The phone has taken a long time to come and the list of features is a combination of ups and downs. Is it worth the high price that it’s going for? Or does the M600i offer better value for money?
Ergonomics and User Interface
The P990i is rather large and somewhat heavy to hold, but only if you aren’t already a P910i user. The screen is a little larger and proper QVGA resolution now (240x320). Keeping them side by side may lead you to believe that the P910i has a bigger screen, but that’s just an optical illusion. The screen on the P910i was placed a little lower around the center of the phone, so it just feels like it’s larger.
The QWERTY keypad has been changed in the P990i from the P910i, getting raised, individual keys and also being promoted to the main unit right under the screen. Typing on the QWERTY on the P910i was a real problem, requiring you to hold the phone only using the flip. Thankfully, the P990i is more secure this way. But the usability of the keypad hasn’t been improved too much—you’ll still need nimble and slender fingers to type on it. The P990i also includes a scroll wheel on the side, and a stylus for handwriting input.
The P990i runs Symbian OS 9.1 UIQ 3.0, the same as the M600i. The UI is slow and tedious, requiring too many steps for simple things like changing ringtones, just like the M600i. It comes with QuickOffice for viewing office documents with limited editing capabilities, but complementary services like scheduler and even the phonebook have some quirks that just don’t make for very smooth operation.
Specs and Connectivity
The P990i is a tri-band GSM/GRPS handset that also has 3G support, but even this phone doesn’t have EDGE support, just like the M600i. With 3G services being delayed in India to 2008, buying this phone means having to use slow GPRS for one whole year. Opera is available for web browsing, and a dedicated RSS feed reader as well.
Fortunately, in-office connectivity is a little bettered by the presence of WiFi, but even that is stuck at the slower 802.11b, while the Nokia Eseries zoom ahead with 802.11g. Stereo Bluetooth makes it into the P990i and it also preserves Infrared and USB. The phone can sync with Microsoft Outlook.
Speaking of Outlook, the P990i doesn’t falter on the email front: you have out-of-the-box Microsoft Exchange compatibility as well as BlackBerry Connect, in addition to regular POP3/IMAP4 email.
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Multimedia and Camera
Sony Ericsson phones always sound good, and the P990i continues the tradition. With a music player that does MP3 and AAC (which can also be used as ringtones), the P990i also adds in an FM radio tuner to the mix. Not exactly a requisite for a business Smartphone, but for a device that otherwise has everything one could ask for (except 3G), it just completes the picture. Sort of!
The phone comes with around 60 MB of phone memory and expansion is handled by a Memory Stick PRO/Duo card, as opposed to the newer Memory Stick Micro M2 on the M600i. This is good for existing P910i users who have invested in larger capacity memory cards, as they can simply plug the card into the P990i.
The camera on the P990i has a 2 megapixel sensor with auto focus, like the one found on the K750i, however, the quality is not as good. The sensor is capable of taking decent pictures, but the auto-focus doesn’t work too well. Also, there are a lot of settings available when in camera mode, but you need to use the stylus to work with them, which is not exactly the most intuitive method when using the phone in camera mode.
The camera can also be used to take pictures of business cards, but that also doesn’t work good enough for regular day to day use. The OCR is a hit and miss matter.
In the end…
The P990i retails the same hefty tag as its predecessors when they were launched—Rs. 31,000. Even if you compare it with its ‘sober’ brother—the M600i—this is a whole Rs. 13,000 more. For just a 2-megapixel camera, WiFi and FM radio, that’s too much of a premium to pay. Add to that the slow and rather unproductive UI, and the P990i business Smartphone just doesn’t make business sense at all.