Hi-Mobile.net sent us in the Sony Ericsson P990i for our monthly phone review. This popular smartphone was released last summer, but a new firmware of Symbian’s UIQ 3.0 was released just 15 days ago and this is with what we mainly tested. The P990i sells for just $340 these days, fully unlocked, and it has a barrage of high-end features.The P990 is a tri-band GSM phone that works almost everywhere in the world, and with 2100 Mhz 3G support (non-US). It has a 2.8″ QVGA touchscreen, a slot for Memory Stick Duo Pros, 128 MB of flash storage (60 MB free), 64 MBs RAM, USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, IrDA, WiFi, 2 MP camera with flash, autofocus and protective cap, video-call front camera, FM radio with RDS, and a full qwerty keyboard.
While the P990 is not a small phone, it is not huge either. It is thicker than the iPhone but less wide. It is as thick as most HTC Windows Mobile phones that feature a sliding keyboard. The P990 feels sturdy in the hand and it weighs 150gr. The front panel of the phone features buttons and controls like any other normal phone and when opened, a qwerty keyboard is revealed. When the front panel is closed, the visible screen reduces at the 240×240 resolution and only few applications work with it (for example, you can’t browse the web when the front panel is closed).
There is also a camera button, a memory stick slot, a “web” button, an on/off button, a stylus placeholder, a music player button, a scroll wheel, a “back” button, a keylock button, a lanyard/wrist-wrap hole and the Sony Ericsson fast-port that works as charging, communications and earphones/accessories. In the box we found a 64 MB MS Pro Duo card and adaptor, a stereo headset, a wrist-wrap, a second stylus, a USB cable, a manual and a CD. We successfully also tested a 2 GB M2 card (provided by Geeks.com) inside a Pro Duo adaptor.
In our tests, comparing to the similar model of Sony Ericsson M600i, the screen of the P990 was 50% brighter, considerably faster on most operations, and battery lasted about 35% more. The only point where the M600i kicks P990 is in RAM usage. While both phones come with 64 MBs of RAM, the M600i starts up with 19 MBs of free RAM and after some usage for a few days it can go down to 15 MBs (from various memory leaks etc), the P990 starts up at 15 MBs and after some usage it goes down to 10 MBs. The P990 has to keep in RAM more applications than the M600i and this is why it starts up at 15 MBs rather than 19 (e.g. a different ‘Today’ viewer and a whole new, non-touchscreen interface when the front panel is closed, plus the WiFi applet). The two most heavy apps in the phone are Opera (RAM varies depending on the web site browsed) and the Camera app (2.5 MBs of RAM consumed). One other difference between the M600i and the P990 is the fact that its UI and menus are setup in a different way. Personally, I prefer the menu/button order of the M600i, mostly because it offers about 5% more real screen estate, although I guess after a bit of getting-used-to the P990’s way is not too bad either.
Overall, we got about 7 hours of talktime, while standby seems to be top notch with over 7 days so far (with lite usage). Call quality was top notch, and reception was great too. Camera quality is “ok” and it’s helped by the autofocus system, while video recording records in a pretty good quality in QVGA 3GP mode (no MP4 recording). The phone can only record video or snap pictures from its back camera, and not its video-call camera (UIQ 2.0 in Motorola’s M1000 was able to do that). The P990 is able to playback QVGA h.264 video instead of just MP4 and 3GP. There are a number of applications in the phone, from sound recorder, Opera 8.65 browser, PDF viewer, QuickOffice, Tasks, Calendar, Alarm, File manager, music player etc etc. Basically, whatever application exists on the M600i that we reviewed some time back already, exists on the P990 as well. WiFi worked perfectly with our WEP setup, although we were a bit bummed that the phone does not have EDGE support. Bluetooth maxed out at 80 kb/sec on file transfer and it worked fine with our Logitech A2DP headset as well. The latest firmware fixed a “low sounding alarm” that appeared in the previous update, but by fixing a few things, they broke a new one: by long-pressing the “spacebar” it won’t load-up the virtual keyboard anymore. Speaking about the virtual keyboard, I must say that I am a fan of it. Of course, I am a small-built woman and so my thumbs can type with comfort on P990’s qwerty keyboard. You milage may vary.
The question that is on everyone’s mind right now is this: “how does the P990 compare to the iPhone”. Well, the UIQ user interface is a disaster in terms of usability compared not only to the iPhone, but also to the non-smartphone Sony Ericsson platform, Nokia’s Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile. It is a very cumbersome UI and some parts of it defy logic. It takes time to get used to it, and even if you do, chances are that you won’t be in love with it. However, the P990 does have points against the iPhone too: it’s cheaper, unlocked, it has A2DP, a real keyboard, camera flash, video-call and 3G, and regarding its software: it has lots and lots of options/preferences compared to the iPhone and the ability to run native third party apps (unfortunately, currently fewer than 200 apps exist) and J2ME apps. So as with everything, the answer is: “depends what your needs are”.
The P990 makes an excellent smartphone for office workers in Europe, and a geek toy in USA (mostly because it does not support USA’s version of 3G or EDGE). Nevertheless, it’s a very stable phone, pretty spiffy, it runs on a real operating system and it has a lot of good hardware features. More over, it currently sells for less than an equivalent Windows Mobile HTC phone and so it makes it a desirable gadget.
Pros:
* UMTS support
* Qwerty keyboard
* A2DP and BT 2.0
* WiFi support
* Good web browser support
* Good multimedia features
* Good battery life
* Office-friendly
Cons:
* No shortcut to shut down applications instead of putting them on background
* Low amount of free RAM after a while (even after manually closing down apps)
* Bluetooth file exchange ends up in Messaging instead of a specified folder
* UIQ’s last-century usability and “feel”
* Not Quad-band
* No EDGE
Rating: 8/10
$340 huh ? To buy a phone. Great. Sign me up. A great phone should cost $50 max. And while we’re talking, get off my damn lawn.
Sorry, but “great” phones cost money to be built. Even the cheapest phone in the world is been calculated to cost about $35 to be built. You are thinking too much of subsidized locked phones by carriers. Personally, I hate such phones. If it’s not unlocked, then it’s not for me. I prefer to pay the premium (the “real” price that is) for some freedom, rather than pay homage to a carrier.
When the P990i came out last year, it could be found for $899. So yeah, at $340 is cheap.
The problem with that, is that weather you’re getting a subsidized phone or not, the carrier charges you the same rate.
So — what you’re doing is buying a phone, then paying for rate plans that expect you to get subsidies on a phone. You’re basically giving money away, unless you get the subsidized phone.
And this, is why I won’t buy an iPhone. If I’m getting locked into a contract, I expect a subsidy. If I’m paying the same rate as someone with a subsidized phone, then I’ll be damned if I’m not getting -some- of the price of the phone knocked off by the carrier, who is already expecting me to get a subsidized phone.
It makes no sense to me to pay the crazy rates without getting the free phone.
Granted, I might get the free phone and then ebay the damn thing… but you get the idea.
Everyone has had a chance to use the iPhone now. I have 2 smart phones, an E61 and a 8700 Blackberry. Neither of them feels very smart once I played with the iPhone. What is missing is that touch. The p990i was a dream phone for me, the all-in-one. Gone are those days
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I appreciate you like the interface on the iPhone, but the lock in is too crippling to make it a practical for everyday use for me.
Hopefully other manufacturers will take some of Apples innovation as inspiration to build their own new devices and improve on current ones
i too have an e61 and an iphone. i looked at the sony ericsson p990i when i was looking to buy the e61, but the p990i was wicked expensive then. close to $1000, and i didn’t really like the ui. in my opinion the e61 owns the iphone. the p990i could too, if the ui didn’t suck. i wish my dad didn’t take my e61. he bought the iphone for himself but didn’t like it. i thought i would give it a try.
The P900 series was junk when I last used one in 2004. Still junk I see. They should really stop making them!
The series is not junk. The hardware functions very well. The UIQ interface is the only one to blame (not even the Symbian kernel which works fine for the most part).
I agree. Eugenia, I’d love to see you review of their new P1i model which most importantly come with more RAM to actually deal with all that functionality and which also has a camera and a nicer keyboard (like the M600).
Having used a Palm TX for a calendar etc while now, I am looking for a new phone with a good stylus interface that could replace it. The P1i looks very promising.
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=global&lc=en&ver=4001&templa…
I have to agree except from ut UIQ this phone rocks i have a P910i myself and it just kicks ass
the only thing thats sucks is the camera but i guess thats more b/c when it came out all mobiles had sucky cam’s
for the rest i have to reboot the phone 1 or 2 times a year try that with a windows mobile phone!
p910i++
The only thing to suck on the p9*0i range is Opera’s browser not being true fullscreen in the most recent versions!
still the midi wavetable sound on t610 would beat that phone, i like playing javagames but when they remove wavetable synthesizer sounds and add mp3 functions the games sound like the old dos games back in the day even ringtones that sound nice on pc sound nice on t610 but not on Sonyericssons successors which makes me convert some videogamemusic tunes from my favourite games to mp3.
Despite that they simply charge too much , that’s why i wait until i get a good cell phone with good sound.
On the other hand they seem to invest more in better cameras and make crappier sound because they assume nobody plays java games with sound on or uses mp3.
I tested Castlevania (javagame) on t610 it ran smooth with sound on then i tried the version for k750i with sound on as well , it was like running quake on a 486 pc
Edited 2007-07-05 16:58
Come come Eugenia, it’s time for us to say what we think about the phone.
It looks horrible to begin with, absolutely terrible, where’d they get that Flip down cover from? Looks like one of the first mobile phones ever made.
To me, I’d rather have a wider phone, and have it thinner , than have the old style brick being nice and think too.
The cameras in these things are just dreadful too, always hated them, people who would even think about taking photos would just carry around a little point and shoot camera as well.
Everyone says the iPhone won’t sell, but when you look at 1.) The design of these phones, 2.) The interface of these phones, you can see exactly why Apple are trying to make a dent in the market, and with those 2 things alone, I recon they have a pretty good chance as well.
“Just” $340US.
Anywhere between $500AU and $650AU, now that’s an expensive phone, for what looks to be one butt ugly phone.
Say what you will, but when a business needs to choose a phone, they are not going to choose the iPhone.
Businesses require phones which provide redundancy (a phone will be used by directors when new, and then pushed down through the ranks as it becomes older), including many SIM and battery changes.
Phones need to be capable of handling which ever crazy email/calendering/contacts solution they have running at the office, which means you need a phone with plenty of third party software available.
Comparing this to the iPhone is totally wrong, the iPhone is a consumer device, it cannot be taken seriously by businesses. What you have here (and in a BlackBerry/Nokia Communicator), is a device which caters to what businesses need. Yes, the UI could be much better (something to learn from the iPhone), but you’ll excuse them if they don’t have a 3D UI, as they have concentrated on more useful features for the market that they are going for.
What is so awful about the UIQ, compared to other phones (and please don’t compare it to the iphone, <sarcasm> we all know that anything from apple is the best thing since sliced bread </sarcasm>)? Just curious, as i don’t know and i am not a mobile expert.
Bad usability. It feels like it was created by a 5 year old.
is the Bluetooth capable of file transfer, syncing between computer(pc AND mac) and phone, DUN, remote control, etc? (I hate this about reviews…they usually just gloss over Bluetooth by stating that it has it). A2DP is relatively useless and the fact that it is v2.0 is irrelevant if it doesn’t support the features that even v1.1 supported.
I’m looking to replace my Sony/Ericcson s710a and must have the above Bluetooth features to even come close to what my existing phone can do.
WIFI is great, but it does seem odd that it doesn’t have EDGE support…
Edited 2007-07-05 16:19
I own one of these, and the answer to most of these is yes. It has both OBEX profiles, DUN, it can use bluetooth PAN, etc. Come to think of it, the only thing it might have a problem with is maybe a bluetooth keyboard? Anyone ever tried? I only say it might as I’ve not seen any way in which to pair it…doesn’t mean it can’t, though.
Say what you will about SE phones, but their bluetooth stacks are hard to beat. Makes it difficult to switch to another phone that is lacking these features, that’s for sure.
I own this phone.
Cons:
-Bad bad UI, example to enable speak phone, you need click transfer and then click speaker phone. Who came up with that.
-Restart and remove batter atleast twice a day. Even after using third party apps like swiss army knife to manage memory there is no enough memory. My kyocra palm phone (5years old) did memory management better than this.
-Clunky .. and I guess UI designers were not told about the with flip and with out flip usage.
-Simple phone application to make calls itself is bad, you know you need go to the contact, click the contact, click the phone number, and right click select call or browse to a button and select call. Hello .. my worst phone razor has better phone application.
I have to register for OSnews just to write how bad this phone is.
although we were a bit bummed that the phone does not have EDGE support.
I’m glad because it’s dead slow.
EDGE is used a lot in USA.
The reviewer commented the Sony Ericsson P990i supports 3G at 2100 MHz but that it’s not supported in USA. I was under the impression the USA carriers T-Mobile and AT&T offered 2100 MHz 3G (HSDPA).
Anyway, for the readers I suggest a better alternative which is the HTC TYTN sold by carriers such as Rogers here in Canada. The device supports GSM/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and HSDPA 850/1900/2100 MHz. It also offers a full slide out keyboard, WIFI and dual cameras for video conferencing or mobile chat.