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Sony Ericsson P990 review: A coveted smartphone

04 August 2006 | Read the review | Post your comment
Sony Ericsson P990 review: A coveted smartphone - read the full textHighly 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 (240x320 pixels) resolution it surely made the news for many impatiently waiting fans when it finally hit the market.

 

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will sony ericsson upgrade their wirless b to wirless g.
it is too slow for this smart phone.
it is possible they using software to upgrade it to wirless g?

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  • 2006-10-28 11:43
  • TS%u

having used the previous p-series phones, i bought the p990i last week. it has been useless. slow, hard to use, will not synchronise. it is going back, so i will try something else instead. maybe palm trio? sony - what have you done??

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  • 2006-10-27 15:06
  • nE1e

Hi Lexcute,

I'm interested in buying the P990i. where did you buy it for 31K pesos in the Phils? I'm also from Manila, and so far, 35K is the lowest price I found for the P990i.

thanks :D

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  • 2006-10-21 05:44
  • PRQ9

Hey,
I bought it for a couple of weeks. It's amazing. Everything is great, except: - poor quality on WIFI signal, quite slow menu, and the incompatibility with older software's. Except that it's great.

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  • 2006-10-18 00:10
  • IhjF

Hello,

I own P990i now 2 weeks and it's great. Only thing I miss is navigation software. Is there any? I couldn't find it. Does anyone now if Tom tom or others will have navigation for symbian 3 UIQ phones?

Alex

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  • 2006-10-13 11:36
  • MmRB

This is the *worst* phone I have owned in the P800/900/910 series. It would take pages to write down all the failings of this phone and I will be returning it and going back to my P910. Given how late the release is, it is unforgiveable. Some key points:
* Very unstable - always running out of memory with only the basic apps running, very frequent Kernel Exec errors.
* Unbelievably slow compared to previous models (you click the screen to do almost anything and have to wait).
* Phonebook is appalling from usability perspective - no alphabetic "letter" tabs for quick access; can't enter brackets (), spaces or dashes in phone number fields to make it easier for a human to read; synchronisation has unpredictable mapping from Outlook fields; can't change number type (e.g. work->home) from quick "drop-down" lists next to number anymore; useless and distracting (h) or (w) added to end of *every* address field line in display mode; adding extra address fields is way too cumbersome; birthday field is unnecessarily prominent and can't be removed once accidently added (it wasn't obvious to me!); no intelligent handling of "0" from area code - ie. drop when including country code.
* What happened to the very useful clock screensaver from P910???
* Miserly battery (half the milliamp hours of previous) included.
* Stylus is now on wrong side for vast majority of population.
* Business card scanner is a joke - low accuracy means you spend more time correcting than you would have entering in the first place.
* Common settings are hidden down in too many depths/layers of menus. This is ok for rare settings but not for core functionality.
* Change from P910 focused too much on worthless aesthetic "gloss" (graphics which slow everything down) and not enough on getting device to work fast, efficiently and with streamlined workflow for common tasks.

I have worked in HCI/usability for almost 15 years and could mention many more points but don't have the energy to waste...



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  • 2006-10-12 01:16
  • U2{Z

Hi, Jez!

You've done better than I have! Only 3 handsets in under two weeks!!

Cheers!

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  • 2006-10-11 16:13
  • mxnt

My 4th handset in only 3 weeks arrived today and it has pretty much the same faults as all the others!
The OS is VERY slow and as a result it takes 2 or 3 rings before the CLI is linked to your contacts to display the callers name. This means that most of the time, personal ring tones cannot be used. The phone constantly crashes / locks up. The middle button that is the most freqently used is hard to press. The screen saver/lock keeps flicking on and off wasting the battery. Also, I find if you answer a call too quickly, then the call is rejected.

Mmmm. Roll on the P995 !!!

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  • 2006-10-11 01:20
  • nHBB

Hi all,
As a full experienced Sony P-series fan i have to point out a few items. The p990 works slower then every other P-series. Has multiple software problems and restarts out of the blue. I have used all p-series manufactured in history and have never experienced these problems before. Now the good part: firmware upgrades wil be available at your service points most probably.So don't be afraid, this phone is still the best around and has all the connectivity this world has to offer.

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  • 2006-10-04 16:46
  • mGxi

hi.. in some p990 pics.. i see that at the bottem of the phone writes QUICK SHARE and in some other pics, it Writes P990i..what is the diffrent betwee these 2?

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  • 2006-10-03 23:34
  • ntqk

Hi everyone.
Can anyone tell me if I can sync it with my outlook? and does it work well?
Thanks.
Gaby.

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  • 2006-09-30 12:46
  • mGqq

Hi everyone.
Can anyone tell me if I can sync it with my outlook? and does it work well?
Thanks.
Gaby.

  • Reply
  • 2006-09-30 11:33
  • mGqq

Hi, Anybody know can I use the Igo navigation system with this phone? I know I need a gps too.

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  • 2006-09-25 21:34
  • m%xJ

hi guys.. I'm going to buy a p990i .. should I do that?it seems that p990 has a lot of bugs... how can we solve this bugs? are day fixable?

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  • 2006-09-25 17:45
  • ntqk

why we can't load the word file with 500kb.
please help to answers.
Thank u before hand

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  • 2006-09-25 05:55
  • PA$q

When I start "Radio", after 1 sec of music, the phone restarts. In rest, inclusive WLAN and 3g, works fine. Camera is great.
Software information:
Phone R4B001
Blue R4F01
PDA R2A04
CDA R1A05
Anyone better ? thx

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  • 2006-09-23 16:49
  • mYcX

Jasper,
Just free up memory. Opent the task manager and close all running apps. The game should start quicker. The game eats up alot of ram.

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  • 2006-09-21 16:34
  • wYEg

I am a fan of the P series and I have been using the series since P800. I have just bought the P990 but I have found it to be simply the slowest and the most difficult to operate of all the P series. The keyboaard and the screen freeze too often. Sony should please do something urgently to save our belove P series.

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  • 2006-09-21 08:11
  • mcCM

hi, im having a hard time starting the vijay singh game, have to click it several times before it starts. I tried other units but the same problem occurs. and another thing, what is the maximum memory card that you can put? but to cut the story short, im a sony user, and im pretty satisfied with the p990.

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  • 2006-09-20 18:29
  • 2Amv

Galleon,
Yah. I experience some sort of instablities. Especially when trying to use the web browser using either the WLAN or the network connection(3G) on net browsing. And it automatically restarts itself sometimes, then displays...'The phone has restarted to improve performance. Newiey, I hope it'll be fixed with the new phone software update. I'm in your situation before, trying to choose between p990 and n73. But then I realize that i need the smart phone capabilitiy than the half-breed (camera/multimedia and smart phone) n73. Y? Because i believe that something(like the n73) that tries to do-it-all, always have something to compromise to. And that frustrates me. It'll not perform the way you want it to, so I just have to buy a digicam and a 'smartphone' instead. About the speed, its ok, but I recommend on investing on high capacity memory card. Because when i try opening a word doc that is above 150kb, it shows 'not enough memory'. I have'nt bought a mem card yet.

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  • 2006-09-20 09:59
  • RKn3
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