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Sony Ericsson P1 review: A smart sharp-shooter

08 May 2007 | Read the review | Post your comment
Sony Ericsson P1 review: A smart sharp-shooter - read the full textThe Sony Ericsson P1 is an exciting new smartphone that is to be included in Sony Ericsson portfolio. Powered by Symbian OS and featuring a QWERTY keyboard, a touchscreen TFT display with QVGA resolution and a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, it represents the next level of the development of UIQ smartphones. As such, it seems that the Sony Ericsson P1 will be the flagship of Sony Ericsson smartphone line overrunning even the Sony Ericsson P990 and we were more than curious to find out how it performed in real life.

 

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no EDGE?
no HSDPA?
EDGE & HSDPA don't matter to me.
i just love to have this phone..
but again, the QWERTY keys
i have to familiarize myself with..

my next phone for sure!

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 20:16
  • Bphx

software problems are a problem on SE P1; but no hsdpa/gps; ur better off with n95

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  • 2007-05-10 16:36
  • Ghc5

too expensive...
if i had that much of money, i better buy a Real windows-based PDA-phone.
they perform much better than P1.

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  • 2007-05-10 14:20
  • PB1%

greetz guys,


as u see, i am from germany so don't expect to much from my lousy english :p

well, in my eyes, this p1 seems to be a joke of sony ericsson's:

there is nothing included, the p990 could not have included a year before, it's not more than an update of p990.

the question here would be, if it would be worth its pirice of about

599 euros

when it releases, and that's just the point: should i sell my rather great p990 in order to replace it by a slightly modified p1?

pros:

doubled ram
powerpoint viewer
standby time increased

cons:

no real qwertz/qwerty keyboard anymore
no flip keyboard
memory stick micro

in my opinion, the p1 could finally become the great phone, the world awaited, when the p990 released: new customers could get satisfied. the old p990 should wait, the p1 could be buyable much cheaper soon.

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 08:16
  • mDc@

@Sef: "EDGE? does every single people use that? Wifi and 3G is moresnappy and is used widelier than Edge so why bother to remove that feature? you gonna play for the feature you dont even used always."

Yes they do use it! Why buy a data phone (or PDAphone) and not use its data capability? That's silly question. 3G is faster, but not all countries have 3G signal all the time in all the places. It's expensive too. GPRS is more widespread and low-cost. But without EDGE - this phone is very very very slow!

"No GPS? there is tomtom navigator and is already widely vailable and is better compared to the Nokia's GPS built in."

I disagree, having built-in is better than having 3rd party GPS. At least, you can connect everytime and anytime you need to.

"and Hey 3.2mp is al least can par n95's camera, see the camera review on N95 and witness how poor it deals with the top 3.2mp cameraphone K800. N95's cam is just a gimmick and even F700 can beat it's 5mp cam. maybe it's better to say that F700's cam beats K800 not N95 to beat K800."

K800 camera has blue tint in every picture. I use one so I know. And K800 is slow too. N73 takes better photos than k800. I use that too. Plus N95 can take 30fps video and not the slow 15fps of this P1.

Plus this P1 has no HSDPA. If you have 3G, your stuck with 3G - no 3.5G or faster than that. And why only triband? When most PDAphones are quadband? And why only 802.11B? When most PDAphones have 802.11G? And why use the 3 year old 208 processor? When the N73/N95 has 330 processor?

Nothing is new in this P1 - it is SE putting on outdated and old features, nothing innovative or ground-breaking.

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 06:14
  • wYGg

I forgot to add in my previous comment:

EDGE! The P990i didn't have it, now the P1 still doesn't have it! It's like SE simply got the P990i's module and slapped it onto a new casing together with a higher megapixel camera. How disappointing...

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  • 2007-05-10 04:47
  • ijA9

What a joke! Fashion, once again triumphs over function!

It seems SE has been playing the fashion wars lately, with "good-looking" phones. Unfortunately, there's not much substance in terms of function.
And the P1 is a prime example... it's basically the same as the P990i, but with a few bells (not even whistles) added. If SE had retained the P990i's design and simply updated the OS (and called it P991i?), I may consider this phone. But it's still the same, buggy OS, with most likely the same memory management problems. It's wishful thinking by the reviewer that the "frequent crashes" they experienced with the test unit is due to "pre-production prototype" issues, and will be "fixed in the final version." Yeah, right. Heck even the review here is a rehashed writeup of the P990i's, with only some portions edited to fit the new model.

Other than the new form (nice and compact), and additional camera megapixel, the specs of the P1 is the same as that of the P990i. They could have at least added HSDPA and faster WiFi (it's still 802.11b right?). The worst part? The "QWERTY" keyboard! What was SE thinking??!! It's nice that they got rid of the flip, but was the M600i such a hot-seller that they decided to use the same silly keyboard layout? I could've settled with an additional 5mm, even 10mm width, if only to have a decent, full QWERTY keyboard. Come on SE! You've got some weird stuff going on in your thought labs...

It's sad that SE are re-launching their flagship phone with a new name, and yet not offer much improvement in anything else. Based on user reviews of the older versions (P800, P900...), it seems the P series is regressing...
(sigh)

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 04:29
  • ijA9

The half-QWERTY is indeed more difficult to use. Like the reviewer said, the touch-screen is not as crucial as PocketPC, but certainly not a deterrent to me, especially when the P990i allows you to navigate using the flip-closed keypad like a normal phone, or use the QWERTY keyboard when flip-open, and even do handwriting! http://portal.chester.sg/

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 04:01
  • PUm5

why did they make a smartphone without HSDPA support? A massive oversight when many others already out have that support. 3G is just the minimum now. Surprised SE didn't attempt to 'future proof' their flagship model.

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  • 2007-05-10 01:25
  • AeNm

Excellent phone!!!, a lot of phone makers wants to make a phone like this. Is obvious that this phone isnt compete with the ugly N95 because; first of all, yhe P1i hasnt the poor battery of the N95 :), but is a lot better than all other N series, better than N73 (I am completely sure about the camera: it will be a lot better than the N73), better than N80 and other nokia, motorola and samsung phones.

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 01:06
  • P9n@

Unregistered:
you said: i wonder if the standby icons can be customised by user as in the m600?

yeas it can...

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-10 00:57
  • whB9

teo:

you said:
This is pathetic attempt by SE to rival the N95. Why no EDGE? Why no GPS? Why only 3.2MP? This is not how a flagship phone should be!

EDGE? does every single people use that? Wifi and 3G is moresnappy and is used widelier than Edge so why bother to remove that feature? you gonna play for the feature you dont even used always. No GPS? there is tomtom navigator and is already widely vailable and is better compared to the Nokia's GPS built in. and Hey 3.2mp is al least can par n95's camera, see the camera review on N95 and witness how poor it deals with the top 3.2mp cameraphone K800. N95's cam is just a gimmick and even F700 can beat it's 5mp cam. maybe it's better to say that F700's cam beats K800 not N95 to beat K800.

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 23:35
  • whB9

I like phone design, but hardware inside is really sucks.
Apple would hit the market and totally kill SE market share on the music and business phones market.

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 21:39
  • mih2

This phone is great. I think that it is far better than n95. Why? Because it has touchscreen functionality and everyone who used this certainly know the benefits over a conventional phone. You can do anything 5 times faster!!!

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  • 2007-05-09 20:07
  • n4Wk

great design, but i reckon the keyboard will suck, just like m600. same sh*t, different look. and to mention, why don't they pack more technologies into the fone, it's not like they can't do it, awwww

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 16:25
  • BqtM

It's nice. But I'm by far not impressed... :/

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 16:21
  • p779

This is pathetic attempt by SE to rival the N95. Why no EDGE? Why no GPS? Why only 3.2MP? This is not how a flagship phone should be!

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 15:47
  • wYGg

Russian and Arabic keyboard

http://developer.sonyericsson..../p1/p_p1.jsp

is it true ?

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 15:44
  • NhG9

ancient technology LOL

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 15:41
  • iAZT

I really hope this isnt really a successor to the P990; I'd consider the P1 inferior both in design & features(with the exception of the camera & memory).

  • Reply
  • 2007-05-09 14:39
  • mAp8
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