Sony Ericsson P800 Reviewed

Ch_Omega writes "For all those who have been waiting, there is now an in-depth and detailed review of one of the most anticipated connected handhelds of 2003, the Sony Ericsson P800, over at Infosync. Does it live up to the hype? According to the story, the answer is yes." I've been lusting after the t68i for awhile, but maybe I'll wait for this one. It just looks so cool!

Comments

Opera on the p800

[Bj�rn]

According to The Register you will be able to download Opera for the P800 on Monday. Sounds cool, but I wonder about how the web will look on such a small screen?

P800: The Bad and The Good.

[juuri]

I've only had my P800 for a week. It is the Swedish release model with the most currunt stable rom. Overall I find the phone to be everything expected and a bit more.

First the bad:

* It is heavier than many of the current cellphones out and has larger dimensions. While it still fits in a pocket it feels like you are carrying a phone from '99.
* Because you can install any number of random apps from the world the stability can be suspect thanks to installing some garbage (there is a signing feature but I have yet to see any signed apps).
* The flip keypad actually just presses the screen. There are reports in the wild of people slapping the buttons hard and ruining their LCD screens.
* The preferences are in silly locations, go ahead try finding where you change the tone for message alerts.
* Doesn't seem to be a bluetooth networking protocol stack built in despite what some people have claimed.
* The vibration isn't impressive for a phone of this size. My pager can outshake it any day of the week.
* Reception is much better than the t68i but still seems prone to signal fade (then again maybe this is just something that happens extremely often with GPRS in tall cities).
* All of the buttons are very small.
* There doesn't seem to be a built in way to disable or reprogram the hard buttons on the right side of the unit (camera, internet).
* You can use the jog dial to select and go into things but there isn't a hard button to back out, you must use the LCD.
* Navigation of the phone without looking at it is nearly impossible.
* Limited size and proprietary nature of Sony memory expansion.
* Requires Outlook/Notes for address book sync.
* Expensive dev kit for creating native Symbian apps. ... whoa that was longer than I expected and now the Good:

* Oh Jesus, it is damn sexy.
* Very powerful, one of the included games is a rather bland race car game that you can play networked. What is impressive about it is that it is all shaded polygons similiar to what one would see on the 1st gen of Atari Jaguar games. Nothing too special really but when it is in the palm of your hand, awesome.
* The camera is much better than any one inclued in any cellphone so far. The max resolution is 640x480, there is no flash, but the camera seems to take pretty decent pictures. Comparable to any of the $75-$100 digital cams one can currently purchase.
* You can use practically anything for a ringtone. In some strange conspiracy it seems to only not support using .mod files to announce calls or alerts.
* Syncing (if you have msoft products) works well. Just hook up the phone and go. Combine with an external sync program like trusync and syncing through outlook to your favourite web service is a breeze.
* Practically every midlet I have tried on it works.
* Ports of games like DOOM and the emulator MAME if you are into that sort of thing. While they work I've found MAME to be more of a showoff than usable to play games. The stylus just doesn't lend itself to old arcade games.
* The screen is bright and the clarity kicks ass.
* Phone comes with 12meg Internal and one 16Meg stick, that holds a lot of stuff if you aren't trying to fill it full of mp3s.
* Included headset (headphone/microphone) have suprisingly good sound.
* Handwriting recognition is fast, accurate and easy to get used to.
* Support for POP/IMAP. This is probably my favourite feature of the phone, there is something just damn cool about having the phone pulling your email for you every hour or so and replying wherever you are.
* SMS becomes insanely more easy when you can just write out your responses.
* Played with a beta of the Opera browser which comes out on Monday. It is a *real* browser in your hand.
* Bluetooth file transfers with laptops seem to work well as does moving files from phone to phone. I can not get bluetooth syncing to work.
* Did I mention it was sexy?
* Speakerphone quality is amazing (and very loud).
* In fact the phone is *very* loud. You can play an MP3 loud enough for an entire room to hear.
* Easy to assign pictures to any contact info.
* Quickdial screen features icons of pictures for your friends/family. Nothing like just touching someone's face to call them.
* IRDA works.
* Flight mode.
* Better than expected battery life for such a complex device.
* Great sound quality in calls.
* ...!

Okay I am tired. Suffice to say even with the downsides this is by *far* the best integrated solution to come along.