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Sony Ericsson P800 Reviewed (Again)
Big Mike writes "c|net just published their review of the Sony Ericsson P800. They deem it the 'Maserati of smart phones'. Built- in camera, speakerphone, 16MB Memory Stick Duo, Bluetooth and IR connectivity, wireless e-mail, MP3 audio and MPEG-4 video capable, and more. Sounds good to me..." Of course, it looks pretty slick too. Infosync looked at this phone last month, and more praise is heaped on this time around too.
How does Sony-Ericson P800 compares to Nokia 9210i (Communicator)? Granted, the Nokia phone is somewhat older, but I was thinking about the PDA features they both have.
Je ne parle pas francais.
i just got one and there are some quite good features. the best are Opera which can make pretty much any web page readable, next there is putty for ssh, and also there is a dev kit and no problem running your apps. battery life is not so good if you have the backlight on a lot.
but posting to slashdot while sitting on the toilet or googling from the bus (over GPRS) are good features...
Now if only they would make variant with a MMC/SD slot - I would buy one instantly!
No, I am not trolling. I would just love to have that phone with a non-Sony specific memory card interface.
Blah.. nokia phones are by far the most popular phones here in scandinavia, and well, I'm tired of both the brand and their design. And frankly, some of the nokia designs are simply lame. I prefer clean and simple, and on that regard both siemens and sonyericsson are better than nokia. My opinion anyway.. and I think the p800 looks very cool. Oh, and being Norwegian, jeg hadde også likt å eie en svensk telefon =) For english speakers, if you really try hard you should be able to understand that.
Any idea whether all these extra features have any impact on the battery life? If they do, then where's the perfect balance between battery life efficiency, features, battery weight, etc?
It looks a lot uglier in pics than in real life, the blue color tends to turn into a "my-first-sony-look" in pics. The flip is *ugly*, but that comes off, I've had mine since before christmas, and the flip has been off since the first day, and is never coming back.
Overall I love it, Opera rocks for browsing, putty works for ssh, email works nicely, there is an irc-client for it, what more could you ask for.
It's coming soon, to a P800 near you... Flash MX support is being done 3rd-party for SE/Macromedia by an english group whose name escapes me - I saw a press release in the past month discussing exactly this.
For me, there is only one feature on a phone that really counts: the keys.
The best keypad I've used was on the Nokia 8310/8210 handsets: tough, precise, no wobble, consistent springiness, rectangular keytops.
The Sony Ericsson T65i and the P800 both have a really unpleasant set of wobbly keys, with inconsistently stiff springs. Similarly the latest Nokia handsets all have horrid keys.
Scroogle
I always wonder, why - despite any "wanna havvveee one"-posts here on slashdot - all the "kewl" devices die.
Ericsson has made very excellent mobiles for a while, they may have some "pecularities" in their usage, but they _are_ solid to use (I have an rather old R320sc which has a magnesium-back and is only 1.5cm thick and is damn rocksolid, not easy to scratch/smash/break!)
But Ericsson/Sony does not sell very well and I personally think, it would be a shame, if they'll close their coop and give up their business.
Please buy some of them - tell your friends and co-workers about this baby.
Maybe I have to add that I'm a bit biased, because I watched the fall-tests of the P800 conducted at Ericsson here in germany (I used to work as a student at IT).
I think with this phone (The P800) and the continued success of the T68i Ericcson will do quite well. The t68i phones have decent reception. Ericcson phones, in general, have great reception, simple design and really good batteries.
I think the main reason Ericcson was struggling for a while is that they decided to do too many sponsorships and weren't really innovating on the phone side. (Charlotte Panthers Stadium, etc, etc)
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Allthough it sounds realy neat to have one gadget combining the functions of a PDA, a cellphone and who knows what I see some major disadvantages. I for one like to check my calender while on the phone trying to plan something. Integrating the things doesn't make that a lot easier.
;-)
On the other hand I got a chance to play with one a short while and it's allmost the ultimate gadget. If it would just run linux I would have bought it instantly
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I've been a long time Nokia smartphone user (9110 and 9210) and I'm beginning to think very hard about abandoning the smartphone concept (Nokia is taking so long to announce the successor of the 9210 that I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same).
I just broke my 9210 for the second time, and I'm not sure if I'm going to fork out the cash to get it fixed again.
I've really found it very useful. I've used the PIM functions, IMAP email and ssh client a lot, but there are disadvantages to the smartphone concept.
These phones are big and expensive. The P800 may be a bit smaller than the 9210 but it's still big for a phone and it has not-so-great battery life. For me the lack of a keyboard is a big problem, I can't see myself doing ssh with a stylus...
If you break it (easy cuz you find yourself lugging it along where you should have taken a smaller, simpler phone instead) it's an expensive bugger to get fixed. They break easily because of the weight.
The big advantage is of course that you can share the PIM functions with the phone dialer and that you can dial out quickly for network access.
The late arrival of serious bluetooth devices takes the point out of the smart phones IMHO. I'm looking at buying a Sony-Ericsson T68i (Tri-band, Bluetooth, GPRS) in combination with the Sony TG50 PDA (Palm style but w/kbd and Bluetooth support).
This package will cost me as much as the 9210 or P800 and offer me the same functionality. I also have the option of leaving the PDA at home when I want to travel light.
And the TG50 looks *much* better than the ugly P800!
Not a bad option I think...
Xenna