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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.
A friend of mine has got one. It has a DOOM-like game (1st person shooter) where one shoots and aims by tapping the pen. Real fun!
Once C-net makes a front-page post on slashdot, the end of the world must be near. Come on! There are more qualified reviewers than the hams (and cash takers) at Cnet that you could link to. Besides, this phone isn't anything to hem and haw about: It's ugly (YES IT IS), and, by golly, the camera is crap. C'mon! /. fans should want more and demand the best out of their gadgets and their news. this is just plain lame.
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.
Not only do you get to own a seriously sexy and functional "phone", you also get to be the envy of both jock and nerd. Oh, and it also runs one of the coolest browsers out there, Opera!!
...and to be quite honest, it looks UGLEEE!
Apparently, a 14 year old girl recently asked the Ericsson board why their phones didn't look as cool as Nokia's. I've asked myself that question a lot of times.
Being Swedish, I'd love to have an Ericsson. They've got plenty of features that I want in a phone. Unfortunately, the only ones that have all the features I'm looking for are the ones that are ugly as heck. And they wonder why they're not selling as well as Nokia.
In the end, I actually went with the German alternative. My Siemens S55 does all I want it to do. Bluetooth and IR connectivity, which allows me to connect my laptop to the net via GPRS. It's got neat features such as a color screen and MIDI ringtones. It's designed to make PHONECALLS on (why, imagine that!) and, it actually looks pretty darn good too.
And the best part is, it has no stinking camera! =D
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...
The p800 is pretty expensive here in the UK. I had a look the other week and it was about £280. I am with Orange and despite spending about $45/£30 a month on my phone they won't give me any discount on it at all. The phone companies need to wise up and discount these new handsets, otherwise people like me are going to stick to normal phone calls and texts and the phone companies won't be able to make any money from picture messages or data calls and those hugely expensive 3G licenses will have gone to waste!
I refuse to buy a product from a company that codes their website so that when you hit the "back" button, it just refreshes the site.
of course it's St. Patricks day and I'm lit. Maybe I just confused the refresh and back buttons (they both haef arrrowz dnot tehy?)
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
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.
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?
In my opinion there are just as cool and wonderful phones offered by Ericsson's rivals Nokia, Siemens and Motorola (at least here in Europe). Yet Slashdot keeps posting this adulation crap about a single phone from Ericsson. Nokia, for example, released something like 12 new phones a week or two ago. Where's the story about those?
At least make a section for the P800 so I can block it from the front page.
And I was pretty impressed. Especially I was impressed by the handwriting program - it was very close at 100% correctly detecting my handwriting. I have previously had the Motorola Accompli 008 and it *sucks*. I have also had various Palms (III, V and Vx versions) and while Grafitti is pretty cool, I found this to be better.
Whether it is ugly or not - that's a matter of taste. I think it looks pretty okay.
And long time fan of the marque, I find it rather insulting that this ugly brick of an "everything including the kitchen sink" device should be compared with the single function honesty, beauty, simplicity and downright elegance that has always been the hallmark of the Maserati name.
I think it would be far more appropriate to call it the "Arab Shiek's Gold Plated, Decked out, Winnebago" of smart phones.
KFG
It is a lovely phone, given the large screen and wealth of software you can get for it already, but you just can't play games with a stylus. It can run MAME, great, but try as I might I just can't play frogger, pac-man, etc with a pencil. May well go back to my 7650...
Gotta love the hugeness of the thing, the total lack of T9 predictive text input, overpriced MemoryStick Duo's, SonyEricssons's track record with the attrocious T68...
/.
Yeah, gotta get me one quick...
Seriously though, I really wanted to love this phone, but after 15 minutes of playing with it, I just couldn't bring myself to like it. I really wanted one too.
Me things SE is sponsering
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 was one of the P800's early adopters. Back in January, I ordered the P800 SDK from Metrowerks at a premium price of $1200 (hey it came with a free t-shirt).
:(...
First let me say that I freaking love this phone. I have it set to display pictures of the callers when they call me (forget distinctive ringtones!)... The bluetooth headset I got with it is amazingly kewl. I get to look like I'm szicho talking to myself 30 feet away from the phone... and the camera in there is at least good enough that I don't bother to take my old cannon digicam with me anywhere anymore.
Last but not least, I get to use Opera on this thing with GRPS Internet. T-Mobile's Internet service is kinda flakey, but when its working, well, its nice to be able to use a real web browser on my phone and go to real websites.
Downsides? Plenty of 'em
First off, the thing crashes often. That might be because I'm using pre-release software, but the phone crashes at least 3-4 times per week.
Second, the handwriting recognition is, uh, different. If you are used to grafiti or whatever iPAQ uses, get ready to learn something completely different.
Third, the built in storage space is kinda low if you load the thing up with MP3 ringtones and use the cam often. Fortunately you can use sony memory sticks to expand the memory, but you have to tell every application in the phone to specifically use it.
Fourth... My P800 inexplicably died last week. As they aren't being officially sold yet in the USA, they also aren't being officially repaired in the USA. After 3 days of calling Sony-Ericsson and Metrowerks repeatedly, they finally told me that I'd have to mail my phone to DENMARK of all places, at my expense. I sent it 4 days ago... Nothing yet. Sigh.
But yeah, overall, the P800 is great. I'd buy it again in a minute.
in the UK all the networks massively discount the handsets already for pay-monthly customers on the grounds they'll get it out of you in monthly charges. you can buy a p800 from www.expansys.co.uk not connected to a network already. it's 450 UKP. orange sometimes discount if you threaten to leave: in this case they can't get the p800 in stock fast enough to supply demand. why would they discount it any further?
Favorite "Thumbs Down" User Comment:
"My keypad has gone bad (the "4" button stopped working). I presume this due to a problem with the flimsy plastic film which covers the glass on the touch-screen"
Hmmm... then remove the flimsy plastic film...
Most new cellphones use Symbian which is a completely open OS
Symbian is not open source.
At the moment Linux is simply unsuitable for putting on a cellphone
I think Motorola disagree.
yeah right. Some links:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/29800.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/64/28464.htm
etc
without the need for slow and inefficient java code
How about efficient java code? Incidently, Symbian phones like the P800 are open in the sense that you can program native apps (in c++). And the Symbian APIs are IMHO much better than the CE one
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
/(bb|[^b]{2})/
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
i have with me for a few weeks now and i can say it is quite cool. i always wanted to buy a digital cam and want to get organized and of course the undispensable mobile phone. having all of that at the same time is not really a good idea. i think it is a good thing for se to release a phone. it is the 2nd generation from r380 for them to release a smart phone and i believe that they still do not have real competition along that segment. maybe we'll have a next release, probably i'll upgrade. :)
:) and tried edoom (the resolution is quite good, comparing to my old pc, i say the processor speed is around 486sx. putty so i can ssh devices from my phone. and probably i can get those remote access apps so i can remote my computer from the phone. other good things, see the feature list. and i am happy i am now more organized than before and i have one centralized repository of all info.
:) i hope it doesn't happen to you.
:)
:)
well good thing, i have loaded tons of apps and games in my phone. good thing there is opera.
given the new software, it doesn't seem to crash anymore. i think my old nokia hangs more often that this one.
downside, i had to replace the phone a couple of times because of dead pixels and camera problems. but still worth it (got it for a bargain at around 55% off the street price.)
well remove the keypad entirely because a friend of mine had problems with the keypad in his r380. a lesson to learn.
there is no themes on the phone so you'll practically have the same color and volume settings that you change manually. the sms alert cannot be changed (but i managed to hack into the phone and changed to alert to a beeping sound - the old traditional ericsson sms alerts.)
the battery doesn't last that long (2-3 days for me.) but you can charge it any time without affecting battery performance (as stated in the manual.)
the phone is quite heavier than the usual and a little bulky, but what the heck it is the around the same as the nokia 7650. so it is not that worse either. but i've got no complain because i love the big screen.
there is no predictive text input. i just find this odd because of such a high tech phone, it is not added (are they relying on third party for this?)
that's all i am able to think about. generally, i'll give it 9.5 of 10. quite impressive. it lived up to my expectations more than a year ago when i first found out se was going to release one. (i just hope it has some features of the new t610 - the 64k color screen and the 32 voice sound (it makes me awe that it can match my old sound blaster awe32.) buy it if you want to have features more than a phone. if you are still the old traditional person, then this is not the right one for you.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.