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Sony Ericsson's P990 Smartphone Released
Dynamoo writes "After months of rumors, Sony Ericsson has finally announced their P990 Symbian smartphone. Packing both UMTS (3G) and WiFi in addition to a 2 megapixel digital camera and a host of other goodies, the P990 looks like it will be a shot in the arm for the Symbian camp. There's no indication of a US release for this handset, but the rest of the world can expect to see it early next year."
> 2 MP? is it just me or are they getting better and better?
Maybe.
2MP is just how well the camera captures the image through the lens. if the lens is shit (and it's a very small nonfocusing lens, so for many people it's shit) all you're getting is a higher resolution version of the same washed out, blurred, chromatically-distorted fisheye photos that every other camera gives.
You can get very small lenses that aren't shit, but they cost more than this entire phone would.
How about the RAZR? You can just ignore the features you don't use. (You'll never find a phone that meets that whole list, because that market is too small.)
Well SD would be fine and dandy if there was no license issues. You have to pay alot of money to the SD consortium for using the SD standard, among the members is Microsoft. Did you know that the spec is closed as well so you can't release drivers under opensource.
Proprietary formats sucks.
How about a Nokia 1100?
It does have one extra feature, a flashlight, but I'm sure you can put tape over it and pretend it's not there.
It also isn't really, really small, because like most phones it has buttons, a screen and a microphone + speaker combination.
It isn't made of liquid metal, but seems to have non-slippery sides.
* The screen is so big, that if you don't use Bluetooth or hands free, then the screen gets nasty pretty fast. It's a bitch to clean too.
* Battery life is acceptable if you don't use push services
* It's gotta be tough - the very first day I had my P910i, I dropped it from about 4ft. right onto the concrete and cringed knowing that I was about to be so very fired. I picked it up and the plastic on the side where the photo button had popped loose, but that's it. I used the stylus to pry it back in, and no problem except a bit of cosmetic damage. By and large, most of my Sony/Ericsson phones have been pretty tough. It's ironic that when Ericsson's phones stopped looking like little Volvos did they become less breakable for a klutz like myself.
* the browser hangs sometimes, giving the white screen of no return. Battery removed, power back on and viola.
* it's size is a bit clunky, but one option is to remove the flip entirely and TFM for this comes in the box. Even then, you almost have to use the holster that comes with it - it's just too damn big to put into your pocket.
I don't see why these comments always come up. There are plenty of "dumb" phones. Nokia 1100, as mentioned above, would be my preference to meet your criteria, although the 8910 (NOT the 8910i, that i makes alot of difference) does have your requested titanium alloy casing it's got bluetooth too, but you can always (gasp) switch it off. Alternatively buy any of the older models (3310, 3410, Ericsson T28, Siemens A50 etc.) from eBay with a new battery.
./ stories because there's already plenty to choose from any (suprisingly enough) they don't compete on features like smartphones do. If you want one, buy one.
Basic phones don't get