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Sony Ericsson P990i
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Score: 67% When: August 2006 Worth: $650 - $750
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The P990i comes with a 2-megapixel camera, a wealth of productivity apps, built-in Wi-Fi and a teeny, tiny QWERTY keypad. Philip Berne gives this would-be Treo killer the once-over.
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Showing competitors it's still in the game, Sony Ericsson today unveiled is latest communicator, the Symbian OS powered P990 - also known as the P990i. Sporting a wealth of features, the device is a follow-up to the languishing P910i, which in turn represented a minor upgrade to the handset maker's popular P900 model - originally released in 2003. As one of the most advanced communicators announced to date, however, the P990 will not be immediately available.
To be powered by a combination of Symbian OS 9.1 and version 3 of the UIQ platform, the P990 incorporates not only 3G connectivity, but also Wi-Fi 802.11b in addition to the Infrared, Bluetooth and GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz connectivity of its predecessor. Also, USB speeds have been vastly improved and USB charging has been added - and there's even a stereo FM/RDS radio to boot.
Furthermore, the device is equipped with a 2 Megapixel camera similar to that of recent mobile phones from Sony Ericsson including the K750i and W800i, sporting autofocus and the ability to record video clips as well as perform video calls in tandem with a 0.3 MP front-mounted camera.
Measuring in at 114 x 57 x 25 mm and 155 g, the communicator is equipped with a 2.8-inch display with QVGA resolution and 262K colour depth, which also represents an upgrade over the P910i. In addition to added screen real estate, this also offers the option of using the screen in landscape mode when accessing the camera, video imaging and browsing applications - the latter of which is courtesy of Opera 8.
Retaining the thumbboard of the P910i, the design has now been reworked to remove the thumbboard from the screen flip - also retained - to the body of the device. Also retained is the Memory Stick Duo expansion capability, but the internal memory of the device has been extended to 80 MB with a 64 MB memory card to be bundled in the sales package.
Other highlights of the P990 include new multitasking capabilities, support for a variety of push e-mail solutions and updated PC synchronization software with 'extended synchronization possibilities'. Also, time zone changes can automatically be applied to the Calendar of the P990.
Due for commercial availability in 2006, the Sony Ericsson P990 - also known as the P990i -will offer four hardware keyboard variants including QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian, and will also be available in a P990c version with Chinese language support.
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