Does a thumbboard, improved screen and more memory warrant an upgrade from the popular P900? Jørgen Sundgot pokes and prods Sony Ericsson's latest communicator, the P910i.
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson P910i:
| Gallery » |
 Price: $925.
Pros:
Cons:
%
POOR |
Mediocre |
Good |
Very good |
Excellent |
|
|
Full review of the Sony Ericsson P910i:
 |
When Sony Ericsson first brought the P800 to market in late 2002, the UIQ-based communicator innovated in several areas, most important of which was GPRS - making for a Symbian OS first at the time. Then, the P900 followed in late 2003, offering only minor improvements and an updated design. Fast forward to late 2004, and we're faced with the P910i, again only marginally improving on its predecessor. The question is: at such a slow rate of innovation, has Sony Ericsson remained competitive in an increasingly heated market?
 | Lacking innovation and sporting a high price tag, the P910i fails to carry on the legacy of its predecessors
|
Design
Remaining one of the smallest communicators available, the Sony Ericsson P910i shares almost identical measurements with its predecessor, the P900, at 115 x 57 x 24 mm and 155 g. The visual styling has also remained largely identical, as has the dual-function interface where users are presented with scroll wheel and keypad navigation with the flip closed, as opposed to an entirely stylus-driven interface with the flip down and the screen exposed.
As with the P900, the P910i offers an excellent screen which has now gained 18-bit colour depth as opposed to the 16-bit of the P900, and is also noticeably brighter. The 208 x 320 pixel resolution has been kept, however, and crispness levels remain approximately the same.
Another concept which has been retained is the flip which protects the touch screen and doubles as a keypad. This has received an update of its buttons to match recent Sony Ericsson high-end phones, and although offering excellent tactile feedback appears more bulky than the sleek lines of the P900 keypad. This, however, is likely due to one of the main new features of the P910: a full QWERTY thumbboard tucked away on the inside of the flip.
Despite what one would expect from its miniscule keys, the thumbboard works surprisingly well - yet is no match for thumbboards offered by several competing communicators. Keys are easily distinguished and the character and symbol set is fully adequate, but a backlight is sorely missed. What's more, the P910i frustratingly flops all around the place when using both thumbs to enter text, yielding a usability level best suited to very short messages. Thankfully, it's still possible to detach the flip entirely for those who prefer fully touch-based interaction.
The remainder of the P910i remains a clone of that of the P900: the left side offers a 2.5 mm handsfree kit jack (of which one fully adequate comes bundled), the truly magnificent five-way scroll wheel, an infrared port and the power on/off button. The right side offers hardware shortcut buttons for the built-in 0.3 MP camera and browser, as well as a Memory Stick Duo Pro slot, whilst the bottom features the usual serial/USB slash DC in connector - and finally, the back holds the camera lens and adjacent vanity mirror.
Connectivity
A tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz communicator with support for HSCSD and GPRS Class 10, the P910i fares fairly well with regard to WAN connectivity. PAN is another matter, however, as despite good infrared and Bluetooth support, the P910i does not support Wi-Fi neither integrated nor through any means of expansion. A simple glance at the line-up of competing communicators from all operating system camps quickly reveals this to be a very unfortunate oversight.
Furthermore, one would think Sony Ericsson had learned from previous lessons - yet the proprietary Memory Stick format remains the only means of expansion for the P910i. Granted, the P910i now supports Memory Stick Duo Pro cards which come in capacities of up to 1 GB, but the average price per MB is far higher than for competing formats such as MMC and SD - and worst of all, there is no support for I/O expansion.
Still, what the P910i does, it does well. Its loudspeaker quality is only matched by that of the P800 and P910, with output by means of the 2.5 mm handsfree kit jack - and even Sony's rarely used proprietary connector - being equally good. Moreso, the selection of Bluetooth profiles is fully adequate, and its transmission range proved quite good during testing.
Specifications
Wisely, Sony Ericsson opted to up the memory of the P910i to 64 MB of non-volatile storage and 32 MB of RAM where the P900 offered a constrained 16 MB of each. Power users no longer need to constantly worry about running into limitations as to how many applications can run simultaneously, and a bundled 32 MB Memory Stick Duo card - complete with a Memory Stick converter - also offers a means of additional storage as well as transferring data to and from the device.
A 1260 mAh Lithium Ion battery powers the P910i, just as it did the P900 - with no discernible difference in battery life. Sony Ericsson claims up to 13 hours of talk time and up to 400 hours of standby time for the device, whilst our tests revealed numbers closer to 8 and 365, respectively.
Software
Still powered by the Symbian OS based UIQ platform, the P910i offers all of the same feature set as did the P900. The icons and themes have been given a makeover - and not for the better, we'd like to subjectively add - whereas the standard application set including PIM applications; audio, image and video capture and playback; and a handful of basic utilities remain.
There's more, however, as the P910i also includes versions of iGo's QuickWord, QuickSheet and QuickPoint applications, allowing for not only viewing but also editing of documents in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats respectively. Furthermore, Pdf+ from mBrain Software brings viewing of documents stored in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format to the table, bringing the P910i up on par with other current communicators, and to top things off an excellent microbrowser from Opera Software comes bundled on a CD.
Text input is obviously an issue with a device having gained a thumbboard over its predecessor, and Sony Ericsson have done a good job of implementing functionality related to flip-down operations. Users can choose between different thumbboard layouts such as QWERTY, AZERTY and soforth, and upon pressing keys users are presented with a multi-tap like selection bar at the top of the screen for reaching additional characters, thus eliminating bothersome virtual keyboard tapping. Spot an earlier mistake and it's back to stylus tapping, however, as the thumbboard offers no means of cursor navigation.
Overall, the P910i offers a well-rounded software bundle on top of an extremely reliable operating system, but does suffer from one problem which plague all current Symbian OS devices: painfully slow synchronization. As with its predecessor, synchronizing the P910i over a Serial, Bluetooth or even USB connection to the desktop suite is an excercise in patience - an issue which desperately needs resolve.
Availability
The Sony Ericsson P910i is at the time of writing available in most European markets, selling in the $925 USD range without subscription.
Price and availability
The Sony Ericsson P910i will start selling for $925 () in December 1969.
|
|
| |
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
» Top 15
|
|
|
» Search (New!)
Search by cell phone features
|
|
|
» Manual comparison (New!)
Select up to 4 cell phones side-by-side
|
|
|
» By release
October 2008, November 2008, December 2008
|
|
|
» Top 15 by carrier
Unlocked, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Helio, Alltel
|
|
|
|
» Top 15 by user type
Average Joe, Business users, Calling addicts, Fashion conscious users, Globetrotters, High-res addicts, Internet addicts, Multimedia enthusiasts, Music aficionados, Outdoor enthusiasts, TV addicts, Video lovers, More...
|
|
|
» Top 15 by brand
Apple, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia,
BlackBerry, Samsung, Sony Ericsson Other
|
|
|
» Top 15 by platform
Palm OS, Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ, Windows Mobile
|
|
|
|
» Top 15 by cell phone type
Business smartphones, Multimedia smartphones
Consumer QWERTY phones, Multimedia phones
Concept phones
|
|
|
|
|
|
_it00.jpg)
|
Archive