Mobile Phone Reviews!!

[ftvfatboy]

I have decided to start this thread solely for the purpose of reviewing mobile phones and giving all you people a chance to evaluate your options before splashing out on a new mobile phone...

[ftvfatboy]

Sony-Ericsson P990i


The Sony Ericsson P990 is the latest P-series Symbian smartphone from Sony Ericsson, following on from the successful P800, P900 and P910 models. Expected to start shipping in Q1 2006 to Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa as the P990i, and to mainland China as the P990c. There is no word of a North American variant.



Although superficially similar to the P900/P910, the P990 is a vastly more capable handset, with many major improvements. To start off with, this is a 3G UMTS device in addition to tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) and GPRS. It also has 802.11b Wireless Ethernet (WiFi) support, making it one of only a few WiFi capable phones. The screen resolution is now 240x320 pixel touchscreen in 262,000 colours, and on the back on the Sony Ericsson P990 is a 2 megapixel digital camera. Internal memory is 80Mb, and this is expandable through Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo cards (64Mb is included, 2Gb maximum). As you'd expect, the SE P990 comes with Bluetooth, but there's also an FM radio as an added bonus.

One immediately noticeable change is the keyboard. On the P990, the small alphabetic keyboard is fixed to the phone and is revealed by flipping down the number pad. Immediately about the QWERTY keyboard is a 2.6" 240x320 pixel display. When the number pad is in use, it appears to cover around 80 pixels or so from the bottom of the display, which gives the P990 both "open" and "closed" display modes, as with the P900 and P910. Certain applications such as the web browser and camera functions can use the P990's screen in landscape (wide) view.

The software package on the Sony Ericsson P990 has improved too, with the Symbian v9.1 operating system plus the UIQ 3.0 user interface. On top of this, the SE P990 comes with the Opera 8 web browser, email client, plus a suite of PIM applications. The P990 can edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents, and additionally comes with a viewer for PowerPoint and PDF files.

The stereo capabilities on the P990 are not known - we assume that it has stereo MP3 playback, but the details are sketchy. Nor do we know if you can plug a standard stereo headset directly into the P990, or if the device supports stereo Bluetooth.

continue PART2

[ftvfatboy]

Sony Ericsson say that the P990 can support all major push email protocols, including Blackberry. How much of that is "in the box" and how much is an additional cost software option is not known, but certainly the P990 looks like a very good high end device for corporate use. There is a VPN client included too, and of course the P990 synchronises with applications such as Microsoft Outlook. The ability to edit Word and Excel documents is a big plus for business users.

It's quite a large device, at 114x57x25mm and 155 grams, but that's about the same weight as the i-Mate JAM/HTC Magician though a little larger (although the P990 has a better overall specification than the JAM/Magician). 3G talktime is up to 3 hours, with 9 hours maximum talktime on GSM. Standby time is up to 12 days (3G) or 16 days (GSM).

As we said, there's no word of a North American variant of the P990 (which would probably be called the P990a if released), although the stated Q1 2006 launch date means that potential buyers shouldn't have too long to wait.

The Sony Ericsson P990 is a formidable device in terms of hardware and software specifications, and certainly an improvement over the P910. However, we feel that this is a handset that should have shipped in Q1 2005, not Q1 2006, and this long lead time has meant that HTC has carved out significant market share in this sector. On the plus side, there is no other Symbian smartphone that comes close to this, although we do prefer the wide screen of the Nokia 9300 and 9500 devices to the "tall" screen on the P990 and similar handsets. And although the Nokia 9300 and 9500 are capable devices, they're nowhere near the specification of the Sony Ericsson P990. Perhaps Nokia have something up their sleeves - a Nokia 9700 or 9800 maybe?

[ftvfatboy]

SIDE VIEW

[ftvfatboy]

The 6630 is Nokia's first 3G smartphone. It's Nokia's most powerful smartphone yet, built on the Series 60 Symbian operating system with a wealth of pre-installed and downloadable applications. The 6630 is Nokia's flagship phone and it takes smartphones to the next level. Physically it's reminiscent of the 3660, although its more compact and has a better keypad. In terms of functionality, it offers everything that the 7610 can do, with the addition of 3G, an improved camera, faster processor and more memory. For the power user it's a winner!

[ftvfatboy]

Business applications include full always-on email support, with support for Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and a built-in application for reading attachments such as Microsoft Word and Excel documents. With full broadband internet via 3G or EDGE, you can send and receive multimedia documents very quickly indeed.

Multimedia applications include a high-resolution digital camera (1.3 megapixels) with up to one hour of video capture. You can also download video or audio (MP3/AAC) for playback on the high quality 65k colour display and stereo headset. The 3G connection is fast enough to enjoy real time video streaming. The supplied software includes Nokia Video Editor and Movie Director so you can edit the videos that you record. The web browser provides advanced HTML support, including background images, frames and some JavaScript so browsing the web is a much richer experience than on most phones. The large screen is ideal for viewing all these applications. It's not the best screen in its class, but it's as as good as anything Nokia have previously produced and it's good enough. It's worth noting too that the headset provides for listening to MP3 in stereo, unlike some of the other Series 60 phones.

[ftvfatboy]

One feature that's notable by its absence is video calling. The 3G functions seem to be aimed primarily at providing fast communication, and the video calling function has been left out.

There's a full range of connectivity options, including wireless Bluetooth™ support, both for headsets / car kits and for all kinds of data transfer. You can synchronise your contacts remotely using Bluetooth or via a cable.

The internal memory of 10 Mbytes is not going to be enough for all of the functions available on this phone, but a 64 Mbyte memory card is supplied and this can be hot-swapped to store or transfer data. For users who download a lot of applications, the lack of internal memory may be a problem, but then again only the Sony Ericsson P910i offers significantly greater internal memory. We would expect this to be remedied in the next generation of 3G smartphones.

Battery life is excellent for a phone of this kind. Depending on usage, it should be possible to get a couple of days use from this phone between charges.

Verdict : An outstanding phone, but a word of caution: some users are reporting reliability problems with this phone and it would be well worth reading the user reviews below before purchasing.

[ftvfatboy]

Dopod 818 is the name used by Dopod company for HTC Magician that is known also as MDA Compact, XDA II Mini, i-mate JAM, etc, etc... and E-TEN M500 is a challenger - a new mini-Pocket PC phone from E-TEN company, that is very experienced in making Pocket PC phones - they make them already for years.

[ftvfatboy]

Dopod International (S) Corp Pte Ltd continues to reinforce its leading position in the PDA phone and smart phone market by announcing its latest product model, the Dopod 818pro with 5 colours for lifestyle consumers choices. Available first in Singapore, the Dopod 818 Pro is the follow-on to the world's most successful PDA phone Dopod 818 and its alike (such as O2 mini in Asia) and being all ODMed by High Tech Computer (HTC), Dopod brings its latest product with unparalleled price performance and the only one in the world to come in 5 different colours � silver, matt black, lavender, pink and blue. It also comes with WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth A2DP, GPRS, Quad band GSM, EDGE and a 2-Megapixel camera with macro photo taking function. The industry prevalent MMC/SDIO slot, expanded memory size also brings extra cost benefits to consumers.

[ftvfatboy]

Pros

Both the Dopod 818 Pro and O2 Xda Atom may offer similar specs such as a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth and Windows Mobile 5.0, but they actually share more differences than similarities. In terms of dimensions, the 818 Pro is marginally thinner than the Atom but is 6mm longer length-wise. It should also be noted that the Dopod sports a matt surface finish which gives it a more solid feel and a lot less fingerprint smudges than the Atom.

n Dopod's favor are its upgraded connectivity components such as the Bluetooth v2.0 (compared with the v1.2 on the Atom), 802.11b/g wireless LAN (Atom has 802.11b) and quadband GSM support (versus Atom's triband). The 818 Pro also comes with a larger 2.8-inch LCD display, which is 0.1-inch more than the Atom.

The biggest advantage, however, is Dopod's employment of an SD/MMC card slot instead of a miniSD which O2 has on the Atom. This should not only go down well with those who already own SD cards, the fact that they are generally more affordable and available in higher capacities than miniSD will be the stronger pull factor for many buyers.