When SonyEricsson first announce the P990 (code name Hermione) on 10th October 2005 and said it will be available in Q1 2006, little did we known the wait will be more than 10 months. Well the wait is over and launch date is in 2 weeks time (hopefully) and a preview (pre commercial) set was T-loan to us for review.
The P990 will eventually be SE flagship product in the lines of its successful P-series Smart phone and the launch is highly anticipated. Equipped with an autofocus 2MP cam, 3G video calls and data capability (2nd cam facing the user) , built-in 802.11b WIFI, RDS FM radio, 2.76" TFT touchscreen with a QVGA (240x320 pixels) resolution and the latest Symbian 9.1 OS / UIQ3.
First off the P990 follows the design form of its predecessor namely P910i/P900i and most of it are retains in its 3rd incarnation. The P910i plastic type keypad (similar to the K700i) was ditched and replaced by the metallic form which harks back to the P900i series which in my taste seem more appropriate for a business/professional PDA phone.
Opening the flip will reveal the QWERTY keypad which may seem small to most users. However, it works great for those who thumb type on devices like the Treo or Blackberry devices. It’s a pity SE did not use the M600i QWERTY style keypad which will improves the ergonomics of the device. (Although one would need to learn the dual function of the M600i keypad.) One hidden function of the QWERTY keypad is a user would be brought to the phone dialer via a push and hold of the spacebar. From there the user can just easily dial out using the numeric keys of the QWERTY keypad , SE has further foolproofed from accidental mistyping by locking out the alphabetic keys on the keypad.
On the left side of the phone the now more commonly seen music button are locate followed by the 3-way jog dial (which a lot of P910i user are crying foul over this as previously it was an 5-way jog dial), “Back” key and “keylock” button taking up the rest of the space. Navigation is no longer as fast as the user will need to click on the back button each time to go back one level whereas they could simply click the 5-way jog dial forwards or backwards with the P910i. A nice addition is the keylock button also found on the W900i which lets the user easily lock the keys of the phone with just a simple slide instead of the usual * + right function key sequence.
I will miss the 2.5mm earphone jack that was once available on the P900/910 series. A 3.5mm standard earphone jack would have been great. Users will instead have to plug in to the fastport of the phone. The earpiece provided does not allow for 3rd party earphones. One would have to buy the HPM-70 to be able to have the ability to use any standard 3.5mm earphones.
Next, on the other side the “browser” key, memory slot and camera shutter button are spread along it.
The back of the phone user will see the simple shutter which once rotated will activate the camera function , I would prefer the back shutter len cover of the K750 which seem more classy than this shutter borrowed from the K600i design. The other 2 items at the back are the LED “flash” light and speaker which are located above the shutter. A nice touch compared to the tiny rubber studs of the P910i is the relatively large anti-skid rubber are found on the base of the battery cover which prevents the phone from sliding across the table and falling off.
SE has done a serious injustice to the consumer with the battery provided, the review unit is packaged with the BST-33 950 mAh as are the commercial release sets. Confusion are all across various forums on why other the review sets are with the better BST34 1120mAh and not on commercial set. This is in comparison to the BST-15 1260mAh battery provided with the P900i/P910i predecessors. Why the hooha? With the addition of video calls, wifi and heavy usage the puny little BST-33 battery will not get the user even 1 full day of use. ;(
Strangely, this time round the stylus is located are on the left side of the phone instead of the more convenient right side which makes it a hassle to take out the stylus for those who are right-handed. Perhaps the person doing the stylus placement is left-handed?!? One good thing is that the stylus fits a lot more snugly in the socket for it. Too many stylus have been lose due to the loose slot in the P800/900/910i.
Normal Calling/ReceptionCalls - All the calls seems to be heard clearly and comparable to the other models in the P-series after owning all the previous 3 models.
Reception - This is another matter altogether, the review set consistently gives a reception of 2 bars less than that of the P910i/W900i/K750i/T68i being used in the same location. And in my car park where the other phones still shows 1-2 bars and are able to make/receive calls, the P990i shows no network at all.
Video CallsThe video call quality is comparable to the W900i and definitely much improved compared to the K800i. The P990i video calls shows significantly less pixelation issues compared to the K800i at the other end of the call (Motorola V3x). The operator used is M1 and over 30 video calls are made to ensure that the results are consistent and accurate.
SpeakersThe speakers of the P990i seems loud enough but is not comparable to that of the K750i. Also, there's virtually no Bass even with the MegaBass function turned on in the equalizer. This could be because this is a phone catered to the business user and the focus is not so much on music.
Symbian OS / UIQ Interface / AppsThe P990i will be the first device to run on the Symbian 9.1 based UIQ 3.0 interface. A major downside of the Symbian 9.1 OS is that all new software developed will need to be digitally-signed by Symbian before release. This is awful in my view and it will slow down the release of applications, updates and patches. Applications is already not as common on the Symbian platform compared to Windows Mobile, this is going to cause further increase in gap between the avaibility of Symbian compared to Windows Mobile platform apps.
The software bundle is same as the M600 with Converter , PDF + and Quickoffice (Excel, Words) heading the list.
FM Radio, Wifi and Card ScannerThe P990i takes a leap forward from the P910i with these 3 additional apps. The radio function which most SE phones are equipped with and user takes for granted will be an added bonus for current P910i/P900i users. Earlier prototypes of the P990i did have the Radio record function but this was taken out for the mass release unit as SE is trying to address the RAM issue which has been very much discussed on the My-Symbian forum. The RDS function of the P990i has improved over the K750 and most radio stations I search did list out their RDS name. Probably the P990i is using the same radio components with the K800i/W900i/W810i which seems to be much improved over the older SE models.
Next Basic WiFi setup is a breeze and in no time I am already linking to hotspot/access point and surfing, the Opera browser that was bundled with the P990i does its job well and the only gripe is that Internet Banking is still not possible on the P990i. This is due to the fact that no Windows Mobile/Palm/Symbian device has a full Java implementation required to the the Java security applets of the various banks Internet banking portals.
However, those who intend to link their P990i to corporate WIFI or home WIFI networks with SSID broadcasts turned off, will find that the WIFI on the P990i will not connect to any "non-visible" WLANs. Also the WIFI power seems to be very much behind the HP iPaq HX4700 which I also own. I find that the iPaq finds more than 300% more access points (4 APs vs 15 APs) whilst in the same location. It could well be that the WIFI radio is set to low power to conserve battery especially with the low capacity BST-33.
Also RSS feeds are incorporated into the P990 and this is a good way to get news feeds compared to the resource hungry Avantgo and Mobipocket which runs extremely slow on the P910i.
The most impressive application found on the P990i is the card scanner function which easily captures the names and numbers on a name card and using it OCR capabilities converts its into entries on the phonebooks. I did not screen capture this function as most of the name card I have are current and confidential. One thing to note is that the cards being scanned needs to be of at least a certain contrast before it is able to be scanned. Or else the character recognition is prone to a lot of errors. Also do the card image capture in a brightly lit area. I have also tried scanning name cards with both Traditional and Simplied chinese names. It seems that the scanner software does choke a little on it. It'd be recommended to erase or block out any chinese characters before scanning. This can also be because the review set is actually with European firmware and not AP firmware. Perhaps AP firmware will come with Chinese recognition?
The Bluetooth support has been very much improved in the P990i. It now boasts of Bluetooth 2.0 which interferes less with WIFI networks, A2DP support for full stereo music playback, AVCRP for playback of AV content to remote devices just to name a few. More details can be found at
HereThe task manager can now be easily called up from its icon sitting on the bottom right of the screen and from there user can just close or switch program. This is a very important thing due to the low available memory of the P990i/M600i devices.
I will not go in depth into the OS itself as much has been covered but one issue that was reveal last week at My-Symbian is that the P990 will have an inherit low RAM issue which strangely has gone the way of the PPC series. Encountered a few times issue with phonebook unaccessible due to low memory, had to restart phone as there were no active applications. It could be due to this being a test set.
More details about the flash memory and why more RAM is being used up now can be found in the following white paper about NAND vs NOR flash and what it means to XIP. The following articles are quite technical in nature which will shed more light into the RAM issues.
http://www.m-systems.com/NR/rdonlyres/24795A9E-16F9-404A-857C-C1DE21986D28/77/NOR_vs_NAND6.pdf and
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/19/453784.aspxI leave you with some screenshots.
Camera snap snap snap
The P990i sports the same 2MP camera like on the K750i and the photos reproduced are crisp and very sharp. My perception is that the noise level is significantly less than even that of the K750i/W800i/W810i/W900i which I have tried over the past few months. Any P910i user upgrading to the P990i will find the imaging quality improved tremendously. New imaging options like Macro mode , 4 shot burst mode , enhanced exposure control, white balance control can all be found on the image settings screen.
Video Recording.... Whirrrrrrrrrrrrr..<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/K1mjgnKoaac&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/K1mjgnKoaac&rel=0</a>]]><![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JxCwiORCkY8&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JxCwiORCkY8&rel=0</a>]]>Night Mode Video<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ys4GCHf8COE&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ys4GCHf8COE&rel=0</a>]]>Summary compared to P910iIn summary, I would like to add that the much awaited and coveted P990i is for the most part a very worthy successor to the very popular P910i. Some points to note in comparison :
Pros- WIFI Support to use hotspots on the go
- CST-75 Charger which allows syncing/headset while the phone is being rapidly charged
- Ability to turn off USB charging in control panel without going to hidden service menus (to save battery wear)
- Nice cradle which supports video calls on the desk whilst phone is synching and charging
- Opera Browser capable of tabbed browsing
- Business Card Scanner for instant scanning of contacts
- 3G Data capabilities for faster surfing on the go
- Much improved QWERTY keypad
- Very good video capture capabilities at 30fps
- Video calls with very low pixelation comparable to W900i and much improved to K800i
- Great photos comparable to K750i/W800i camera modules
- Very good BT 2.0 EDR Support (Includes AVCRP and A2DP profiles)
- Able to play slideshow of a folder with selected music as Screensaver (Great on the desk)
ConsMajor
- Poor GSM reception (At least for M1 and Starhub networks tested)
- Poor WIFI range (not able to detect as many WIFI APs as PPC devices)
- Battery life is quite dismal at less than 1 day with moderate use (compared to more than 1 day with P910i)
- No Chinese support at the moment (requires manual copying in of Chinese fonts for reading)
- Low availability of applications and made worse by the Symbian digital-signing requirements for all applications developed.
- WIFI unable to link to access points with SSID broadcasting turned off
Minor
- UIQ3 interface seems slower than the UIQ2 interface due to zooming and 3D translucent effects
- WIFI 802.11b instead of the more common 802.11g standard now. (due to delay in launching of device)
- Stylus is placed on the wrong side of the device
- 3-way jog dial which requires further thumb travel to move back any menus
- PC Suite unable to perform backup (could be due to device not being the final retail version or hardware problem with the review unit)
- Speakers are a little weak on the Bass
- No more numerical shortcuts in the Flip Closed mode to allow quick navigation to items like status, apps etc. (Requires much more scrolling)
Generally, the phone is relatively stable and bug free thus far in the short time I have taken to work through its paces. No doubt more information would be available after the phone is commercially launched. I think this phone will still be a success to SE. The switch to UIQ3 and the poor network reception are major source of concerns as a Smartphone like this should work extremely well as a phone and the UI should be very responsive with more applications available than normal mobile phones though not on par with Windows Mobile.
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