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P1i User Reviews |
DragonEye
Joined: Sep 26, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Canada
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The Master of Multitasking is here and it’s brought along the wifi and Cam too! My P1i Review.
My last UIQ review left off with “Where’s the wifi and cam?” That lovely device was the m600i. It’s almost been a year later and SE has rolled out the P1i. Has SE finally offered a solution that will bring back some respect to their smartphone lineup after the P990 fiasco? Read on to find out…
I’m my review I’ll draw comparisons against its predecessor the m600i and also match it up against some of the s60 devices. I’ve played with some windows and linux smartphones but they really don’t interest me so they’ll be excluded probably.
Build quality/design
The m600i was very plasticky but fairly solid… SE has upgraded the p1i with blends of rubber (back plate), glossy plastic (seems to be a trend right now) and aluminum metals. Quite frankly, I love the feel of it. Kinda feels like that HTC S620 (or is it the 630?).
So far I’ve experienced no creaks, wobbles or loose battery covers. This device finally feels like a premium product. For most people though I think it’ll look like a glorified calculator. The use of black, silver and red makes it quite attractive in a sophisticated way though imo.
SE has also improved the jog dial…. it’s still 3-way but the hump that protects the wheel has been removed and that makes the scroll much more pleasant now. It glides along smoother and doesn’t feel stiff like the m600i before. The p990i uses a nice big wheel but SE had decided to not incorporate that into the p1i probably due trying to minimize the size. It’s nice to see SE listening or at least realizing faults and addressing them.
The memory card slot is located on the side and is hot-swap. The P1i uses the traditional SE dual-front look as it features a 3.2 cam with AF and dual led lights. No nasty k800/790 hunchback here folks the camera sits nice and flush but sadly there is no lens protector. The glass protecting the lens looks easy to clean though and seems like it’s made with a scratching resistant material.
The keypad keeps the m600’s unique design and I find it quite easy to use. There’s a bit of a learning curve I’d say (or comfort zone). I remember hating it when I first used the m600i.. But now texting with it is a breeze. I can use one hand or two but it’s a little hard when driving lol.
SE has also added a service light at the bottom of the phone… an odd place to put it but it’s still useful… you get various updates from the light…I.e.: it flashes and keeps flashing if you have unread messages.
Voice quality and reception
Taken from m600i review
“Well SE decided to leave out the 850 and edge so it obviously will not appeal to the North America 850 freaks. It’s triband with 3g. So far I’d have to say the RF is solid on this phone. The bars fluctuate like crazy (typical SE style) but it seems to have solid RF on the 1900 channel. I’ve noticed that triband with 3g generally have pretty strong antennas. (The v3x, the k608i, w900i and sharp 903sh all rock solid in RF. I don’t go through any intense testing but so far where I’ve been it’s been fine.
Voice quality is excellent, has a better balance in tones compared to my w810i. Earpiece is fairly loud. Paired perfectly with my jx-10 and seems to give the general performance as most of my SE phones.”
Yep everything is pretty much the same in the audio/rf department if anything it’s gotten better (could be the network though)… but I’ll stick with it being pretty much the same….
It’s interesting that there has only been one SE smartphone with 850.. the p910a. Guess they’re not sold on North Americans forking over the cash. I honestly think it’ll bite them in the butt cause we’ve seen success in the nokia n95 and iphone… but then again I’m not crunching their P/L and we can’t base popularity strictly based on bitter Hofoers that need 850. LOL, SUCKA!
UI/screen/performance
There were a lot of complaints about the screen on the m600i, w950 and p990i. Mainly about it’s visibility in the sun. I can say this has been improved significantly. It’s not the best screen in the sun but it is very, very legible similar to k790/k800 but not quite as good as the n95 for example. The screen remains 262K, it’s quite vibrant and everything looks great on it. People have been harping on SE for not moving up to 1.6 MM colours… but I don’t see it as being an issue I prefer respectable battery life (cough, cough cheap shot at n95 I know, I know) I personally would rather have a higher resolution before more colors…. The n80 screen was fabulous minus it lacking brightness.
On a bright sunny day
Another chomp from the m600i review to get people up to speed
“I don’t know what it is about SE but the way these use icons and stuff really appeal to me. Even though they’re not using the best screens compared to others they certainly pack a nice wow factor.
Right way the shortcut bar on the bottom sticks out. It’s a SE version of apple’s dock I guess. Nice bubbly icons. They are preset but you can change to based on your preferences and customize to your liking to the apps of your choice.”
SE has modified their today screen. It’s like a blend of the p990i and m600i now. They’ve added 10 additional shortcuts and it’s quite a treat to use. The icons are a good size and easy to activate by simply using your fingers. The nice thing about SE touchscreens is you can drag your finger across to select things. Whereas on windows (I think they changed this with the touch) you can’t drag, you have to lift and touch, lift and touch to move around.
Main screen – you can switch the views from list to icon.. and everything moves pretty fast.
The biggest issue I think Power users today experience on their smartphones is the lack of operating memory; Ram. Ram has always been a problem for virtually every device I’ve played with until now. There’s nothing more annoying then having apps randomly close or constantly getting “memory full please close apps” prompts… I’ve seen this on s60, uiq and windows phones so I’m not picking on anyone in particular.
Multitasking – Look at all the apps running, no issues at all between switching and when you close them all it frees up a whooping ~20megs… lol that’s more operating memory available on a freshly booted n95. (in fairness nokia’s n76 is loaded with tons of ram… sadly the phone sucks.. but I think all the manufacturers are moving in this direction.)
I’ve got word, excel, powerpoint, webbrowser, agile messenger, a game (brother in arms great graphics), music player, tomtom and the list goes on and on.. and I’ve got about 30megs of free memory left lol.
Special thanks to Swissmanger pro… probably the best taskmanger I’ve ever used on any phone.
multitasking video –here’s a quick vid of the device at work switching through some of the apps. As you can see when everything is started switching is fast and seamless. Truly amazing and makes the smartphone experience wonderful and you can see why I’ve dubbed it the Master of Multitasking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_8QB51FTY
People have also knocked this phone for it’s weaker processor (old) If you were to go head to head on starting apps with say a n95 you’ll notice that the p1i is slightly slower…. But honestly for me I rather wait a little longer to get all my apps running and have them never crash then to have it boot up faster only to be limited by the number of apps I use or to have them close due to memory errors. Obviously the best solution is to have both, but I’d choose more ram over processing speed for now.
Multimedia
Taken from my old m600i review
“The music player seems to be a toned down version of what we’ll be seeing in the w950i
The sound quality is on par with the current SE phones and supports a2dp.
The music list has to be refreshed now to find tracks but you can also apply a filter to sort out ringtones.”
Music – nothing has changed here.. still doesn’t read embedded album art from the mp3. But album art is supported you have to drop an jpeg file in the folder where the songs are. This of course means you would need to have all your music setup like this:
Artist>Album>Songs and jpeg for album art to work.
The filter is a brilliant idea.. I hate hearing ringtones in my music player. I personally think they should revamp this a bit and use the space better. Bigger buttons for stop, play etc.. and also some hotkeys on the keypad would be great.
[CENTER] [/CENTER]
Video, picture gallery etc..
The video player is pretty good, I was able to get it to play the usually HQ mp4’s I’ve used on the n95 etc.
The gallery is simple but works.. you can do slideshow with music and different transition effects. Not as fancy as the n series gallery… which I’ve actually gotten to like a lot. What I’d like to see is more display options.. View as list, thumbnails, details etc…(you can do it on the k790a SE!!!) For some reason the gallery only let’s the DCIM folder view as a thumbnail grid, any pictures outside of that folder set up as a thumbnail detail list.. which is quite frankly, annoying. I haven’t found a replacement gallery app… but if one comes out I’ll be the first to try it.
Camera- The m600i without a camera really sucked for me. I’m glad se has put a nice 3.2 cam into this device. The camera is decent I’ve had no challenges with it. It’s not as good as the k790a and it’s missing a real flash.. but nevertheless I’m quite happy
Pics – are all shot in automode, some are using macro and some are using flash.. EDIT.. about 10 secs to start up first.. after that 5 secs to startup from taskmanager... capture and display is about 4-5 secs to my 2 gig card at full res.. this is the only part where the phone can lag at times IMO.
[CENTER]  
  
   [/CENTER]
Video recording has been bumped up a bit as well. It’s not the best but it’s a lot better then what SE was giving us before. The P1i records 15 frames, QVGA in 3gpp format. Nothing great when you compare it to the n93 or n95.. but hey at least I can make out people’s faces now.
I’ll try to attach a sample later.
Connectivity
What’s this? We’ve got wifi too now… SE is trying to spoiler us lol. Other smartphone users having been enjoying wifi for a while now so it’s nice to SE not entirely missing the boat. Yes there was the P990i… but meh that was the p990i. It’s B only but I’m not complaining.
Web – Opera 8.65 works pretty well, has a lot of settings (landscrape. Fit to screen etc) No flash support but soon I hope! The browser still isn’t as good as the s60 mainly cause it doesn’t seem to be as fast. Navigation on a normal view can be a little difficult to get use to.. I wish they could use the keypad as a dpad for navigation that would make this much better IMO.
I’ve also started experimenting with the new opera mini and think it’s great also.
Mail- Love the send screen… everything is there and you don’t have to drill into more and press send. Switching mailbox isn’t as good as s60 tab system though. Wish they’d incorporate that. Looks like UIQ hardscreen has that type of system (SEE RIZR Z8)
There is support for Blackberry connect and active exchange. I’ve used neither and don’t plan to start. But I do have my gmail setup. There’s an option to ALWAYS PUSH. But it doesn’t seem to work. I’m new to this email setup stuff. But you can set it to auto-retrive every minute. Which is essentially the same but may hit the battery harder as it’s always refreshing where as push is only using battery when you get mail. (I think that’s how it works)
isync- se has finally added apple isync support and it works great..
Agile – A great msn app… just thought I’d share. Fring is really good too..and does VOIP.
[CENTER] [/CENTER]
Bugs and Annoyances
I’ve had the phone for about a week now and honestly don’t have any major complaints. I’ve had 1 crash… the Bluetooth isync rebooted the phone… otherwise it’s been rock solid. The UI hasn’t changed much from before but it is slightly more polished. I think the UI still suffers from odd inconsistencies in the core apps and does have it’s quirks…
For example: You can use the delete key in the gallery but not in the file manager.
Also I’m still having network issues with SMS timestamps. The p1i like the m600i reports SMS inbox messages in GMT+/- time. So if it’s 9 now. My sms will tell me it’s 5 GMT time. Outgoing SMS, email, mms (in/out)and phone calls all report the right time though…
SE can you please also add Toronto to the location list… You idiots!
I forgot to mention battery life. Well it’s great.. It’s 1120 mah and I’m going about 1 ½ days, but on a heavy day it’ll always last till the night.
Just a quick comparison against a lovely n93i “superbrick” I happen to have lying around. And it really is a brick it died in the NSS updater lol.
Overall
Haven’t been this happy with a device for a while. It’s currently SE’s best attempt at offering a complete Smartphone solution. With the added ram it truly makes it one of the best out there imo cause everything now works as it should.
For some, they’ll feel shunned by SE again with no edge, 850mhz and HSPDA. It’s a loss for both really.. SE doesn’t get to make the sale and the Enduser misses out on a wonderful experience. Well that's it... FYI-grammer or spelling I'm not responsible for... i haven't even read it over yet lol enjoy!
My final words....
Its what computers have become - the new Sony Ericsson P1i   
added new video
finger scrolling with opera mini 4 and tomtom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE2dUjJfYOI
[ This Message was edited by: DragonEye on 2007-08-02 20:39 ]
[ This Message was edited by: DragonEye on 2007-08-08 15:25 ] |
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Wuz
Joined: Nov 01, 2002
Posts: 319
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Thanks very much - great review, very helpful and all the more reason to make this my next phone. |
Matteus
Joined: Oct 20, 2002
Posts: 372
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Thanks alot! I love SE phones and P1i is already one of my favorites. Using now a Song A168. Touchscreen is necessary and good battery.
This message was posted from a WAP device |
mortengutt
Joined: Jun 17, 2004
Posts: 69
From: Norway
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Anybody know where I can get hold of the mac-icons that is in the review in the shortcuts? |
brunoXT
Joined: Jul 14, 2005
Posts: 115
From: Lima, Peru
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Your review was very cool dude, I liked the pics also.
I hope you post more pics
cheers |
mazi
Joined: Feb 24, 2006
Posts: 191
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thanx alot man...very good.. |
Marc_SE
Joined: Mar 30, 2006
Posts: > 500
From: Around the way, UK
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Now THOSE were a cool set of Mac-style icons on your handset dude!
Nice review too.
Mobile 1: 07***118776 Apple iPhone4
Mobile 2: 07***118776 BB Bold 9700
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DragonEye
Joined: Sep 26, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Canada
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i can link people to the theme and icons later tonight...i'm at work now... |
mortengutt
Joined: Jun 17, 2004
Posts: 69
From: Norway
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Great, thanks  |
deepu
Joined: Jan 24, 2007
Posts: 87
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It didn't get clear to me if P1 media player supports album art or not. Appart form that looks like a great marvelous wonderful phone, so hard to decide between this one or w960! |
DragonEye
Joined: Sep 26, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Canada
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On 2007-08-02 21:42:59, deepu wrote:
It didn't get clear to me if P1 media player supports album art or not. Appart form that looks like a great marvelous wonderful phone, so hard to decide between this one or w960!
yes album art works... it just UIQ3 just doesn't read the embedded art.
If you want album art you have to put the jpeg of the album in the folder where the songs are.
Shaolinmonk on HOFO Official PHONE JUNKIE
My P1i Review
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=152437&start=0 |
mortengutt
Joined: Jun 17, 2004
Posts: 69
From: Norway
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Dragoneye: Could you please upload thos mac-icons? |
PeterKay
Joined: Jul 08, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: The Ummah
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Brilliant review, cheers
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DragonEye
Joined: Sep 26, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Canada
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http://www.ipmart-forum.com/showthread.php?t=136590&page=20
icons and more here
Shaolinmonk on HOFO Official PHONE JUNKIE
My P1i Review
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=152437&start=0 |
jakontil
Joined: Jun 28, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Changi, Chatswood, Cikarang
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well reviewed and quite specific mate! i'm glad we have the same views on the phone! |
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Posted: 2007-08-02 18:48
