Sony Ericsson P1i
RATING
Pros
- Battery life
- 3G and Wi-Fi
- 2.6-inch touchscreen
- Symbian OS 9.1
Cons
- No HSDPA
- No 3.5 mm audio jack
- Tri-band only
SUMMARY
Top-notch Symbian OS smartphone. Good for business and pleasure. Well-designed, office applications, 3.2 MP camera, music player, FM radio - the P1i has a big feature set. There's 3G and Wi-Fi, but no HSDPA.
Review
The Sony Ericsson P1i is a 3G smartphone with Symbian OS 9.1m UIQ 3.0, and Wi-Fi. The P1i is a successor to the P990i, but the P1i design looks very much like the Sony Ericsson M600i.
A definite improvement over the P990i. The only quibbles could be the lack of HSDPA, no 3.5 mm jack, and not having the very latest Symbian OS version (9.3). The P1i is tri-band - so no 850 Mhz frequency support. 850 Mhz GSM is used in the US, Australia, Canada and many South American countries.
Design
The P1i is quite a wide mobile phone - 55 mm, it's still 6 mm narrower than the Apple iPhone. At 124 g, the P1i is above average weight. That's fine, it helps give the phone a solid feel.
The P1i has matte metallic finish around the edges and the top section of the front. Black plastic for the keyboard and the back has a rubbery feel to it. Good build quality - magic bonus points for the design.
2.6-inch touchscreen: Good. Use the stylus or your fingers to operate the touchscreen. The stylus is housed rear-left of the P1i. Sliding it out is a doddle - it clicks firmly back into place. Viewing the screen in the sun is better than many of the older Sony Ericsson phones we've tested.
Dual-function keyboard: The Sony Ericsson P1i has 3 text input options - the dual-function QWERTY keyboard, on-screen virtual keyboard (use the stylus), or handwriting recognition.
The keyboard has the same design as the M600i - 2 letters to each rocker key. Press down on the left or right side of the key to select the appropriate letter.
It can take a while to get used too, but after a while you can type quite quickly - nearly as fast as you can with a 1 letter per key QWERTY keyboard. 25 words-per-minute (wpm) is possible for fast typists.
Connector: On the bottom of the phone is the proprietary connector. You would need to buy an adapter to plug in 3.5 mm earphones.
Memory Stick Micro (M2): Hot-swappable memory card slot on the right side. Supports up to 4 GB. 160 MB phone memory and 512 MB memory card should be included in the box. You can buy a 4 GB M2 card for about £30, or a 2 GB card for £14.
Other design elements: The jog dial (scroll through lists) and back key are on the left side, there's a VGA camera on the front (top-left), 3.2 MP camera on the back (with dual LED flash) and speaker. The camera button is on the right side.
There are no call/end call hardware keys - tap the on-screen keys to manage calls.
Features
Symbian OS 9.1, UIQ 3.0
Lots of applications - QuickOffice, business card scanner, Wi-Fi, task manager, tools and more. Symbian are currently on version 9.5.
Connectivity
Bluetooth 2.0 (supports 13 profiles), infrared, WLAN (connect to wireless local networks), USB and 3G. There's no EDGE or HSDPA - the next P-series smartphones will surely have HSDPA.
P1i Battery Life
Sony Ericsson claim 10 hours 2G network talk time. That's very good. We didn't test out their claims. Experience suggests that the manufacturers make accurate battery life claims. You can reduce power consumption by turning off 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other services.
3.2 Megapixel Camera
Good image quality. Nowhere near as good as a decent dedicated 8 MP camera, but it should be fine for most people. 3.2 megapixels is 2048 x 1536 pixels. You can print A4-sized prints with that.
Press the camera button to activate the camera. Take photos in landscape mode. There are lots of camera options: exposure compensation, frame size, 3x digital zoom, auto focus, macro mode, video file size, white balance, light, microphone, effects, quality, night mode, auto preview, shutter sound, saving options and self-timer.
There's a dual LED flash unit on the back. Pretty good for an LED flash, though not as good as a Xenon flash - found on CyberShot phones such as the Sony Ericsson K850i.
Video capture: On par with most other Sony Ericsson phones - lagging behind Nokia. 240 x 320 (QVGA) video capture at 15 fps.
Front-facing VGA camera: Used for 3G video calls. Works well.
Music player / video
Good. Sony Ericsson Walkman Player interface. Playlists, artists, albums, playback, tracks, equalizer, shuffle, repeat... You can use the jog dial to scroll through lists. Supports MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+ file formats.
The supplied earphones and loudspeaker are fine.
Video playback: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, WMV9 and Real video formats.
Web browser
Opera Mini browser. Fine. Not as good as the Safari browser. 3G gives reasonably quick download speeds.
Text input
On-screen QWERTY, hardware keyboard or handwriting recognition. The on-screen QWERTY is tiny, but works well. Use the stylus. Handwriting recognition can be slow - you need to be very precise with your strokes for the software to correctly identify your strokes. We prefer the rocker key keyboard.
Summary
The Sony Ericsson P1i is a good phone for business and pleasure. Well-designed, office applications, 3.2 MP camera, music player, FM radio - the P1i has a big feature set.
There's no super-fast HSDPA (3.5G) speeds, but you do get 3G UMTS. Wi-Fi connectivity is also good to have. Better than the iPhone? No. Its thin design is a big bonus. Thumbs up.
= coming soonFeatures / Specifications
* confirm features at manufacturer's Web site.
4.2 x 2.2 x 0.7 inches
4.4 oz
- 2.6-inch TFT
- 240x320 pixels
- 262144 colours
- Touchscreen
- 160 MB phone memory
- m2 memory card (4 GB max)
- Tri-band (GSM 900, 1800 and 1900 Mhz)
- 3G (UMTS 2100 Mhz)
- Talk time: 10 hours
- Standby time: 440 hours
- 3G talk time: 3.5 hours
In The Box
Sony Ericsson P1i, battery, charger, hands free, desk stand, software, USB cable, 512 MB M2 memory card, pouch, extra stylus, user guide.
Connectivity
- Wi-Fi
- Infrared
- Bluetooth 2.0
- USB 2.0
- Video calling
Camera
- 3.2 MP Camera
- features: exposure compensation, frame size, 3x digital zoom, auto focus, macro mode, video file size, white balance, light, microphone, effects, quality, night mode, auto preview, shutter sound, saving options and self-timer
- QVGA video resolution
- 15 FPS video capture
Messaging
- SMS, MMS, Push Email
- Push Email
- Software QWERTY
- Hardware QWERTY
Entertainment
- Games: Vijay Singh Pro Golf 3D, Quadrapop
- FM radio
- RDS Radio
- Music Player
- Video Player
Internet
- Opera Mini Web browser
- RSS Reader
Installed Applications
- MegaBass, PlayNow, TrackID, Business card scanner, QuickOffice, PDF+, iSkoot - Skype on your mobile, Handwriting recognition
- Document viewer
- PIM: Organiser tools
- Sound recorder, voice dialling, voice control
Prices
Prices coming soon.
TAGS: touchscreen, 3g, wi-fi, smartphone, bar phones
Useful Links
| Official Site: | Sony Ericsson P1i |
| Try The Phone: | Try the P1i |
| P1i Support: | P1i Support Pages |
| Opera Mini: | Opera Mini Browser |
| Symbian OS: | Symbian OS |
| YouTube Videos: | Sony Ericsson P1i Videos |
| Images: | Sony Ericsson P1i Images |
