Sony Ericsson P990i Review: Part2

Multimedia - Very good

Multimedia is clearly the P990i's strong suit. The phone uses the Opera Web browser, a capable browser that still pales next to the Symbian browser found on Nokia's S60 phones. The phone opened the New York Times homepage effortlessly, though scrolling about the large window required a lot of thumbwheeling. The phone handles music files well, playing most popular non-DRM formats (and, thankfully, not limiting you to Sony's ATRAC files). Stereo Bluetooth support is included, as is an FM radio with RDS functionality. The included wired stereo headset is required for FM radio use, as it acts as an antenna. A couple of extra applications handle streaming audio and video, as well as RSS feeds. The camera has a 2-megapixel sensor, and is among the best we've used, with real auto-focus capabilities and clean images that reveal flaws only when you zoom in closely.

Scheduling - Good

Though the Sony Ericsson P990i contains a robust calendar setup, poor implementation makes it a hassle to use. There is no daily view; instead, today's appointments are shown in the bottom half of the window of the monthly view, with no timeline. The weekly view, which shows a set of seven squares at once instead of five or seven columns, is difficult to read quickly, and comparing days chronologically with each other is impossible. Synchronization is handled by Sony's buggy PC Studio software. All too often, our sync attempts failed even though the PC studio indicated a connection with the phone. Working properly, however, the software can synchronize with Outlook, and works fairly quickly over the USB and Bluetooth connections.

Productivity - Mediocre

The phone supports all Office document formats as well as PDF files, though viewing and editing these documents can be an arduous experience. Few editing functions are available, with a lack of advanced formulas in Excel spreadsheets or form support in PDF files. Additionally, navigating documents on the P990i is among the worst experiences we've had on a business phone. The scrollwheel only moves the viewer up and down, which is annoying in Word documents, but absurd in Excel spreadsheets. Using the stylus to drag the scroll bars produced mixed results. Occasionally, the phone would only scroll to the end of a cell in a spreadsheet, or would jump about the document. Stylus input overall seems somewhat inaccurate, though we calibrated our phone before testing. Highlighting text required pinpoint accuracy, as any near-miss was interpreted as a handwritten strike, an action that the phone reads as ''delete.''

Calling - Good

Phone calls on the Sony Ericsson P990i sound great, among the best we've heard, but placing a call can be needlessly difficult. Though you can dial from within the contact list, you cannot type a contact into the number pad. Additionally, the contact list is not a top-level option; instead, you must drill into the puzzling icons to find it. The search function in the contact list is remarkably dimwitted. It will only search for names as typed -- last name first -- so if you type a first name into the search field, you're out of luck. The phone's ''business card scanner'' function piqued our interest: you simply take a picture of a business card, and the phone uses optical character recognition to create a contact for it. Unfortunately, fields such as company name were often missing, and proper names tended to gain or lose a character, rendering the card reader more of a novelty than a useful business application.
10/20/2006 12:35:39 PM
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