Sony Ericsson P990 review: A coveted smartphone
- p
- pete
- 4}g
- 24 Jan 2007
i am new with the se p990
if i were to install software for gps
do i still need a internet connection?
help?
- S
- Srun
- P%$
- 22 Jan 2007
Hi!everyone,currently i am using the Nokia 6233,but I want to change it,i want to ask whether Sonyericsson P990i can play the music through loud speakers as loud as Nokia 6233?the Nokia 6233 actually can play really loud through loud speakers but i think the sound quality is not so good,it distorts a bit when playing higher volume,so can anyone tell me which phones can play the music nicely and loudly through loud speakers?
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- eplazai
- Pv%
- 08 Jan 2007
Cool Phone!
- P
- Paul9292003
- PE2
- 06 Jan 2007
I just updated my P990i with the R9 firmware. It now works a whole lot faster. recently I used to have problems logging onto y 2 different online email accounts (same website) but the web browser's security features would some how lock up when I tried to change user id's. with R9, it doesn't happen... surfing the net is fast and reliable now. pulling up apps, like media player, contacts or the calender/organizer functions work so much better now. My phone did restart a few hours after the update, but it took less than 10 sec to be back up and running and has been smooth ever since. My only problem with the update process is that I dont keep my phone setting when I convert... I sync my phone prior to the update and after, but It did not keep like my speed dial or contact ringtone settings... I hope that is rectified on the next firmware update...
I love my phone... it gets better and better each day I use it
- a
- abubasim
- nXE
- 03 Jan 2007
R9 firmware is out now on Sony Ericsson Update Service with improvements for speed, memory handling and stability.
- P
- Paul9292003
- iZw
- 02 Jan 2007
Well, I've had the phone about a week now, and I still love it, despite a couple of problems. It does show an error message ocassionally, only indicating that it shut down an application that was not being used. the phone restarted once since I got it, only beacuase I have a whole host of apps running in the background. It is always a good idea to goto the task manager and shut down an app or feature that you are not using, it does speed up the performance a bit. I updated the software to the latest release as of 12/30/06 (R7.) I used the camera in both video and still pic mode. The still pics are outstanding for a 2.0 mp, the videos are fairly smooth and detailed considering they are in qvga, not full vga resolution as in the newer Nokia N series phones that are out there. once I got my settings right, web browsing is a breeze, although it does take time to load a page ocassionally. I still haven't figured out how to download any of my videos into the memory stick. I have about 350 mp3's in my memory stick right now and the sound quality of the media player is on par for a Sony device. the phone's mini speaker is quite loud enough to play any song for individual enjoyment. I am currently using a 2.0GB Sandisk gaming memory stick duo pro for the PSP in my phone, it took a couple of tries to format it into a usuable memory source, but now it works flawlessly. Battery time on the other hand is a little on the short side. if you use the phone's multimedia features alot during the day, you will end up using almost all of the battery up in a day. its ok for me, since i just have it sit on the charging/computer sync stand for a couple of hours when I get home from work.
I paired a couple of blutooth devices to my P990i, the HBH-MV425 Bluetooth Handsfree and the SE MBW-100 Blutetooth Watch made by Fossil. The hadsfree was easy to pair, wears comfortably on my ear for extended periods and has good sound quality.
Now the MBW-100 Watch. I have been reading that it only can fully work with the W and K series walkman phones. at the risk ofit not being compatible with my P990, I bought it anyway since it looks very stylish. I managed to pair the watch with my phone... The caller ID function works flawlessly, as does the music player controls and the out of range feature. I haven't been alerted when I had a text arrive, but I dont get many text's anyways. I love this watch, it has rugged good looks, rather large beefy looks(which is OK since I am a rather large framed guy) and works well to. The only drawback to the watch is that it has to be charged with its own dedicated charger often. if you disable all the bluetooth features, you may get up to 2 weeks worth of time keeping, but with all the features on, I have been getting a few days, if not only 2 days functionality, with an additional day or 2 of time keeping, so I end up charging the watch almost daily if I want to keep all the features on. None the less a good product, SE and Fossil need to work on the battery life.
Overall my first week with my phone has been a good one... this is my first smart phone so I am not able to compare the functionality and ease of use to any other smart/PDA phones on the market. But having a good web browser, with wifi conectivity on a phone, as well as it being a good mp3 player and soo on, The Sony Ericsson P990i is defiitely a good phone in my opinion. So stayed tuned for further developments. I will update you all when the new sofware updates arrive and it improves the performance of this great phone... Until next time.
- P
- Paul9292003
- iZw
- 26 Dec 2006
A correction to my last comment. The N95 is Wifi capable. So to think about it, it is a "dream phone" to many peoples eye... I would like to buy it... but will not be out for a while and I need a phone right now.
- P
- Paul9292003
- iZw
- 26 Dec 2006
Just recieved my new SE P990. I will be giving a complete series of reviews here. I downloaded all the supprot software from www.sonyericsson.com... I hope this phone will rise above all these negative comments... once I install all the necessary firmware updates.
From what I have seen, the SE P990 has all the features that I ever wanted in a mobile phone.... 3G capable, Wifi, Bluetooth, 2.0 mp camera(if I wanted a higher resolution camera, I will bring my digiam with me,) sleek looking design, video phone and soo on...
Before I decided to buy the P990, I wanted something new in a mobile phone. I wanted a smartphone... I was eyeing the the Palm Treo 700, Motorola Q or the Nokia E61. But what I was really caught my attention was the soon to be released N95. When I really started to think about what I needed in a mobile phone, it dawned on me that I dont need GPS, having a 5MP camera in a phone should be awesome. But considering that the N95 is not Wifi capable, and when it finally is released to the public(which would probably be more towards the mid/end of 2007, remember the N91 and how long that took to be released.) it will be at least $300USD more than the P990... probably more like $500+ USD more.
So my P990 just arried via FedEx to my home, I haven't seen the box yet. I can't wait to start playing with it.
- a
- abbas
- 2W9
- 22 Dec 2006
hi, marvellous handset ever seen with the tecno par excellence and to talk the looks even queen victoria will give the second look gruaranteed.
- f
- farshad
- mg}
- 12 Dec 2006
hi everyone:
could anyone tell me how i could directly recieve sms in memory ?
this phone is great one i used n70, too but it is so diifireent and alittle not user friend.
- p
- p900 lover
- N7$
- 09 Dec 2006
This new phone really is a dog. I managed to crash it within 5 minutes of turning it on! I have used a P800, P900 and a P910...I had hoped that SonyE would get the firmware on the P990 working by the time it was released in South Africa - no luck - and it's soooo sloooow as well. If you are reading this and wondering whether to make a purchase decision, it's quite simple: If you are a features freak and you don't mind dropped calls, rebooting constantly, complicated menus and very bad bettery life, then this phone is for you. If however, you actually use your phone for making calls, managing your contacts and checking your schedule...then save your money and get something else.
- B
- BOBO
- TSQ
- 09 Dec 2006
what are the difference between operating system in this phone and use by nokia on their smartphone?
this because both of them using symbian software,but the interface are different....can anyone explain????
is that mean software for nokia smartphone suitable for this SE?
- G
- Geoff littler
- myE
- 05 Dec 2006
I have now had this phone for 4 weeks. I used it initially with the flip removed - bad idea, functionality when using the phone like this is greatly reduced and you need both hands at all times to use the handset. The battery life when used without the flip is also very poor. Eventually I started using the phone with the flip in place and the battery is only marginally better. Although I charge the phone every night the battery will not live through a full business day. It's not all bad news, I must say that the messaging facility is excellent but the fact is I want a phone to make phone calls not to send text messages. The call register has a strange quirk of not displaying your last call but only the one before it there is a one call lag on the register which after a while really started to annoy me. The phone periodically shuts itself down and restarts suggesting that this is to optimise perforfance. Bluetooth will not communicate with my Parrot 3200 car kit, when I started using my Sony Ericsson Bluetooth earpiece that started playing up too. In conclusion the phone looks absolutely first class in appearance and if you want a phone that looks good then in my opinion you canot beat it. If you require a phone with some degree of longevity for business use then perhaps you may want to consider other options.
- F
- Florinski
- mAM
- 04 Dec 2006
Hi 'Rofox' !
I saw your comment posted on GSM Arena forum - I can tell you that I had same problem with my first P990i - I got it change on same store, second day after I experienced that problem. The one that I own now, it is pretty much OK regarding that matter that you have had on your SE ( meaning that the phone is not restarting because of that ! ) , but I'm still not satisfied with some problems that the software or even worst, maybe hardware problems, of my SE model still has, despite the fact that I did the software upgrade that SE is offering officially on their sites - maybe you should try that upgrade - maybe it will fix your SE radio - software ? or hardware ? - which is causing your phone to restart .
Reg. camera : I really do not enjoy the way that auto-focus is working ... Not to mention 'night time' setting which is bringing a lot of thin vertical blue stripes on the screen & on the picture took...
Did you tried the WiFi connection ? Is so nice... But when connecting to Internet, a lot of Kernel errors appears from time to time, making the phone to shut down & restart to often ... making the first good thrill dimm... :))
I really hope that those guys from SE are working in order to do something good reg. all this problems, & hope again that they will release soon a better version of their actual software upgrade reg. SE P990i model.
However, this phone is worth-trying for anyone who loves to have an all-in-one concept - I would really love to see a smart mobile phone from SE having a GPS incorporated device also, and the possibility to use one of his camera as a web cam, & much better quality in photo, audio & video respect... a TV-out... no more crashes in software functionality, better battery...
SE guys, just give us what we want & everyone will be happy !
- J
- John Hawkmount
- njf
- 04 Dec 2006
How can I get the notes/jotter to syncronise with my outlook 2000? Everything else syncs but never any of the data on the notes/jotter function. same thing for the "comments" attached to
the contacts function.
I rang the SE helpdesk but they told me that the P990 won't work with the notes function of Outlook 2000. They told me to buy a more recent version of Outlook! This doesn't make sense to me. Syncronising worked fine with the P910i and all previous versions since the P600
Incidentally, I second all of the comments made by Lesko below on 13 .10.2006. Very true.
- G
- Gremoire
- Nhd
- 21 Nov 2006
Hi Pete,
Yes there is, its can be found on your 64MB memory Stick DUO that came with the phone under Try and Buy.
There is also SmartComNavigator for UIQ3
http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&osId=856&jid=658X6389F3XECC7DX7B5X2XD4B162D83&platformId=4&N=4294923206&productId=199544&R=199544#description1
GPS/J
http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&osId=856&jid=658X6389F3XECC7DX7B5X2XD4B162D83&platformId=4&N=4294923206&productId=186328&R=186328
Also, I see that the main reviews/faq post is going on at http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p990-reviews-1318.php
Hope this helps...
- p
- pete
- 4}g
- 21 Nov 2006
I have a question regarding the p 990 phone.
is there a gps software i can download or buy?
i bought it in the states.
thanks
- G
- Gremoire
- Nhd
- 17 Nov 2006
Got my SE990 yesterday, still waiting for the SIM swap to take effect so have't played araound with it that much yet.
From what I've seen thus far I really like. Yes, it seems a bit slower than my P900 and yes it takes a bit of getting used to.
I can only imagine how people are going to complain when Windows Vista is released 'cause it's not the same as XP/2000 and it looks different and.. and..
Things change, the P990 has more computing power and memory than my first PC had.
Give the phone a chance. If you are a die-hard P9xx fan you will love the phone, I know I do. The camera amazed me.
Boerseun, If you want a P900 you can gladly have mine... still in good running order. Make me a price. I stay in Pretoria... Will monitor the post for your reply....
- H
- Hasan Naeem
- PSe
- 11 Nov 2006
I have been using the P800, P900, P910i but P990 is a disappointment. I Agree with Mr Lesko comments (2006-10-13) about the phone book deficiencies, plus I will like to add that the sms is not half as quick and convenient as P910's you cant mark and erase multiple sms from memory. plus if you are mailing it to someone who has more than one mobile number, P910 use to give the list of all their cell numbers so you could tick which one or all the numbers, P990 doesn't.
Plus the unstable software, sometimes automatically restarts while talking. Sometime hangs and you cant receive calls even if you can see the call and the set is ringing.
I hope Someone at Sony Ericsson is talking notes of all the user complaints. We would appreciate a software update so this set can be more stable and come up to the tradition of P series.
- ?
- Anonymous
- Nxs
- 05 Nov 2006
I've just got a p990 here in Johannesburg and up to now I am quite disappointed. I used to have a p900 which worked very well for me. I expected the new phone to be faster, but it is isn't! In fact, the old P900 boots up faster, looks up contacts faster and is generally a lot more stable.
Sometimes I have to take the battery out as the P990 hangs on me. I would gladly go back to the P900 except I gave it to someone else!
The P900 was also a lot more user-friendly than this one. One is supposed to be able to "end" and application somewhere, but there is no "end" button. So you end up running all the applications you have used until the phone freezes up and you have to reboot, or take out the battery as it sometimes doesn't even want to do that.
Unless SonyEricsson provides better software, I think they are going to ruin their reputation with this one.
I wonder what kind of support there is for this phone. Actually, I have very little time to spend on solving mobile phone problems, so it is really very annoying after all the hype around the P990.
Boerseun