Sony Ericsson P1 review: A smart sharp-shooter

08 May 2007
The Sony Ericsson P1 is an exciting new smartphone that is to be included in Sony Ericsson portfolio. Powered by Symbian OS and featuring a QWERTY keyboard, a touchscreen TFT display with QVGA resolution and a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, it represents the next level of the development of UIQ smartphones. As such, it seems that the Sony Ericsson P1 will be the flagship of Sony Ericsson smartphone line overrunning even the Sony Ericsson P990 and we were more than curious to find out how it performed in real life.

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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • F4p
  • 13 May 2007

so why do you say n95 in this post?
each phone have their weakness right?
you say those weakness dosn't affect you but for a bussiness man,
unzip and adode reader is important too..
and again nothing is perfect, SE fans always take nokia bad points. how about their own bad points? never mention it or just say i dont need it. why cant you all just post about p1 instead of saying other phone's bad point in p1 comment? right?

    • S
    • Satya
    • 2S{
    • 13 May 2007

    If you country has HSDPA then 1MB/4Sec. could be useful to you. Anyway being more practical i will direct download a particular data from my Broadband PC and later send it to my Mobile. I will avoid High HSDPA bills. I use Mobile internet but just to surf web-sites like e-Mails, Social Networking websites , blogs or any other interesting website like GSMArena. Infect my second last post was sent from my phone. I don't think that there is a certain type of data in a whole mobile-internet world that i need to download in hurry. I always avoid downloading videos because 1. They are heavy so your limit to surf is crossed. 2. There are other ways to transfer those videos without spending a single coin.
    If you are a Bill Gates type of person then you can use HSDPA 24 hours. 3G works at 384KPBS so i don't think it's bad and i am sure i never need so much urgency to download a data at 1MB/4 sec. Even i ask you the same question....can you ever imagine that type of circumstance ?
    If you want to download a word or PowerPoint file then 3G will not upset you.
    I admit that N95 has lot of functions and yes i say that it's the only phone with lots of features but dear tell me P1 camera is fine for non-professional pictures ( 3.2MP is enough for clarity and memory, you know it better if you ever used a digicam ), You can surf internet at fast speed, it's working speed is fast, QWERT keyboard so your keypad life will be longer, it has Stylus which gives you a rocking feeling even more when people around you see you working with it, RDS Radio, 1120 mAh battery and other features as well so why do i need N95.

    Plz go to www.sonyericsson.com -> Press Release -> P1

    Then you might understand and do watch that video on you tube. I am not against N95 but i don't need it practically and yes i don't like slider phones coz they are not built for heavy duty and when slider are made by Nokia they become dangerous.
    P 1 is M600 with camera. Please don't compare with N95.

      • S
      • Satya
      • 2S{
      • 13 May 2007

      SEE HOW FAST IT WORKS...

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MlZec_TWl4

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • F4p
        • 13 May 2007

        add on: can this phone download 1MB with like 4sec eh? when 2 more computers is sharing the connection speed of 3Mbps eh?
        no right?

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • F4p
          • 13 May 2007

          eh satya, for your info only the camera takes 6 sec.
          others function doesn't take more then 2 sec..
          pls try it before saying not just on those reviews.
          can this phone download 1MB with like 4sec eh?

            • S
            • Satya
            • M@T
            • 13 May 2007

            you are right nothing is perfact but if i were given a option to choose between a phone who can unzip files and one who can take immediate/urgent shots perfactly then i would choose the 2nd one. plz dont compare with N95. 95 is good to be put at museum coz it has lot of features but takes time to open. id buy vaio at that heavy price. WATCH P1 VIDEO AT YOUTUBE. ITS FAST. i dont need hsdpa 3G is good for me.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • nT3
              • 12 May 2007

              looks really ugly.

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • F4p
                • 12 May 2007

                Satya :
                Till today I have never had the courage to name any phone like the best one on the market with clear conscience. But Nokia N95 does deserve this label.




                --- GSM Arena N95 Review
                Ps, nothing is perfect. can this phone extract zip folders? lmao.

                  • k
                  • kea
                  • wi4
                  • 12 May 2007

                  I wonder it has full white or black in color like m600i ?

                    • N
                    • NabeelFA
                    • SeF
                    • 12 May 2007

                    is the Symbian OS supports Arabic Language?, we had many problems with the P990 and previous devices regarding the Arabic support

                      • s
                      • sonyfanz
                      • PGH
                      • 12 May 2007

                      i really like sony product. coz itz heavy duty product.. like tv,hifi and dvd home theater.. sony is a great product in the world.. like sony ericsson o sony vaio. i really like.. very great production. i want to buy P1.

                        • T
                        • Tom
                        • wg%
                        • 12 May 2007

                        Well, I had an m600 - yes the keyboard takes a little bit of getting used to, but it's DEFINATELY worth it - I prefer it much more than the tiny little keys on competitors phones.
                        Am very very much looking forward to this phone - my only problems with the m600 was the lack of WLAN and low RAM. After permanently killing my old phone, am now considering waiting until this comes out...

                          • S
                          • Satya
                          • 2S{
                          • 12 May 2007

                          It takes 6 seconds to get the camera application running. If you manage to focus immediately, then your first shot will probably take you about 8 seconds, which is rather slow, especially considering the frequent use of photo mobiles as opportunist cameras for taking instant shots.


                          --- GSM Arena N95 Review

                            • S
                            • SeF
                            • whB
                            • 12 May 2007

                            and oh teo why does HTCs have even less powerful 195Mhz processor while providing it's functions very well?

                              • S
                              • SeF
                              • whB
                              • 12 May 2007

                              teo said

                              "@Sef: "EDGE? does every single people use that? Wifi and 3G is moresnappy and is used widelier than Edge so why bother to remove that feature? you gonna play for the feature you dont even used always."

                              Yes they do use it! Why buy a data phone (or PDAphone) and not use its data capability? That's silly question. 3G is faster, but not all countries have 3G signal all the time in all the places. It's expensive too. GPRS is more widespread and low-cost. But without EDGE - this phone is very very very slow!

                              "No GPS? there is tomtom navigator and is already widely vailable and is better compared to the Nokia's GPS built in."

                              I disagree, having built-in is better than having 3rd party GPS. At least, you can connect everytime and anytime you need to.

                              "and Hey 3.2mp is al least can par n95's camera, see the camera review on N95 and witness how poor it deals with the top 3.2mp cameraphone K800. N95's cam is just a gimmick and even F700 can beat it's 5mp cam. maybe it's better to say that F700's cam beats K800 not N95 to beat K800."

                              K800 camera has blue tint in every picture. I use one so I know. And K800 is slow too. N73 takes better photos than k800. I use that too. Plus N95 can take 30fps video and not the slow 15fps of this P1.

                              Plus this P1 has no HSDPA. If you have 3G, your stuck with 3G - no 3.5G or faster than that. And why only triband? When most PDAphones are quadband? And why only 802.11B? When most PDAphones have 802.11G? And why use the 3 year old 208 processor? When the N73/N95 has 330 processor?

                              Nothing is new in this P1 - it is SE putting on outdated and old features, nothing innovative or ground-breaking."

                              you may really dont understand the real thing did you? first you bother on having edge while 3G is present and then you mentioned HSDPA while theres WIFI then you again bother on G type WIFI because p1 has WIFI b only.. sounds wierd but take note all those features recklessly kills battery life faster than what P1 is equipped now. GPS built in consumes battery power of the device, but if you use software based like tomtom and connect it via bluetooth it will save power and give you more reliability.

                              and please note EDGE is less widely used than 3G and i think americas were the main users of EDGE compared in Asia and Europe which most users enjoy the 3G service as low cost as EDGE you are mentioning than EDGE does. and Network carriers are planning to revamp their EDGE services to 3G and yeah here in philippines we're already utilizing HSDPA! no edge here. but it's more costly than 3G service here.

                              n95's GPS would be better if it uses the standard Sirf star III chip used in wide variety of Windows mobile devices. N95 being a large company loves to compete to the standards. they have no advantage over them.

                              do you exactly know "imaging" as well as the word JPEG compression? you really make me laugh as this has been a very long long argument whilst gsmarena have proven that in order to boost N73's quality they have to overcompress the images to reduce noise in a price of detail lost thus, N73 cxan't even resolve the right color as they have "oversaturate" it (same things as N95). and you told me that it has better camera than K800? ask those who really know "imaging" then have yourself clarified carefully. you mentioned blue tint while GSMArena states that it has few red cast in it's images. then who do you think people would believe more? then otherwise you forgot to turn off the manual white balance setting called "tungsten".

                              you mentioned that: "Plus this P1 has no HSDPA. If you have 3G, your stuck with 3G - no 3.5G or faster than that. And why only triband? When most PDAphones are quadband? And why only 802.11B? When most PDAphones have 802.11G? And why use the 3 year old 208 processor? When the N73/N95 has 330 processor?

                              Nothing is new in this P1 - it is SE putting on outdated and old features, nothing innovative or ground-breaking."

                              triband beause it targets europe and asian market, do you live on america that you bother it's capability, maybe you like the phone but you get disappointed because your place is not covered for it's use(anyway theres a variant P1a). 208Mhz processor? but P1 has double RAM than N95 which is better? N95 can record VGA videos in 30Fps but if you have used a UIQ 3 phone you can see that it can render better videos than N95 does. unbelievable as you just stare at specs right? but that's the truth.

                              yes nothing is new in this device, but not outdated as you percieve it, you are a tech geek imho but you just look at the specs on paper and haven't use it very well. sorry dude..

                                • M
                                • Marc
                                • S6$
                                • 12 May 2007

                                The P1i I have has a BST-40 battery, not the BST-33 one.

                                Also, above the fast port is the status light that flashes green when you have a missed call or waiting message and lights solid when charging.

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • 43N
                                  • 11 May 2007

                                  To get bigger icons in your menu for this phone, go to the menu and click on more and change the view from list to grid.

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • xcx
                                    • 11 May 2007

                                    first of all, after using M600i for one year with heavy text input, i can say half qwerty design is brilliant!! it Rocks as it minimize the chances of touching adjacent key as compare to the full qwerty keyboard. Why? becos when u press a key down, the nearby key is much more extruded, it Rock!! this keyboard is the fastest keyboard i can type with! hahah plus the 160 mb free Ram, i am gonna install 100++ 3rd party application in it, currently my M600i has 36 3rd party application installed!

                                      • S
                                      • Satya
                                      • 2S{
                                      • 11 May 2007

                                      The Sony Ericsson P1 lets you read and edit documents on the move, whether Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel. It also ships with a desk stand and USB cable in-box, making it straightforward to synchronise with your PC.

                                      High speed connectivity
                                      Both UMTS and integrated WLAN provide for high-speed Web browsing and data downloads, plus email at a rate and performance you enjoy from your office desktop. The Sony Ericsson P1 is also VoIP enabled for making calls over the internet.

                                      Striking visuals
                                      Surfing the Web is intuitive thanks to the Opera™ Web Browser that displays pages in horizontal, wide screen aspect. The large, touchscreen QVGA display can be seen and used even in bright environments due to the Transflective Display. The 3.2 megapixel camera takes great shots to store or share via Picture Blogging and is also a useful tool for work purposes. It does away with the need to collect stacks of business cards when travelling. Just take a close-up shot of a business card and the card scanner transfers the contact details directly into the phonebook.

                                      Quality downtime
                                      As well as a business tool, the Sony Ericsson P1 also serves as an advanced multimedia companion. Its music and video player mean that you can take your favourite tunes and video clips with you on the 512MB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) provided. Catch the latest news via the on-board FM Radio or stream mobile TV direct to the large screen. Whichever you choose to do, with the P1 you are never short of options.

                                      The Sony Ericsson P1 is a Tri-Band GPRS 900/1800/1900 and UMTS 2100 handset with Wi-Fi 802.11b. It will be available in selected markets from Q3 2007

                                        • S
                                        • Satya
                                        • 2S{
                                        • 11 May 2007

                                        You can imagine the popularity and craze of Sony Ericsson when Nokia people match it with N95.
                                         First of all some people say it doesn’t have Blackberry Connect. It has !!! Please go to Sony Ericsson Corporate-> Press Release -> P1…..i am writing a small bit please go to that page to read more :-
                                        • Dual function keyboard - full alpha-numeric (e.g. QWERTY) text input combined with one hand phone usability
                                        • Choice of text input method including handwriting and word completion
                                        • Push email enabled including support for Exchange ActiveSync™ and BlackBerry® Connect™
                                        • Integrated WLAN and VoIP enabled
                                        • 3.2 megapixel camera with business card scanner
                                        • Large 2.6” touchscreen with a Transflective Display that is easier to view in bright light conditions
                                        • Push email support provided by/licensed from;
                                        o AlteXia
                                        o Ericsson Mobile Office
                                        o Intellisync
                                        o Microsoft - Exchange ActiveSync™
                                        o Research In Motion- BlackBerry Connect
                                        o Seven
                                        o Sybase/iAnywhere
                                        o Visto
                                        • POP3, IMAP4, including IMAP IDLE
                                        • Opera™ Web Browser 8.0
                                        • VPN client from Certicom



                                         Network….People ask it doesn’t have HSDPA or 3.5G. Tell me one thing How many countries have 3.5 technology? How many people have enough money to download/ stream videos through mobile internet? Let me tell you for normal web page browsing GPRS is more then enough like checking e-Mails, Orkut/My Space, Blogs etc. Even GPRS is costly in many countries so opting HSDPA is beyond imagination for Higher-Middle class people. If you really fancy for faster speed then 3G works fine. Just to watch a small video you need HSDPA. The video that you can transfer to your mobile phone via Computer. If you are a hardcore 24 hours internet video watcher then let me tell you clearly that weather you use Nokia or SONY Ericsson or anything else; your phone will be heated up soon and it will be finished in some months and above all you can not match the experience of watching video on a bigger screen rather then on any mobile phone. As far as EDGE is concerned it was deployed in some countries but now mobile operators are converting their networks to 3G. Triband is enough to roam internationally.

                                         GPS ….You can download GPS applications like Wayfinder. GPS is not a big deal for Sony and Ericsson. Read the Review of N 95 at GSM Arena and you will get to know the reality of N95 GPS.