Sony has been releasing their p-series for quite some time now, it started back in 2002 when they released their first brand of the p series, the p800, and a year after it was the p900i and followed by the p910i and the p990i, however, these p series mentioned carried a trademark design which was a flip down keypad and gradually added new things in the keypad. However, now the Sony Ericsson portfolio of the p series has been extended once again, now with a daring and different look which followed the new m-series of Sony.
The box has the same design that of the m600i and the p990i. In my case, I was given a chance to choose from a warrantied unit and a non-warrantied unit, of course, I wanted the warrantied unit. But to my dismay, I faced a financial problem during the course of my “pag-iipon” and so I sticked with the non-warrantied unit. With the non-warrantied unit, the box will include the mobile phone with the battery, an extra stylus, a deskstand, a sony ericsson pc suite cd, a leather pouch, a headset, a usb cable, and a 512mb m2 mmc –but for the warrantied units it will come with a 1gb m2 mmb.
At first glance, the p1 gives you the feeling of “wow! That’s a hot phone!...for a smartphone! Ganda!!. I had that impression when I got my p1 and it really did live up to my expectations. When you hold the p1i, it really gives you the feeling of holding a multimedia device inside a smartphone device. On the right side of the phone you can see the memory card slot, the hardware shortcut key which you can customize, and a dedicated camera key. On the left side is the trade mark of ericsson which is the jog dial, then you have the back key and the strip eyelet. On top you can see the on/off button and the infrared port which seems so smooth because of the color similarity with the phone. The bottom part of the phone hosts the fast port and the microphone aperture which gives the users a light feeling looking at it, on top of the fast port however is a new addition, a light port which blinks yellow when you have a message and blinks red when your battery is low and needs charging. The stylus is located where it has always been located since the p900i, on the upper left corner of the phone. The video calls camera is located on the upper left corner on the front of the phone; sony has nicely and smoothly added the video calls camera without disturbing the design. I like the video calls camera’s look!
Enough with the outer appearance, I think I’ve given you enough “wows” for one day. Inside the phone supports a 160 MB shared memory, a 128 MB RAM, and a 256 MB ROM. On the data/connection side, the p1i supports GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) -Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps, HSCSD (High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data), 3g, Wlan – Wi-Fi 802.11b, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2dp, an infrared port, and a usb cable v2.0. I’ve tried out the wlan of the mobile phone and I’ve got to say, it’s above average, it only lacks the space available in the screen, nonetheless it still does well in the connection and data department –didn’t have any problem with the sony ericsson p1i usb connection as to my Motorola v3x.
To start things off, I’ll go into the messaging department first. With the equipped hybrid QWERTY keyboard of the smartphone, it gives you some time to get used to it, but take my word and I guarantee it that when you have learned how to use the hybrid QWERTY, typing messages, emails, even editing office applications would be very trouble-free and prompt. You can set up your email as any other smartphones and even multimedia phones offer. Messaging has never been as easy thanks to the hybid QWERTY, you can type 3x as fast as the standard keypads.
Now let’s go to the entertainment department, first of is the camera, a 3.2 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, with autofocus and 3x zoom, it also supports unlimited video recording, depending on the free memory your phone has left. Basically, I was disappointed when I first tried the dual LED flash of the P1i, the flash went all around the pic and I couldn’t see anything, BUT, it was just the protective sitcker of the camera, when I took it off, it gave me great pictures! On the other hand video quality is recorded at 15fps at a QVGA resolution which is ok for me, it’s quite excellent. For the music player, for me, I really don’t mind the loudness of the music, as long as it plays crisp and clear music and with this said, I can say that P1i will be given 8 out of 10 stars which is pretty good for a smartphone, loudness as well rocks! There are two pre-installed games here, the quadrapop and the 3d golf, I like both the games pretty much and have been addicted with the quadrapop and the golf! Not looking for any new games YET, still loving it! FM radio depends on where you are and how well your reception is. Overall in the entertainment department I give it two thumbs up! Yeah! Sound recorder and music dj are also included here and need not to be rated.
With that said and done, it leaves me to two things that I really check out in a phone, the screen resolution and if a phone can do multiple things in a single time. Screen resolution of the p1i is great, even if it only supports 240x320 pixels in 256k colors inside a 2.6 inch screen, I give it a big YEAH! For multitasking, there’s no doubt that p1i does great!
That being said and done, I give the phone an 8.5 out of 10 rating! Hope you like my review! Cheers to sony!
