p990i- a dumb smartphone? (Sony Ericsson P990i)

Member Name: boxieblue

Product:	Sony Ericsson P990i
Date:	10/08/08 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great sound quality, good camera

Disadvantages: no dedicated volume buttons, VERY slow

My brother, after months of searching through the different phones in the market, finally settled on the SE P990i. i was excited. for the first time i was going to use a smart phone. and it had a touch screen. great!
so it was with great expectations that i held the phone in my hands, stupidly staring at it for a few minutes. it looked good. very good actually. stylish, albeit a little bulky. yes! bulky is the word. with phones beginning to get slimmer and lighter, the p990i felt surprisingly heave.

i finally recovered from the initial shock of holding a smart phone, and gathered enough courage to press a few keys. "the menu," i thought, "i will press the menu button!" and so i entered the menu. it took more time than i expected, strangely. i had expected the phone to be super-fast. but i thought no more of it as i browsed the various functions, but i slowly begin to realise an inherent flaw. it was slow. Very slow. and slow phones frustrate me. a slow smart phone? what is the world coming to?
I first went to the media player. first i tried out its speakers, then put on the earphones. the sound quality was great in both. in fact, the earphones are awesome! i liked the sound even better than what i had heard on an ipod. never before had i heard such divine music! so i sat listening to the music for the better part of an hour, until i realised how fast the battery was getting drained. nothing against the phone though. the phone has a great battery-life. better than most others in its time. getting back to the media player, what really frustrated me was the lack of dedicated volume buttons. this was really a huge problem. i mean, there was such a great media player, and no dedicated volume buttons? downright silly!

i then moved on to the camera. it sounded good on paper. 2 MP with auto focus. and it is really good! you can take great pictures and videos with this phone. so i guess you can now leave behind you camera when you go on your next vacation.
the phone poses a problem for gamers, though. with the flip closed, the screen resolution is a strange one. and only multi-screen games will work on it, which are very few. if you are going to buy a p990, forget gaming. this phone isn't meant for such trivial stuff!

i opened the flip, and viola! the phone now had a touch-screen! but nothing to write home about though. its pretty basic, and not something you might do just for the sake of it. its practical, yes, but no fun at all.
but opening the flip gives you more options than you might believe. you can now watch videos, work on your word documents, or even view pdf files. writing text becomes much easier as you can now use the QWERTY keypad, the handwriting recognition software, or even a virtual keyboard. a lot of options i would say!

internet browsing is also a good experience. of course, it is nothing you wouldn't expect on a smartphone.
so, this phone has its pros and cons, neither out-weighing the other. it all comes down to what you really want in a phone. if you want to listen to great music while you work on your word documents, this is the phone for you. if you want to go wild and play a few games during a boring office meeting, forget it!

Summary: you might not want to waste your money on this, unless you are desperate!

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