Those of you who remember THIS post from September, and THIS one, will know how much I was looking forward to getting my new Sony Ericsson P990i. I'd waited six months for it to come out and had delayed upgrading my P910. Now I have had it for two months I will write a short review of it. Put simply, it's rubbish. It has got lots of new features and looks nice but it is incredibly difficult to navigate, it takes an age to send a text message, the battery runs down far more quickly than on the 910, I can't work out how to look in the diary while I am on the phone, it crashes at least once a day helpfully informing me that it is "restarting in order to improve performance", if I flip the lid open while taking a call the whole thing freezes and the only way to restart it is to take the battery off and put it back on, the camera switches itself on randomly, the email function is incomprehensible and I can't download ringtones (for which many people are grateful). Apart from that it's brilliant.I've had the P800, P900, P910 and now this, and I really wish I hadn't bothered to upgrade now. First of all I thought it must be me, because I can be somewhat technologically-challenged sometimes, but I was talking to Nick Herbert MP the other day and he has had exactly the same experience with his P990i.
I'm loyal to a brand. Witness my nine Audis and four Sony Vaios. This is about the tenth Sony Ericsson phone I have had. I assure you it will be the last.
29 comments:
So, Iain, what did you really think?
Apple's much rumoured iPhone (2 versions) is widely expected to be released on the 9th of January. You can get one of those.
Damn shame, was really considering getting this but kept reading very similar stuff on tech blogs etc. I heard Sony are due to release a firmware update that should sort the problems but I've already decided to look elsewhere for a smartphone...
Have a Sony Vaio laptop and use Sony phones.
They tend to be hit and miss. The first model in each generation doesn't quite cut it, the second one is debugged.
My first camera-phone was a Sony, could never figure out how to send pictures and it crashed.
But I love the W80i so much I retired my Blackberry. Half-a-gig, OK camera for a phone, mp3 player, good web browser. Its predecessor was so-so.
Does this Sony run Microsoft applications? They do crash a lot..
"The first model in each generation doesn't quite cut it, the second one is debugged."
Whatever you buy from a car to a telly or phone don't order it before it hits the shelves. Give a couple of months and you get plenty of users reviews and any bugs sorted.
Get a Lobster from Virgin, the one with TV and digital radio - runs windows too. I've had mine 6 weeks and it's great. Can't say the same for ITN rolling news on it, though.
I've had Sonys in the past and they've always been trouble. Time to switch!
If you want a phone buy a phone.
Go back to basics.
I carry a basic Nokia phone, a small camera and a lap top.
No problems.
I pods are anti social.
"restarting in order to improve performance": for that alone it should be scrapped.
Iain,
I recently got myself a T-Mobile MDA Vario II running Windows Mobile 5... its amazing! There are a few quirks that need to be worked out, and the battery life can be less than desirable, but on the whole as a phone/PDA it functions admirably.
It is essentially an HTC TyTN in T-Mobile colours, and other networks also carry it under various names if you are interested.
like guido i have the w800i which i swear by. its an amazing phone - give it a chance :) it has yet to crash with me and runs google maps on it just fine.
I bought Nokia E61 because I wanted a phone for Internet and messaging, not a bloody camera and ipod.
And I love it.
Now they are bringing out the N95 with a GPS in it and I'm going to have to try and resist.....
I'm loyal to a brand. Witness my nine Audis and four Sony Vaios.
Sony-Ericsson made by Flextronics.
Sorry to hear about the unreliability of your Audis - 9 is a lot - but probably they rusted.............as for Sony Vaios they are very unreliable, just another shoddy product from Quanta though some models are from Asustek
Pity Sony doesn't manufacture
Hi Iain,
What network are you on?
Say Orange and the future's bright....
I'd look at the new HTC TyTN which comes as the Orange SPV 3100 or T-Mobile MDA Vario II.
Either that or take a cue from Josh Lyman and get a Palm Treo
It's time to acept that Symbian is basically an inferior OS.
I have an Nokia N80 and its pretty rubbish. A pain to navigate, clunky etc...all for just decent camera.
I do rather hope I can get an iPhone. Yes, it will look like I have sold my soul to Apple...but what the hell right?
Telephony hasn't been the same since BT (or maybe it was the Post Office) abolished Buttons A&B. Those were the days when police cars rang bells and Whitehall 1212 meant something.
Now where was I before I got all confused by the technological gobbledygook?
Has anyone any experience of the o2 'XDA' ? A colleague uses an early model for work, and she swears by it, and I have heard some good 'techie' reviews.
But that is not the same as hearing from someone who has had to live with a product 'day and night', as Mr Dale can probably testify...
Brand loyalty is the reward for a good advertising campaign and a so so product!
I always swap and have very rarely kept the same brand for more than 2 purchases.
I think this helps manufacturers from becoming complacent.
I had a P800 - it was rubbish, I had a few Sony Ericsson - but they got worse every time. I now like Samsung!
Same with the Audi, only had one, wasn't impressed. Had 3 Mercs, but they went down hill as well. Now have a Mitsubishi. I'm sure they will have a good advertising campaign in a few years and you will be able to own one as well!
Get an I-Mate KJAM, these are easliy the best all-round gadgets at out at the moment
Try the o2 xda Exec - produced by HTC under various other brand names. It's simply the best and if you see a figure meandering round Kennington while typing in one it's probably me.
Iain, maybe the Treo 680 is worth looking into?
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/12/11/review_palm_treo_680/
Like Hewlett Packard, Sony has never been the same since founder Akio Morita left them.
The company, founded by an engineer, has since been taken over the bean counters, and it shows.
The Vaio laptops you buy are just rebadged versions of exactly the same thing available from other suppliers. I'm sorry to say this but buying a Vaio is a bit like buying a modern Mercedes: it's for pose value - it certainly isn't the engineering.
cityunslicker, The KJAM is the HTC TyTN in a sim free form. Seeing as most of the phones functionality requires a data contract, you are far better off getting a Vario II or SPV 3100 as they work out cheaper.
O2 have yet to release the TyTN, they do however have the XDA Mini S which is its predecessor.
I started my Sony-Ericsson experience with the P-900 ..... and ended it with the same.
About as stable as a handful of jelly on the tip of a pool cue.
More software bugs that any new version of MS Windows.
In a word ... crap.
Come on it's only a phone!
The company, founded by an engineer, has since been taken over the bean counters, and it shows.
I wish................
Sony's problem is that it didn't make any money and its big shareholders were American. It bombed on calculators and PCs, and concentrated on overpriced products always choosing a unique format. It went mad in the 1980s and let costs get out of control and made a lot of cheap crap in Taiwan and badged too much stuff from Uniden and others.
Sony did NOT pay attention to costs but piled on the debt and had serious reliability problems and a fat complacent workforce which did not see Samsung eating their lunch as it expanded in LCD and Sony was stuck in CRT..........so now Sony is in JV with Samsung
Removed from Christmas list.
Mobile phones fall into 4 categories for me. The 1st is the high-end, all singing and dancing thing where the software is so bloody complicated only my 16 year old daughter can handle it. The second is the designer mobile that is as flat as a pancake with a standby of about 3 days (if you are lucky). The third are the kiddy phones with cameras, mp3 functions and a definate Hoody target (should be delivered with a crash helmet). The fourth is the bog standard phone with a telephone book and SMS capability. These last longer, are cheaper and you don't cry when you lose 'em.
On first glance this phone looks great. However, as other users have pointed out the software is extremely buggy. In fact many of the problems associated with the P900 have seemingly remained unsolved. The KERN-EXEC 3 error occurs frequently especially when attempting to use internet applications, with WIFI or via the mobile network. The Gmail application, from Google, and a number of other applications also produces the same problems. Since the whole point of a 'Smart-phone' is to access the internet, these errors make the phone somewhat pointless. Attempting to use the internet in Europe and China, by either the network or WIFI, has repeatedly failed to even get a connection. The bluetooth headset [also Sony Ericsson] constantly drops out. Additionally the phone restarts 'to improve performance' on a regular basis. Although the Xperia X1 may be a better phone, since it uses Windows Mobile, it is probably advisable to see how reliable the product is as reported by early users. I'm seriously looking at the G1 [Google phone] though again it's probably advisable to see early user reports. The big problem with all the new phones is how tied they are to specific networks. The iPhone is tied to O2, the G1 is tied to T-Mobile and the Xperia is tied to Vodafone. Orange have not said what they are doing with regards putting out a new 'smart phone'. These tech companies have a long way to go in providing reliable and useable devices. This phone [P990i] is another device to be consigned to the shelf along with my P900, T39m, T28s and A1018s. I had more reliability from the simple but chunky Motorola m301, but then it was just a phone!
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