The Ultimate Phone/PDA?

P800guy writes "Psion Place has a review of the SonyEricsson P800 available in Q3, this looks to be the best PDA/phone combined in the world. Running Symbian OS v7.0, 208x320 color touchscreen, triple-band GSM compatible, Multimedia Messaging (MMS), Bluetooth, GPRS always-on internet connection, built-in digital camera, support for HTML, xHTML, Java, iMode, WAP, Word, Excel, PPT. Check out the pictures, open, closed. In the US it'll work on Voicestream, ATT Wireless, and Cingular just don't expect it to be offically supported from day 1 of release." Getting closer- now if it just had a few gigs of memory for MP3s ;)

Symbian OS

[AirLace]

I was on the beta testing team of the next-generation Nokia Communicator which also uses Symbian OS v7.0. It was pretty snappy and responsive and the hardware is sleek, but I was less than impressed by the 'office software' capabilities: In their attempt to support proprietary Microsoft formats they've neglected to offer export filters for open file formats. For example, the word processor can only export Microsoft .DOC, not .RTF or even .TXT. Similarly, the spreadsheet can only export .XLS and not CSV or tab-separated data. This is a step backwards, IMO, but sadly I doubt that few mainstream users will complain. It's just a bit ironic that even the office software counterparts in Microsoft Windows CE offer file filters for 'open standard' formats -- why can't Symbian?

Another Review

[margaret]

The register has another review [theregus.com] that's a little more in-depth...

Nokia 9210

[jsse]

If you want a phone with PDA function, Sony P800 is definitely your cup of tea. However, if you want a PDA with phone function, I think Nokia 9210i [nokia.com] will suit you.

picture of camera

[kipsate]

A picture of the camera [pdastreet.com] on the back.

Re:im confused

[Tha_Zanthrax]

it gets taken of entirely.

the keypad is just a piece of plastic in which the button are placed. when a button is pressed it just pushes the touchscreen.

http://www.sonyericsson.com/3Dphones/p800/p800.h tm l
to see a demo

Re:Few gigs???

[Anonymous Coward]

3 interesting things about this phone:

1) It is bluetooth enabled, and Toshiba has just announced a pocket sized bluetooth 5GB hard drive called the Pocket Server [toshiba.co.jp] which means that you should be able to stream data back and forth from this P800 puppy quite easily

and

2) Sony Ericsson have come up with a technology called TrickleSynch (which uses what they call SynchML)which will basically continually synch your data from phone to base using the always on GPRS 2.5G system. So theoretically you will be able to synch all your data overnight while you're sleeping.

3) The company claims that the battery life will be around 12 hours of normal use, with 400 hours on standby. The design criteria was apparently to provide a product which only needed charging once a day or less under normal phone/PDA use. They claim to have achieved this by using a battery which is more powerful than the iPaq and by developing in-house a special low power screen.

The phone is very cool, and not much bigger than my Nokia 8890, and the handwriting recognition actually seems to work, which is even more amazing.

Re:Third Party Phones

[dgp]

GSM is all about interoperability. Perhaps you are describing the fact that a cell phone company can 'lock' a phone to their service, so you cannot get a cheap phone on a service plan and then sell it to someone else on another network. Otherwise any GSM phone should work on any GSM network. Voicestream has long ignored the Ericsson t39 and t68 - yet when I bought a 'unlocked' t39 off of ebay, I inserted my SIM card from my old phone and the t39 worked immeadiately.

Java

[barnaclebarnes]

Its got Java so yes you can program apps for this phone. The java will be the J2me edition.

/b

MP3 capability - letter from SONY-Ericsson

[jimbo]

Just bought one of these ingenious gadgets for my T39:
http://www.wanna-save.dk/specialtilbud/defau lt.asp ?VareID=355
Price: About $50.
I plan on buying a P800 ASAP (MP3 or not - it ROCKS) and sent SONY-Ericsson a letter asking about MP3 support, they answered:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Sony Ericsson,

With regard to your enquiry, the P800 does not have a built in MP3 player.

Details of compatibility with accessories are not currently available.

For further available information regarding this product you should log onto
our website www.sonyericsson.com

Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to
contact us.

Kind regards

Mike Rowlands
SonyEricsson Customer Support

Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 23 April 2002 18:49
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Contact form CWS

Product: MP3 Handsfree HPM-10

Opinion: Buying a HPM-10 I wonder: Will it work with the P800 or will the
P800 have a more practical builtin MP3 capabilities and a flashmemory
expansion slot of sorts? (yes, I can actually imagine listening to music
during a boring meeting).

Thanks
Best regards.

Both?

[DABANSHEE]

I've seen computer keyboards that are designed for use in call centres where workers can dial out via the modem in the cvomputer & the computer's in effect also gets used as a phone.

When used with the dialer software the number pad changes to the phone layout, while otherwise it uses the standard PC keyboard layout.

To add to the confusion the keys have both numbers on it.

So for example the '7' key has a little grey '1' printed on it next to where the '7' is printed, & 'home' is printed underneath. While the '8' key has a little grey '2' printed next to where the '8' is printed, & also has the up arrow printed on it to. Etc, etc.

Smartphone P800/P802 Whitepaper (PDF)

[sclarke]

The white paper(PDF) [ericsson.com] on the on the SonyEricsson P800 has plenty of details. I'd recommend taking a look if your interested in this great new platform. I'd really like for Symbian gain popularity in the US.