Sony Ericsson's P990 Smartphone Released

Dynamoo writes "After months of rumors, Sony Ericsson has finally announced their P990 Symbian smartphone. Packing both UMTS (3G) and WiFi in addition to a 2 megapixel digital camera and a host of other goodies, the P990 looks like it will be a shot in the arm for the Symbian camp. There's no indication of a US release for this handset, but the rest of the world can expect to see it early next year."

Re:2 MP?

[baryon351]

> 2 MP? is it just me or are they getting better and better?

Maybe.

2MP is just how well the camera captures the image through the lens. if the lens is shit (and it's a very small nonfocusing lens, so for many people it's shit) all you're getting is a higher resolution version of the same washed out, blurred, chromatically-distorted fisheye photos that every other camera gives.

You can get very small lenses that aren't shit, but they cost more than this entire phone would.

Re:I want a DUMB phone

[Wesley Felter]

How about the RAZR? You can just ignore the features you don't use. (You'll never find a phone that meets that whole list, because that market is too small.)

Re:2megapixel is pretty impressive quality

[SillyNickName4me]

For what I have seen you do not want to make prints from pictures made with a phone camera.

Not untill the optics and sensor in the typical phone camera get a lot better. Substantial distorition at the edges of the picture, noise and bad colors and such are the primary reasons why pictures with the cameras in the last geenration of phones still look crappy compared to any somewhat decent compact digital camera with the same resolution. They will however cut away the market for real low-end digicams.

Re:Sony, still sticking it to the consumers

[DarkYoshi]

Memory sticks cost nearly twice as much as CompactFlash or SD cards.

Re:Sony, still sticking it to the consumers

[emj]

Well SD would be fine and dandy if there was no license issues. You have to pay alot of money to the SD consortium for using the SD standard, among the members is Microsoft. Did you know that the spec is closed as well so you can't release drivers under opensource.

Proprietary formats sucks.

Re:I want a DUMB phone

[Dysproxia]

How about a Nokia 1100 [nokia.com]?

It does have one extra feature, a flashlight, but I'm sure you can put tape over it and pretend it's not there.
It also isn't really, really small, because like most phones it has buttons, a screen and a microphone + speaker combination.
It isn't made of liquid metal, but seems to have non-slippery sides.

Re:Why all the Cameras?

[otis wildflower]

Cameras can also be handy after an auto accident, like the one I was in last friday. The resolution is good enough for snapping license/insurance/registration as a backup for handwriting, and taking pix of the damage can be helpful as well.

Also, 'citizen journalism'. Camphones are a big win here, and videophones look to be even better.

Also, on my last Grand Tour of Continental Europe, I used my P800's cam to take _all_ my pix, as my PowerShot had given up the ghost a short time before. Even without flash or focus, I could get decent results, especially when watching them as a TV slideshow.

I kind of tune out the 'device purity wars', since in the end it keeps sounding like old coots whingeing about the 'good old days'..

If it's at all like my P910a...

[snowballs]

* The screen is so big, that if you don't use Bluetooth or hands free, then the screen gets nasty pretty fast. It's a bitch to clean too.

* Battery life is acceptable if you don't use push services

* It's gotta be tough - the very first day I had my P910i, I dropped it from about 4ft. right onto the concrete and cringed knowing that I was about to be so very fired. I picked it up and the plastic on the side where the photo button had popped loose, but that's it. I used the stylus to pry it back in, and no problem except a bit of cosmetic damage. By and large, most of my Sony/Ericsson phones have been pretty tough. It's ironic that when Ericsson's phones stopped looking like little Volvos did they become less breakable for a klutz like myself.

* the browser hangs sometimes, giving the white screen of no return. Battery removed, power back on and viola.

* it's size is a bit clunky, but one option is to remove the flip entirely and TFM for this comes in the box. Even then, you almost have to use the holster that comes with it - it's just too damn big to put into your pocket.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Vertical Market Phones Often Have No Camera

[Tetravus]

Many manufacturers produce two versions of their phones. Those intended for home users, that come with cameras and those for the vertical markets/Saudi Arabia that may have some features removed (cameras) or disabled (wireless connectivity that may compromise security). Or so I've heard.

If anyone could confirm this story with actual product numbers I'd appreciate it.

Re:2megapixel is pretty impressive quality

[pommiekiwifruit]

Already done for my last few holidays (Sony Ericsson K750i also has 2 megapixels). Printing them out at 6x4 inches works fine.

Carrying your phone around is more convenient than a bulky camera, but the long time to setup the autofocus (seconds) can be annoying, as is the fact that it takes the picture some time *after* it makes the "click" noise and people have faced away again.

However, it is nice to be able to capture (somewhat grainy) pictures at night and get detail beyond the reach of a flash.

It would be nice if standard phones were more ruggedised though (i.e. waterproof).

Title misleading

[hkb]

Uhm, it's been announced, not released. Do the editors even read the stories they're posting anymore, or is it just a copy-paste-submit job?

Re:Lol, shot in the arm

[the_true_cirrus]

I'm not exactly holding my breath for the triumphant Symbian comeback

What do you mean comeback? Last I heard, Symbian was by far the most successful smartphone OS so far [linuxdevices.com] (in terms of market share).

Re:Sony, still sticking it to the consumers

[speculatrix]

while sony has surely made some serious profits off having a proprietary memory card, it seems to have helped them make all of their devices able to share cards, which helps people like me that have owned multiple sony products at a time.

you imply there's just one type of Sony Memory Stick... let's count them, shall we?

• original memory stick
• magicgate memory stick
• memory stick select (same as original only 2 banks, with a switch)
• memory stick duo (thinner, shorter)
• memory stick pro (same as original only more capacity)
• magicgate memory stick pro (same as original only more capacity)
• newly released minute memory stick

some of the smaller units can be used with adaptors to fit into older larger sockets, but older kit which doesn't know about the Pro sticks can't touch them.

the only Sony products I have are a camcorder (because it was the only true 16:9 sensor camcorder at the time, and I don't care about the stills function and the memory stick), and a Wega flat screen TV (which isn't actually as good as Sony zealots say, but it's half decent)... I'd never buy a Sony product which depended solely on their proprietary technology to work such as a still ms-only digicam.