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."

Sony, still sticking it to the consumers

[yagu]

from the article: Internal memory is 80Mb, and this is expandable through Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo cards (64Mb is included, 2Gb maximum).

'Nuff said.

Enough with the proprietary memory stick technology already!

I hate company's that use a stick to sell their product.

A memory carrot would be more to my liking. (Can you say SD, or MMC?)

2 MP?

[DigitalOSH]

2 MP? is it just me or are they getting better and better? sounds like a handy device!

Re:2megapixel is pretty impressive quality

[bedroll]

2 megapixel is impressive quantity. For quality you have to see the content of the pictures to judge their image's correctness.

Re:2 MP?

[slipnslidemaster]

2MP is good but does it have a flash? I didn't see it in the article. These cameraphones can have all the megawhatits they want but without a flash, the pictures are still crappy 9 times out of 10.

Sure, it looks nice, but...

[Sheetrock]

It's getting harder and harder to justify a cellphone upgrade with every 'iteration' of technology. Indeed, as with other electronics, it's to the point where the only truly practical reason to pick up a new device is because the old device is broken.

With the increasing price of oil, I can't help wondering what the face of computing is going to look like five or ten years down the line. The average computer uses as much as 37 Conestoga wagons worth of coal to run on any given day. Much of this is spent on wasteful peripherals we could do without, such as fancy 3D graphics cards or optical mice, but even more is being spent on processing power well beyond the needs of the average user.

Inefficiencies in microcomponent fabrication mean that a great deal of the electricity that goes into your computer is given off as heat. Techniques such as reversible or quantum computing hold much promise in the future for putting more energy into computation but today it is up to the consumer to safeguard the environment.

In a way, the argument is the same as with vehicles -- most people don't need a SUV or a top-of-the-line system but many choose to get them to compensate for inadequacies or because of marketing -- but with computers at least it is impossible to argue you are "safer" for having a faster system. Indeed, you are more likely to run viruses or worms without realizing it because you don't notice the hit in operating performance. If anything this argument is stronger with a cellphone that can be reprogrammed by malware to call phone numbers that cost you a lot of money or hassle.

I've noticed that I've been holding on to computer equipment longer and longer these days. Oh sure, I have to fix a power supply here and a fan there, but besides slack engineering standards from software companies there is little reason to keep up with the hardware treadmill... and at least one compelling reason not to.

Slashvertising?

[hvatum]

Is it just me or are a number of "stories" on Slashdot nothing more than glorified advertisements? Phones with mult-megaplixel cameras and built-in Wifi are nothing new [engadget.com].

No

[temojen]

It's all in the relationship between lens quality & sensor size. A lens small enough to fit in a cell phone is going to be pretty crappy, and a sensor small enough to fit in a cell phone is going to be small enough that chromatic aberation will be a concern. Upping the resolution will make the chromatic aberation even easier to notice. If you want a camera, buy a camera, not a cell phone.

There are lots of things that could be merged with a cell phone (mp3 player, voice recorder/dictaphone, PDA, thumb drive, etc). A camera is one thing that should not.

Re:Sure, it looks nice, but...

[Roguelazer]

Hmm. I may have to call you out on several elements of that argument. Firstly:

A Conestoga Wagon transported about 8 (short) tons of cargo (according to the wikipedia article). According to howstuffworks.com, coal produces approximately 2,460 kWh/ton. Now, your average computer/monitor combination draws between 150W and 200W, according to some basic research. That could also be written as .2kWh. So in 24 hours, this device draws, um, 4.8 kWh. Considering that a Conestoga Wagon's worth of coal would be about 19,680 kWh of power, I think we can safely assume that a computer uses about 1/12 of a Conestoga Wagon full of coal PER YEAR.

What else? Um. The thought that lots of power is spent on optical mice is kind of funny. I haven't been able to find any concrete information, but since an optical mouse can run solely off the power provided by a PS/2 port, I'm going to assume that there's virtually no power usage involved.

Strangely enough, though, I do agree with you. For basic tasks (word processing, web browsing, etc), I've never seen anybody who needed more than about a 1GHz machine. That's fast enough to handle the flashy graphics and jazz. I've always found it funny to see Intel advertising their latest 3.9GHz dual-core hyper-threading machine as good for web browsing. But, having played Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, I can tell you quite authoritatively that you can never have too much power in your graphics card. ;)

Re:I want a DUMB phone

[shawb]

You could always go with this tiny monstrosity [nokiausa.com]. The 7280 is VERY tiny. It does have a very small display, but it doesn't even have number keys. Granted, it's not meant to be your primary cell-phone, just one for a night out on the town (and that means it does have camera functionality.) From what I'd guess, you basically transfer numbers from another phone or your computer or something like that, then select which one to call.

I personally think it's really not $500, but looking at the pictures of the people using them I really don't get the feeling that I'm the target demographic here (even though I do have the tiny iPod shuffle, which is pretty much the same size. But then again I did carry an MP3 diskman around before a cellphone... maybe Apple will come out with an iPhone shuffle that just calls random people in your phone book?)

Horrible keyboard design

[vrv1]

I have a p910a (and had a p800 before that) and one of the things that really stand out is the keyboard on the back of the keyflip. The keyflip can increase the size of the screen and become a PDA or when not used can become a cell phone (which is the most important use of the device). By doing away with that, there really is no reason to buy the p990 instead of the Palm 700 (other than that you are a rabid anti-u$ fanatic). You can argue that the P910a's design might result in higher strain on the hinges. But I found the hinges to be pretty sturdy and I always use my index fingers to support the body of the phone while I use the thumb to do the typing.

This is a step back for the P series and i hope SonyEricsson will change it.

Re:Why all the Cameras?

[un1xl0ser]

A minority, true, but not a small minority.

Any company that does research and development should have policies about cameras. Some military jobs probably have similar restrictions.

I had jury duty recently, and was not able to bring in a camera phone.

Re:I want a DUMB phone

[itomato]

I thought that - I was wrong.

The RAZR is crap. It's svelte crap, but crap to be sure.

The UI is needlessly complex, compared to a NOKIA at least.
The ringer volume is too low
There are too many buttons & too many features
The vibrate is too gentle

Bluetooth? Not on a simple phone..
MP3 ringtones? Not on a simple phone..
Camera? Not on a simple phone..

The problem is, to get a phone with few features, you're getting a phone that's ugly, big, and uses less-than-high-end components. It's free, there are plenty of cases & replacement batteries for it, but a crap phone is a crap phone.

Where's that high-end Finnish phone from a few years ago? Ultimately simplistic, and incredibly well-designed. Tone that down to meet the $299 price point, and I'm in!

Re:Immediate Recall

[JohnnyBigodes]

Why do they buy NVIDIA graphic-cards instead of passively-cooled ATI-cards vastly outperforming them?

That was two years ago, right? And I think you're quite wrong about the "passively-cooled" part. Above the absolute lowest video cards, there are almost none that are passively cooled, whether from nVidia or ATI.

Charging issues?

[topical_surfactant]

I had an Ericsson T-somethingorother for about a year which I purchased because of its small size. The thing charged using these two flat copper strips exposed on the bottom. In fact, all electrical contacts were made using these exposed strips.

The damn metal corroded, and it became impossible to consistently charge it for any length of time, and the headset became useless for the same reason. I junked it. Now I have a phone with a male charging plug, so hopefully the unexposed contacts won't wear out as fast. I want to thrash whatever engineer thought those charging plugs were a good idea.

Re:I want a DUMB phone

[MacGod]

Re: I want a super-simple phone.

You know, I used to think the same thing. All I wanted was a small, light, no-ringtones, no-camera, black-and-white-screen phone. But I just moved to the UK and bought a Samsung E350 slider phone. It has an MP3/AAC player, a camera, a colour screen, Java games and all that.

But you know what? It's small, the battery life is as good as any other phone I've ever owned (including black-and-white bare basics phones). It weighs next to nothing, the call quality is good, and I just don't use the games or any other extraneous features.

And wouldn't you know it? Within a day of getting the USb cable for the phone, I set my ringtone to an MP3 of the Star Wars theme song (from the Rebellion's medal ceremony at the end of A New Hope). And I took a goofy self-portrait for my wallpaper. Why not? It's fun, a little silly, but entertaining.

I think the "I just want a simple phone!" is at times overstated. What I really want is a phone that doesn't make too many compromises for extra features. I don't need video recording capabilities, but if it can add them without sacrificing size or battery life, I'm not too worried. And besides, I do like gadgets (and I can't imagine I'm alone in that regard, especially not on Slashdot), so why wouldn't I want my phone to be gadgety?

I think we geeks are just more sensitive to tradeoffs. There are a lot of phones that are heavy on features, but sacrifice basic useability to get there. The Microsoft Word of phones, if you will. But there also exist phones that are good compromises. Just don't use the features you don't need.

p900's

[Anonymous Coward]

I got the P900. Why? it's basicly a PDA that acts as a phone. I do agree about one thing though that I wish they (cell phones) were much much much much more focussed on the phone. The last nokia "smart" phone I had was a POS. The UI for the buttons sucked. The whole schebang was a joke. The last treo I had I had to get a ton of apps (none of them 'free') to do anything worth a sh***. Will someone out their please esplain to me: I sick of cell phones not competing on service. I want a Java phone that is rock solid, signal is good. and fairly small. I also want it to connect to any OS without some horse shit about this specialised app or that specialised app. Puh lease! Just a fucking cable, or real bluetooth let me backup stored phone numbers, and then lets roll.

Step away from that VoIP, sir.

[beeblebrox]

Putting (leaving?) my cynical hat on, it seems that Symbian was forced by the economics of the mobile phone business to screw the handset owners [symbian.com] in order to keep the network operators happy:

Platform security is extended in Symbian OS v9, providing control over the capabilities of applications installed on the devices. This is done to ensure the integrity of the phones and the network, while still enabling an open environment for third party applications.

and:

installation of C++ executables, including authentication of software components using digital signatures to provide a measure of confidence that applications being installed onto a Symbian OS phone are from a known reputable vendor

Their spin seems to be that if these controls are not put into place, the sky will fall on the smartphone world as angry users who installed crapware/malware on their phones will annoy the crap out of the network operators' support lines, and other assorted Bad Things will happen. You know, like it happened with PCs.

Me, I just follow the money and I know what to expect: You wanna play? You pays your dues to enter Mr Telco's walled garden.

If you're a P990 (or other Symbian 9 device) owner, you don't get to decide what to install/run. Mr Telco does. For Your Own Good, of course.

Anyone want to take a bet which way it'll go?

Re:Sony, still sticking it to the consumers

[Doppler00]

Because if it wasn't for Sony we would have '4 in 1' memory card readers. In fact, if you forget about Smartmedia which is obsolete, you really should only need SD/MM and Compact Flash. Seeing an expansion bay in my computer with 6 different slots in it as a result of companies arguing to eachother over standards is just sad.

Don't you remember what life was like with parallel ports, serial ports, PS/2 ports, etc.... they have all been replaced by USB and life is good now. Why can't we do the same thing for memory?