Sony Ericsson P800: Why I Sold Mine
Written: Sep 24 '03
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Pros: Advanced device with camera and Tri-band phone.
Cons: Large and heavy, average performance.
The Bottom Line: This phone will suit most people that need its capabilities. But many owners might soon feel there is too great a compromise on quality for features.
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| nandbb's Full Review: Sony Ericsson P800 GSM / EGSM Cellular Phone |
A lot of people still want these phones. Even the whisperings of a new model haven't tailed off demand such is the all encompassing ability of this "device". However after owning mine for 5 months I decided to move on.
Features - Good and Bad
This is the most multi of multi function devices - but the problem is that it does them all only averagely well. I
accept it's pretty impressive to have all theses features in one device in the first place, but once that novelty wears off you are left longing for a slightly smaller phone, or a digital camera with maybe a whole megapixel resolution....
The phone does all the basic features. Using the detachable number pad or detaching it is a personal preference. The phone feels clunky with it, but must be religiously cased without it for fear of scratching the screen. Voice dialling, picture phonebook and other current eye candy are all present.
Synchronisation with outlook is great, having all your contacts in a usable format and all your appointments to hand is essential to many people. However there is no ability to actually CREATE anything, except for a calendar entry or a "note".
The absence of an office compatible text editor or spreadsheet is a real lacking from SE, and although office type suites are on their way for the Symbian OS they are an added extra (at a price) instead of something that should have been included from day one.
GPRS internet is handy, the accepted standard is to load Opera over the inbuilt browser and having tried both I have no arguments. Opera has the advantage of being able to use a Bluetooth connection for wireless access as well as the better small screen rendering technology. I even setup GPRS instant messaging which worked well, but is not practical for more than one conversation or prolonged chats.
If you're the type of person who carries several devices around (and I'm talking PDA, camera, dictating machine, mobile phone) and they are all AVERAGE devices, then yes this phone is for you. If any in this list are QUALITY devices however, you will soon be regretting the performance trade-off you now have.
Take the MP3 player for example. Whilst it's great to have one bundled, its very limited. If you ever used an MP3
player in anger, with several albums stored and play lists setup, then you will be sorely disappointed. The P800 can just about play songs and maybe repeat them (only all of them mind, not just one song) but that's where it stops. As shipped you will be lucky to get more than about five songs stored, and that's assuming you don't take many pictures or install other programs that eat into the shared memory.
This is not meant to be a negative review. I think this is a great device and reduces "pocket clutter" well. However, after enough time using it some people may find that it isn't quite going to be the answer to everything that they thought it might.
When I decided to sell, I went back to using my Ericsson T39. I spent the first few days marvelling at how small and light it was. Yes I missed the colour screen and the user interface, but ultimately I am after a device that does all these things better.
What next
For now I will probably move onto the Toshiba e755 PDA. This is a personal choice as right now (and how these things change !) I would benefit more from a WiFi device than a GPRS one. Personally I see the future being in WiFi anyway, particularly with the bandwidth problems
already being seen with GPRS - and that's before it gets any serious usage by the public en mass.
And if I want a brick for a phone I can always add a Compact Flash Tri-band GSM card to the Toshiba....
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 480
Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must!
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Epinions.com ID:
nandbb
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Location: Ipswich, UK
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
I have always been interested in Computers and gadgets of all sorts.
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