Sony Ericsson P900: Smartphone Extraordinaire! - Audio, Games, and Phone Overall
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The digital audio aspects of the phone again are very good, with native support for many media types including MP3, WAV, AU, AMR and iMELODY. There are also applications that allow you to play OGG files, which can help conserve precious space on your storage medium. Sound quality is good and can be enjoyed on either the speaker or via the included Sony headphones. The headphones themselves are of a high quality and include a built-in microphone for hands-free use. Helpfully, you are signalled via the headphones when a call comes in, and the music is cut automatically if the call is answered.
As with most new portable MP3 players, the phone also comes with an integrated voice recorder. It is an independent application and is used to make voice notes, but can double up as a useful portable sampler for electronic musicians on the move. Sounds are recorded in WAV format, but you'll need one of the freeware file management apps to be able to do anything other than listen to them.
The preinstalled games are a little disappointing for a device of such capability. All you get is chess and solitaire. Those are classic games in themselves but they hardly make use of the OS and interface power. Search online however, and you will find that there are many free or cheap games in most popular genres. These are either in an SIS file format, which install directly from your PC to the connected phone, or are self-extracting Java archives (JAR files) that you copy to the phone, and then install from the phone. The quality of these games will vary widely with file size, ranging from the huge but awesomely 3D classic Vrally, to the small, blocky but highly playable golf game Fairway. Just because people are used to the standard of game provided by a PC or console does not mean that games with rubbish graphics cannot be highly entertaining and addictive.
As a mobile phone, the P900 is almost unrivalled and offers everything you'd expect including an extensive message center, voice dialing, speed dial short cuts and hands-free and speakerphone modes. You can use MP3s as ring tones and vibration alert when in loud or silent mode. It is a tri-band phone, meaning it can be used in most of the world's developed nations and can be set for conference calling or PBX network calling. With the recent focus on the effects of radiation admitted by mobile phones, it is comforting to note that the SAR (Standard Absorption Rate) of this phone is less than 50 percent of the currently recommended maximum safe level.
The device makes use of the industry-standard Sybian 7 operating system targeted at mobile communication devices. Symbian has grown and evolved originally from the Psion series OS, and has been around for a long time. It is an open OS, with many major companies involved in its development. It is a reliable and stable OS that makes use of the UIQ 2.1 application interface to provide the wide range of applications and services available to smartphone owners today.
The User Interface is what allows you to, among other things, completely personalize your phone with skins, themes and color schemes. It unlocks the potential of mobile computing. Smartphones have generally been so far insusceptible to viruses and malicious code, but unfortunately that is now changing with recent Trojans beginning to appear that specifically target mobile phones, making use of Bluetooth or masquerading as benevolent downloads. Thankfully these are still few and far between and anti-virus products are now being produced solely for Windows and Symbian smartphone operating systems. In addition to games, you will find a growing number of applications to add further functionality to your device.
Overall, this is an excellent, if slightly expensive convergence product; it packs a lot of features into a modestly sized device, and while it doesn't actually excel at any one application, it offers a reasonable all-round alternative to all but the most demanding of users.
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