Talk about a blast from the past from an unexpected direction! Over on the Cult of Mac (no, really), there's a cute little article entitled 'Why I Still Use A Ten-Year Old Sony Ericsson P900', in which Charlie Sorrel admits that, even in 2012, he still uses, out of preference, a Symbian-powered Sony Ericsson P900 to accompany his iPad, quoting great build quality, the ease of unlocking the keypad and starting an application, and the excellent handwriting recognition. It's true that Charlie doesn't seem to be using the P900 to its fullest potential as a smartphone, but then it is ten years old and I just thought you'd all get a kick out of seeing such a classic device still in use in a valid context.

From the article:

The phone is built like a brick, and dead easy to use. I’d argue that unlocking it and opening an app (yes, it runs apps using a mix of Symbian and UIQ) is even faster and easier than on the iPhone. Example: To unlock it, you flip the side scroll wheel toward you with your thumb (it has five directions — roll up and down, flip back and forward and click inward) and them click it in. You’re unlocked. Locking is done the same way.

Once unlocked you scroll the wheel to pick from any of the five (user-configurable) apps on the screen. If you open the keypad flip to go fullscreen, the wheel scrolls down the full list of apps. Click the wheel to open. Congratulations: you just fired up an app with a few twitches of one thumb....

Finally, texting. You can tap out texts old-style on the numerical keypad, or use the (long-lost) stylus to peck at a fairly decent on-screen keyboard. Or you can use your finger and handwriting recognition to write them.

Maybe it’s just suited to my handwriting, but the accuracy of this recognition is close to 100%....

Oh, and did I mention the battery life — even after ten years — is still almost a week?

Good stuff. Charlie also mentions a few of the decade-old negatives, but kudos to him for sticking with a chunky slice of Symbian classique...