All the way back.... to the P1i
Published by Steve Litchfield at 15:34 UTC, May 8th 2007
Sony Ericsson has announced a number of feature phones plus a Symbian-based UIQ 3-running successor to their M600i and P990i. The P1i has the best of both devices (though no P series 'flip' this time), with an upgraded camera (3.2mp), a dual function keyboard, Wi-Fi, VoIP support, A2DP and 3G data, for European networks. Best of all, there will be 4 times the free RAM, compared to the P990i! The full press release and photos below.
More photos below the press release!
- Pocket sized smart phone
25% smaller than P990 - Complete mobile office
Push corporate and consumer email, WLAN and VoIP enabled - True multimedia
3.2 megapixel camera with business card scanner, media player and 512MB Memory Stick Micro™
London, UK – 8th May 2007 – Sony Ericsson, the manufacturer that pioneered the development of smartphones, today unveils the P1 as the latest addition to its P-series range.
“In one sense the Sony Ericsson P1 is an evolution of our P-series smartphones, as it pushes forward the best attributes of its predecessors,” says Steve Walker, Head of Product Marketing at Sony Ericsson. “At the same time there are also significant improvements in design, speed and battery performance.”
Building on the feature set of earlier models, the Sony Ericsson P1 supports a wide range of push email solutions and Web browsing applications, plus connectivity via hi-speed UMTS and Wireless LAN (WiFi™). Add to this its compact size and multimedia capabilities and the P1 is the complete mobile office. It is based on the Symbian™ operating system (v9.1) and UIQ 3.0, an open platform that offers broad potential for multimedia applications from operators/carriers, content owners and third party developers.
In short, the P1 is a device as small as a standard phone that offers flexible ways to work:
- Dual function keyboard - full alpha-numeric (e.g. QWERTY) text input combined with one hand phone usability
- Choice of text input method including handwriting and word completion
- Push email enabled including support for Exchange ActiveSync™ and BlackBerry® Connect™
- Integrated WLAN and VoIP enabled
- 3.2 megapixel camera with business card scanner
- Large 2.6” touchscreen with a Transflective Display that is easier to view in bright light conditions
Push email and remote working
Always being connected while on the move is now a normal part of working life. The Sony Ericsson P1 gives you the ability to handle your corporate or personal emails, contacts and calendar wherever you are. It offers support for a broad range of push email services including Exchange ActiveSync™ and BlackBerry Connect and allows for remote wiping of email and PIM data; something critical in the event of the phone being stolen or misplaced.
The Sony Ericsson P1 lets you read and edit documents on the move, whether Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel. It also ships with a desk stand and USB cable in-box, making it straightforward to synchronise with your PC.
High speed connectivity
Both UMTS and integrated WLAN provide for high-speed Web browsing and data downloads, plus email at a rate and performance you enjoy from your office desktop. The Sony Ericsson P1 is also VoIP enabled for making calls over the internet.
Striking visuals
Surfing the Web is intuitive thanks to the Opera™ Web Browser that displays pages in horizontal, wide screen aspect. The large, touchscreen QVGA display can be seen and used even in bright environments due to the Transflective Display. The 3.2 megapixel camera takes great shots to store or share via Picture Blogging and is also a useful tool for work purposes. It does away with the need to collect stacks of business cards when travelling. Just take a close-up shot of a business card and the card scanner transfers the contact details directly into the phonebook.
Quality downtime
As well as a business tool, the Sony Ericsson P1 also serves as an advanced multimedia companion. Its music and video player mean that you can take your favourite tunes and video clips with you on the 512MB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) provided. Catch the latest news via the on-board FM Radio or stream mobile TV direct to the large screen. Whichever you choose to do, with the P1 you are never short of options.
The Sony Ericsson P1 is a Tri-Band GPRS 900/1800/1900 and UMTS 2100 handset with Wi-Fi 802.11b. It will be available in selected markets from Q3 2007.
The Sony Ericsson P1 at a glance:
Productivity/Efficiency Features
- QWERTY keyboard and handwriting text input
- Predictive text input
- Handwriting recognition
- Transflective Display for bright light conditions
- Document editors and readers
- VoIP support
- WLAN (Wi-Fi 802.11b)
- Business card scanning
- Video calling
- Calculator
- Calendar
- Flight mode
Email and Web
- Push email support provided by/licensed from;
- AlteXia
- Ericsson Mobile Office
- Intellisync
- Microsoft - Exchange ActiveSync™
- Research In Motion- BlackBerry Connect
- Seven
- Sybase/iAnywhere
- Visto
- POP3, IMAP4, including IMAP IDLE
- Opera™ Web Browser 8.0
- VPN client from Certicom
Imaging and Multimedia
- 3.2 megapixel camera with Auto focus
- Digital zoom, 3x
- Photo light
- Video recording/streaming/viewing
- Mobile TV – H.264 playback
- Picture messaging (MMS)
- Text messaging (SMS)
- Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)
- Media player
- Music tones (MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+)
- Polyphonic ringtones
- PlayNow™
- TrackID™
- 512 MB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) expandable memory
- 160 MB User Memory (internal)
- FM radio RDS
- RSS Feeds
- Picture Blogging (Free downloadable application)
- 3D games
Hygiene Features
- Bluetooth 2.0
- Infrared
- Modem
- USB support
- USB 2.0 mass storage
- Speakerphone
- Sound recorder
- Vibrating alert
- Jog dial
- Picture wallpaper
- Wallpaper animation
- Java
- Alarm clock
- Stopwatch
- PC Software
- 1120 mAh battery
Accessories
- In-Box:
- Stereo Headset HPM-62
- Desk Stand CDS-65
- 512MB Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™)
- PC Software
- USB Cable
- Extra Stylus (for touchscreen use)
- Protective Pouch
- Standard Phone Charger
- Optional:
- Bluetooth™ Car Speakerphone HCB-120
- Music Remote Control MRC-60
- Bluetooth™ Music Receiver MBR-100
- Bluetooth™ Headset HBH-GV435
- Bluetooth Headset HBH-IV835
- Stereo Bluetooth™ Headset HBH-DS980
Facts and Figures
- Operating system: Symbian™ OS v9.1
- Size: 106 x 55 x 17 mm
- Weight: 124 grams
- Colour: Silver Black
- Screen: 262,144 color TFT touchscreen
- Resolution: 240 x 320 pixels
- Size: 2.6 inches
- Networks: P1c/i: UMTS 2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900
- Talk time GSM/UMTS: Up to 10 hrs/3 hrs 30 min
- Standby time GSM/UMTS: Up to 440 hrs/350 hrs
- Video call time: Up to 2 hrs
Categories: Hardware
Platforms: UIQ 3
News Discussion
Official photos for the P1
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...10864&esi=true
You asked about RAM: the P1 has double RAM size (128MB) compared to P990 (64MB), but the important thing is the increased user RAM available for apps, which has been increased by approx 400% (>60MB on P1 compared to 15MB on P990), significantly improving multi-tasking performance and application behavior.
Some specs for P1 that may be of interest to developers:
- Based on Symbian OS v 9.1 and UIQ 3.0
- Supports both Java CDC and Java CLDC, see specifics further down.
- Developers can use the WLAN API to create applications using the WiFi feature
- Hardware accelerated 3D gaming supported by OpenGL ES API as well as Mobile 3D Graphics API for Java ME (JSR-184); Sony Ericsson to date has introduced over 50 3D-enabled phone models in its portfolio.
"More Applications" desktop icon improving visibility of 3rd party apps & content to end-users:
- Free Applications
- Try & Buy Applications
- Fun & Downloads
- Sony Ericsson Application Shop
There will be several third party applications preloaded on the phone and a large number offered as Try & Buy applications on the Memory Stick Micro (M2).
Sony Ericsson Application Shop currently has >350 UIQ 3 apps available for the P990 smartphone, M600 messaging device and W950 Walkman phone - most of them will work on P1 as well, reducing time-to-market for developers.
Detailed specs for the Java API's supported:
CLDC 1.1 environment:
-----------------------------
JTWI 1.0 (JSR-185) consisting of CLDC (Connected Limited Device Configuration) 1.1 HI (JSR-139), MIDP 2.0 (JSR-118), WMA 1.1 (JSR-120)
PDA PIM and File Access (JSR-75)
Bluetooth™ API (JSR-82)
Wireless Messaging API 2.0 (JSR-205)
Web Services (JSR-172)
Mobile Media API (JSR-135)
Mobile 3D Graphics (JSR-184) with hardware acceleration
Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API for Java ME (JSR-226)
Nokia UI API 1.1
CDC 1.0 (JSR-36) environment:
---------------------------------------
Foundation Profile 1.0 (JSR-46)
Personal Profile 1.0 (JSR-62)
PDA File Access (JSR-75)
Hope this helps!
- Mimmis, Sony Ericsson Developer World
And I heartily approve of the M600-ish design, the dual keyboard works surprisingly well. And there's now no bulky and clumsy phone flip to get in the way - it made the P990 soooo thick.
Steve
Given UIQ3, a joypad would be more useful, to go just above the keyboard in the same arrangement as the p990 (ie. with softkeys and home/back buttons).
On another issue, is the video QVGA 30fps for recording?
You have GOT to be kidding! Surely this is some kind of a miss-print?
To cut the "bla" short -
Hygiene features are, I guess, the "must haves" - you'd be complaining if they weren't there. The stuff that really makes you happy are the other features. ;)
Cheers
Jenny
Thank you for the explanation.
It seems a bit pretentious to use terms like that on a public press release. Something like "standard features" or "expected features" would be far more informative.
Most english-speakers probably wouldn't be familiar with the term "hygiene features", and I doubt most non-english speakers would find that definition under "hygiene" in their english dictionaries. Google has very few people actually using that phrase, only about 1600 references most of which are to do with actual hygiene in food production.
> You have GOT to be kidding! Surely this is some kind of a miss-print?
No. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05...ifi/page2.html
Quote: "Right now, every Wi-Fi phone in existence uses 11b, not the faster 11g. And there's a simple reason for that: battery power. The 11g technology gets its extra speed from a modulation system called orthogonal frequency division modulation, OFDM - a technology that applies to WiMAX too. It works, but there's no free lunch. To get more bandwidth, you have to use more power."
But his point is valid, WiFi is a battery killer.
However, the fact is, 11g hardware or not, every WiFi phone released in the last 12 months by every manufacturer can connect to 11g equipment which saves the business/end user from having to operate their WiFi router in mixed mode which reduces range and bandwidth.
Anyway, nice mid-range device apart from this one utterly bizare design decision.
Most english-speakers probably wouldn't be familiar with the term "hygiene features", and I doubt most non-english speakers would find that definition under "hygiene" in their english dictionaries."
Yes, I agree. It was purely coincidental that I as a non-native speaker came across the term at university, so it rang a bell when reading the press release.
I guess that takes the whole marketing wording thing to another level. Before, it was hard for non-geeks to understand what their phone is able to do, now even techies need to take classes in motivation theory to understand a simple press release. Talk about corporate "communication".
I saw this similar ShXX on the Blackberry my brother-in-law uses.
OK, camera will be surely better than on my E61i, but is is necassary to have a camera with lots on pixels, but limited capabilities for sincere usage.
The SE M600i keyboard is extremely well designed, easy to use and is excellent for daily usage. If the SE P1i comes with real VoIP functionality it will be a very compelling product.
Thanks - FLG
(1) Was just wondering if a user can get to the corners of the touchscreen with a finger? For example, can one get to the task manager icon with a finger? It used to be easy on the P910i since the screen was not so recessed, and got more difficult on the P990i.
(2) Also, does the rear camera lens have a cover? For this, the P990i was better with its rotating lens cover as compared to the P910i.
(3) In general, are there many cracks/crevices on the device for it to collect dust into? Honestly, that is the only one feature of the iPhone that I like....
Thanks for any info!