10th October 2005
Sony Ericsson say that the P990 can support all major push email protocols, including Blackberry. How much of that is ''in the box'' and how much is an additional cost software option is not known, but certainly the P990 looks like a very good high end device for corporate use. There is a VPN client included too, and of course the P990 synchronises with applications such as Microsoft Outlook. The ability to edit Word and Excel documents is a big plus for business users.
It's quite a large device, at 114x57x25mm and 155 grams, but that's about the same weight as the i-Mate JAM/HTC Magician though a little larger (although the P990 has a better overall specification than the JAM/Magician). 3G talktime is up to 3 hours, with 9 hours maximum talktime on GSM. Standby time is up to 12 days (3G) or 16 days (GSM).
As we said, there's no word of a North American variant of the P990 (which would probably be called the P990a if released), although the stated Q1 2006 launch date means that potential buyers shouldn't have too long to wait.
The Sony Ericsson P990 is a formidable device in terms of hardware and software specifications, and certainly an improvement over the P910. However, we feel that this is a handset that should have shipped in Q1 2005, not Q1 2006, and this long lead time has meant that HTC has carved out significant market share in this sector. On the plus side, there is no other Symbian smartphone that comes close to this, although we do prefer the wide screen of the Nokia 9300 and 9500 devices to the ''tall'' screen on the P990 and similar handsets. And although the Nokia 9300 and 9500 are capable devices, they're nowhere near the specification of the Sony Ericsson P990. Perhaps Nokia have something up their sleeves - a Nokia 9700 or 9800 maybe?
(c) 2000-2024 twilightwap.com
