Design and Looks
The Sony Ericsson P1i borrows design cues from the M600, which features the similar broad stubby form and the awkward QWERTY pad. It is however far more advanced than the M600 with better computing capacity and beefed-up firmware.
The first thing that needs mentioning is the awkward QWERTY keypad, which has up to four characters per key. In keys with alphabets, you have two of them on either edge of the key, now which alphabet is desired to be input depends on which side of the key the user presses. Typing like this can be a very harrowing experience given the small size of the keys and the inevitable typos. What's strange is that the phone also features a touchscreen with handwriting recognition, something common among PocketPCs. The presence of the half-baked QWERTY keypad with the stylus demanding touch screen makes for a very confused and odd user-experience.
Thankfully the phone has a Jog Dial at the left side of the form factor which makes scrolling pages and general navigation an easier experience. And if the QWERTY keypad below the screen is not to your liking, you can always use the virtual QWERTY pad that you can invoke to appear on the screen.
The display is nice and large and is ideal for touchscreen based phones. Measuring at 2.6” diagonally, the QVGA resolution display features a modest 256K colours and razor sharp clarity. It is a resistive touchscreen that is receptive to both finger and stylus presses. It's visibility under direct sunlight is mediocre but is better than that on most other Sony Ericssons.
The phone's strength lies in the organizing and business features it incorporates. The pone hosts the Symbian 9.1 OS over the stylus supporting UIQ interface. An extensive phonebook, advanced call management features, a comprehensive email client, a file manager, Quickoffice, PDF+ , a Walkman like music player, an elaborate video player and a picture viewer are some of the features and applications that the OS can support.
The phone comes with a loaded 3.2MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash. Pictures are clear and noise levels are low. The camera also features an extensive set-up; automatic white balance, various colour effects, three quality levels and full automatic exposure control. Videos however suffer from poor quality especially when taken at higher resolution because of the reduced frame rates. The videocall feature of the phone can also make use of the main camera instead of the secondary camera to give the user's viewers a larger picture of the user's surroundings.
The phone is every bit the delight but for the awkward QWERTY keypad which makes drafting emails, the phone's most important function, a nightmare. Buy it at your own risk.
Features
- 2.6” 262K colours TFT Touchscreen
- 3.2MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash
- Wide range of connectivity options
- Business card scanner
- Videocall
- Pre-installed office
- Symbian OS 9.1 with UIQ 3.0 interface
- Jog Dial navigation
Accessories
- Bluetooth Headset VH310
- Video Viewing Stand IM920
- Clip-on Bluetooth Handsfree VH300
- Snap-on Speaker Stand MS410
- Outdoor Wireless Speaker MS500
- Bluetooth Car Handsfree HCB-108
- Courtside Case IDC-31/32
- Bluetooth Watch MBW-200
