Customer Reviews

Sony Ericsson P1i Unlocked Cell Phone with 3.2 MP Camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, MP3/Video Player, Memory Stick Micro Slot--International Version with No Warranty (Silver Black)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've had this phone for over a month, and I LOVE IT!!
I don't talk much on the phone, but I listen to music, watch video, take pictures, and send text msg with it a lot. I charge my phone maybe every three days. I think the battery last a very reasonable amount of time for the way I use it.

The keypad might take awhile to get used to, but I am a keyboard person and I really love the QWERTY keypad. I can type pretty fast with this keypad (I used to think sending text msg was a pain because of the ABC keypad).

The video taken with this phone is in .3GP format. You can just google search K-lite mega codec and download the codec pack. Then you can play the video you take on PC. And the codec pack is free! Or if you think installing codec is too much, you can just download Quicktime. It's also free.

When you buy the phone, there is everything you need inside the box, including menu and CD software.

On the home screen, there are 15 shortcut spaces for you to put some "hard to locate" applications. For internet browser, I recommend Opera. It's way better than the one came with the phone. When I use internet, I always go to the connection (top left corner) to make sure I am connected to a wifi connection. So I never have a problem with it.

Some people mentioned that their phone froze a lot. I think they just got a bad phone. My phone has only frozen once for this one and a half month. Compare to M600i, P1i is really tons faster and responsive. Everything is just so smooth.

I love this phone because it's basically a small PDA with phone function. I can make to-do list. I can read pdf, doc, ppt, etc files. I can watch movies and videos on it. I can listen to music on it. I can use Skype. I can use messengers. For the music player, you can minimize it. So you can actually do something else on the phone while listening to music. There are pretty useful symbian and uiq softwares you can install onto the phone. The most I use is AED (advanced english dictionary). You can also download/buy game console emulator and play old games on the phone! Like GBA, NES, etc.

I also bought a bluetooth receiver for my computer. So that I can connect the phone with the computer through BT, and it is VERY convenient. I can transfer all my files and photos within seconds. I do use card reader to transfer big files like videos since BT is not a fast way to do it.

Now Sandisk makes 8gb M2 card and this phone supports it!

There is only one thing to complain: I still can't get the PC Suite to work... But I can live without it.

In a nutshell, P1i is a great phone. I don't think I will need to buy a new phone within the next three years :D

Over a decade ago I started using a Palm Pilot. In the beginning of 2007 the University I work for decided to no longer provide cell phones. I ended up signing up with T-Mobile and got their Dash hoping that I would pick up typing with little keys quick enough. After a few months trying to deal with the little keyboard and having the volume strip on the side of the Dash never actually work well; I ended up still carrying around my Sony Clie, a decent digital camera, and the Dash. I really didn't like the look of the "bat-belt" hung with devices. When I dropped my clie for the last time (screen fractured), I had the excuse to look around a second time. I really liked the P1i because it actually has a decent camera, has a touch screen that I can use for putting in letters instead of typing, really great resolution on the screen (something Sony really does well), and the reviews I read said it worked well with the T-Mobile system.

It does more than I expected (FM Radio for instance), the dual letter keyboard works pretty well, and the handwriting recognition saves my poor thumbs! There are some less than intuitive quirks about it, for instance the notes are listed in order of creation instead of alphabetically, the handwriting recognition is a little different (periods and the letter "A" are not the same), and I wish I could define a few more shortcuts, but overall I am extremely pleased. I have had to switch from the Plam Desktop to Outlook, but I can survive that.

I think I made the right decision, and recommend it to others.

The Sony Ericsson P1i uses the Symbian UIQ 3 operating system, which is the next best thing to Palm OS in terms of intuitive capabilities. Its user interface is the best I've seen among smartphones.

Combine that with an excellent TFT touchscreen, a jog dial, an amazing rocker-style QWERTY keyboard, a 3.2MP camera, an MP3 player, wi-fi, Blackberry capability, excellent desktop synchronization software and you've got perhaps the best "all in one" device.

The beauty of it is that this phone is small enough fit in your shirt pocket without showing a bulge, while retaining a relatively large 240x320 pixel screen that rivals larger, clunkier smartphones. It simply blows away the Nokia E61 that I was using previously.

Former Sony Clie users will appreciate the jog dial which allows you to quickly scroll through or select entries and the return button that lets you exit or move back a level.

My reservations about the rocker-style keyboard vanished after a couple of days of use. I am actually able to type faster than I ever could with the clunky Nokia E61. I can do most of the operations with one hand, like make calls, send emails, SMS text-message or edit calendar or contact entries, without ever having to use the stylus.

The Sony Ericsson Desktop synchronization software works seemlessly with Microsoft Outlook. The synchronization process and logic is very similar to the "Hot Sync" application used in Palm OS or Clie devices.

On the technical side, this is a GSM/GPRS tri-band world phone. It also has built in wi-fi, infrared and bluetooth. It comes with the UMTS 2100 version of 3G which is commonly used in Europe and Asia, but not here in North America where we use the HSDPA 3G standard. It also lacks EDGE capability. Thankfully, the speed of GPRS is good enough for basic browsing and sending emails. In my view, 3G would be most useful when using this phone as a modem for your laptop.

The P1i's signal reception is excellent, and I've had very few dropped calls. Its voice quality is slightly shy of the Nokia E61 I had previosuly, but not enough to cause concern.

I have not tried many of the multi-media features of this phone. However, the picture quality of the built-in camera is quite good, although I'd say its sharpness is not good enough to justify its 3.1MP capability. The built-in flash provides just enough light at very close range.

Sony Ericsson was nice enough to provide a couple of extras with this phone, a 1GB mini-SD card and a pair of good quality stereo earphones.

Depending on which version of firmware you have on the phone, the P1i comes with one of two "push" email software installed: Blackberry or Exchange Activesync. The Sony Ericsson support website allows you to download either application for free if you need to.

You can also use third-party applications. Both GMail mobile (free from Gmail website) and ProfiMail (from Handango) work well with the P1i. ProfiMail allows you to receive email in a "quasi-push" way by allowing you to set intervals to download email headers. Personally, I prefer ProfiMail for its excellent user interface and flexibility.

In conclusion, I highly recommend the P1i for both casual and business users.

FIRMWARE:
A lot of the unlocked P1i phones being sold in USA and Canada come with either a Singapore or Hong Kong version of the firmware. (Mine came with the Singapore version). This typically restricts language selection to UK English or Chinese.

I changed the firmware on my P1i to the "Generic World 1" (GW1), which is not as restrictive as the Singapore version of the firmware.

(Please click on the "Comments" associated with this review to see my instructions on how to upgrade the firmware).

This phone is top notch and I would recommend buying it with out a doubt! BUT only if you live in a Tri band environment. This means that the phone only supports 900/1800/2100mhz and will struggle anywhere where there is a network of strong 850mhz signal. so.... I will paste my comment from another website.
WARNING!!! To anyone thinking of buying this phone in the USA, I would strongly recommend doing your research first!! this is a tri band phone which in my opinion should NOT be available to the USA as we operate 85% on 850mhz which this phone does not support. Unless you live (and intend not to travel to the country where you are likely to get zero bars) in any of the Major city's across the country that also use 1900mhz its not worth the money! save it for a stylish quad band phone at least then you will be almost guaranteed it will work everywhere.
Hope this helps anyone with this phone who is having trouble and for those who are thinking of buying this phone.

This cell phone was a gift from a friend in Costa Rica, and he says works perfect; any problem with all the features, and he hasn`t any problem with the activation.

It's been all i have been looking for...the only thing is that is not 3G compatible and is not a quad band telephone, besides that, it's a great phone, two thumbs up!!!!

He tenido varios Sony Ericson, pero mi experiencia con este telefono ha sido cheverisima, las cosas que mas me gustas de el son: la camara, las aplicaciones de oficina, las facilidades de los menus, en fin hay muchas cosas que me gustan de este movil.

General: I have now had this phone for 18 months, and although not perfect, it is the best phone or even PDA that I have used. I am pretty hard on PDA's and break them in about a year - so far so good with this phone. It is unlocked and I run it on T-Mobile pay as you go (very cheap and as good as AT&T for service here in Indiana). Initially, the phone would occasionally drain its battery after only an hour or two. I discovered that using Swiss Manager to close running applications was a good work around to prevent this. Recently, I upgraded the operating system to the latest version, and it seems to have corrected this issue. I have had no other stability issues. The screen can be seen in sunlight, but I would like if it were a bit larger in size. Battery life depends on closeness to a cell tower and as I am in a fringe area, I only get about 3 days before I run out of juice (using it a few minutes per day). Running the music player, I get about 5 hours, but the camera will drain the battery in an hour or two!

Software: Software to edit Microsoft Word documents and spreadsheets comes included. The included calendar, alarm clock and address book are a bit more versatile than those found with the Palm OS. There is lots of software available for this phone [..]. I have installed the Big Encyclopedia that runs on Mobipocket, but it is apparently to big to install automatically the usual way, so I used the Media Manager to install it on a memory card. I have also installed a dictionary, a password manager and a better calculator than comes with it. I also recommend Swiss Manager when you need a more powerful file manager.

Keyboard: I like it. There is also a touch screen keyboard that can be used.

Camera: Outdoors it takes 3 Meg pictures that look as if they came from a dedicated digital camera, although they look a bit better re-sized to 2 Meg size. Indoors the results are very noisy and good only if you are desperate.

Other: The phone uses a Sony connector for headphones, but cheap adapters for a standard stereo plug are available. The CPU runs a little slow for the demands of the phone, so sometimes there is a little wait to load software. As with other phones, the FM radio needs the headphones attached to act as an antenna, but then reception is good. Unfortunately, Sony uses their micro-MemoryStick (which is hard to find) instead of an SD card.

Is the best phone. It can manage many tasks at the same time, while you browse the web it also works like a phone. The Task manager gives you short cuts to all the open programs without any conflict. Very good. I love Symbian and SonyEricsson.

Well this is a sony ericcson so the quality is what you expected plus the symbian 9 works great, I only had problems connecting to a Bluethooth GPS, and there arent enough 3erd party applications like in more popular phones, It is a Smartphone that coneccts to blackberry and does all what the description saids but I had two problems, one is that the phone is a quad band but it does not work in the 850 band that youll find in some countries, it does support 3G and Video TV. The other is that the unlocked version they sell is for Hong kong and it comes with 2 languages, chinnese and english I try to download more languages but in SE site there isnt support to the latest firmware version it came. So I dont have spanish letters recognition. Anyway I like all the features and the use of wifi is great no more internet overcharges!