Customer Reviews

Sony Ericsson P910a Phone (Unlocked)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a road-warrior and gadget lover, I've been using so many phone and PDA devices over the years and finally settled on this phone to reduce the number of devices I carry. And I quite like it.

Again, as with all my reviews, I've written this for very serious users of devices concerned with usability and productivity because I found very few reviews of the sort so I'm hoping to contribute more to road-warriors out there.

Pros:
- Still the best pen-based combination of a phone plus PDA currently. It still offers the option to watch movies in high quality and full wide-screen, but the battery life doesn't suck like most Windows based machines.
- The PDA features are still more intuitive and usable than any Windows based PDA.
- Black Berry push email support now available!
- Push and talk support now available!
- User updatable firmware (I've done this 5 times now without problems).
- Size is still comparable to other pen based PDA phones with keypad.
- It has both pen input and keyboard input (albeit keyboard is cramped)
- It has the option to remove keyboard (no other PDA phone offers this option, as far as I'm aware).
- It's the only smartphone that has a decent keypad for making phone calls.
- Great battery life.
- Incredible one-handed operation convenience with a 5-way jog-dial. You can truly use most of the features you need most often with one hand.
- Flexible OS (Symbian) lets you customize many of the features by mapping them to keys, jog-dials, buttons.
- Voice commands that work.
- Removable battery.
- Ext. antenna option.
- Great hand-writing recognition (as far as my experience goes).
- Best sound quality (out of the stereo output jack) of any PDA or phone (other Sony PDAs excluded). It sounds even better than my iPods and my Toshiba Gigabeat. Don't believe me? Get some quality ripped mp3s, hook it up to a decent clean amp and output it to home speakers and compare.
- Great bluetooth range with wireless headsets.
- Great phone reception! I'm still getting decent reception in deadzones where all my other phones has no signal.
- Call sound quality is superb.
- Speaker phone works very well and it's activated quickly during a call by simply flipping the keypad open.
- Awesome sounding ext speaker, too bad only mono, but then on such a small device there isn't enough spatial separation for 2 speakers to produce true 3D sound anyway.
- Comes with very decent software bundle to edit Word docs, Excel sheets, view PDF, music, video player, WorldMate Pro, Handy Date are thrown in for free as well.
- Very complete out of the box experience: good amount of internal RAM for productivity, S/E has thrown in a decent amount of very popular software, decent (certainly not great) carrying case, USB sync dock, stereo headset/hands free, syncs great with Outlook, Notes out of the box.

Cons:
- At full price, I'd expect WiFi, but at time of writing, you'd be silly paying more than $450 for a new P910 series.
- Cramped keyboard, I mean really cramped. But personally I don't have any problems with it, albeit I do have flexible, precise musician fingers.
- VGA only cam, but whatever, I certainly hope no one is so easily pleased that they'd be impressed by photo quality from any phone on the market.
- MS Duo expensive, but this should only impact those who insists on watching all their videos on their phones, I personally found its internal memory more than enough for a PDA.
- Should've taken out the camera and made the device smaller.
- Slower processor. When the phone switches from one app to another, it definitely delays for a second or two. But then that's why the battery life is so great, your pick.
- Symbian UIQ PDA feature doesn't quite match up to that of the Palm OS (no Palm's fast global search, customizable hand writing short-cuts like copy and paste). I'm a road warrior and I use a lot of short cuts to save time and by far. Palm is the most usable PDA OS for productivity, followed by Symbian. Most road warriors in my office consider Windows based PDA toys and I agree. But then even Palm no longer makes a pen based PDA phone to take advantage of key stroke shortcuts, so this con point is moot.
- Does not come with travel sync cable, you'll have to take the dock with you or buy an aftermarket cable. This is ridiculous, they should've made a USB cable that can plug into their dock so you can still leave the dock at home while on the road.
- When paired with Moto's popular bluetooth wireless headsets, the voice quality for both the speaker and the listener isn't as good as when Moto's headsets are paired with Moto phones.
- Bluetooth connection to wireless headsets are prone to static a lot more than Moto phones.
- Built in speaker phone can be louder. I doubt it'll be usable in loud environments.
- While the audio output jack is stereo and is a standard, universal micro-jack, it would have been better if the jack were a standard mini jack so I can use any of my headphones without having to use an adapter (sold separately).

Conclusion: Overall, for a PDA and phone, the P910 is still the best of both worlds at time of writing. I didn't wait till the next update of the phone to buy because the next phone will have a stupid built in keyboard that cuts away half the screen and most likely the pen based option will not be available on the next P-series. That's too bad because the pen is still the best when it comes to fast input. Without the pen, I'd have to waste time scrolling through different fields just to enter data into the one field I wanted to get to. Plus, I like to see anyone input Chinese characters with an English keyboard (yes, I know I can use Pin-Yin, but then I'm a road warrior, PinYin is simply too slow. With a pen, I simply write). So if you like pen based PDA phone with a keyboard and decent keypad for dialling, get one of these puppies before they're gone. Have fun shopping!

Phone is good but lacks WIFI, which considering the price is a huge drawback. Sony Ericsson also doesn't do a great job of helping themselves. The phones software can be upgraded online but Sony Ericsson has extended their terrible customer service to that area. I upgraded my P910 only to find out that it had been crippled by the update, making it impossible to make or receive calls. This was all thanks to the fact that Sony Ericsson released untested and bugged firmware. Continuing in their pattern of woeful customer service, Sony Ericsson admits it's their fault but can't do their customers the simple courtesy of sending back their phones overnight. I had to wait exactly an extra week after my phone was repaired to receive it even though my location at the time was only 7hrs away from the Sony Ericsson repair center. When splurging this kind of money on a PDA phone, you need to decide if it's something that you will use alot. I use mine for work and depend on it alot. If this is the case for you I suggest looking elsewhere because if the phone dies on you, you will have a serious dilemma. If you travel alot ouside the country it might still be worth it though because the average time for firmware upgrades and such outside the U.S is only a few hours.

So, I survived the Treo 600/650 thing...barely. Then after hearing my Treo reset 5 times in one evening (while doing nothing but sitting on the counter charging), I decided to pitch it and go with the P910a I'd been looking at for a year. Especially in light of the class actions that got filed by users and companies alike over the Treo ROM's reliability.

I should mention a bias I had going into the purchase decision:
I previously had a Sony Ericcsson T616 for 3 years that had been kicked across the street (more than once--don't ask), had been soaked in water, and generally abused--but it always worked. Further, a friend of mine watched his SE T68i get submerged in a piping hot cup of java, which he then cleaned and used for another 2 years (with no defects--other than the occasional sticky key). BTW, he still has his T68i and a 1 year old Treo 600--guess which one still works and which one doesn't :)

I should also mention that the Treo I got had been for free (my company had some crappy app for field engineers written only for the Treo--thanks, Sun!), but the p910a was $500 out of pocket for me via Amazon and that I was a P910a "late adopter" with the P990 coming out right around the corner (although I expected that the "introductory" price of the forthcoming P990's $799 was out of reach for me financially). Even free, the Treo was overpriced :)
I don't ask much out of a phone. I just want ALL the features to work ALL of the time, every time. I also want to be able to add applications and customize it without fear of OS crashes/freezes and for it to remain usable.

I've had the P910a for 3 months and I love it! Not one unintentional reset, the apps just work, and it does bluetooth syncs quickly and easily (a must-have, no cords should be required for any information appliance made after the year 2000!)

The jog dial is nice for quick access (although it does take all of 5 minutes to get used to). The keyboard feature is good to have for quick SMS's, but the one thing I miss relative to the Treo is the back-lighting on the keyboard (difficult to respond to SMS's in the dark with the P910a's flip keyboard.)

I tried it with and without the flip on. It's much easier to do typical phone tasks with the flip attached.

The SD card issues (price/size, etc.) are the same as the other phones (except you get more "free" memory with this phone).

The handwriting recognition software is excellent! It just works.

Other than the occasional usability quirk (getting to speakerphone mode is a little tedious--it needs a single button instead of calling, waiting for sound, then opening the flip), I have nothing to complain about. Although I was always fond of how well SE products work (especially if you have a Mac).

The bluetooth headset pairings I've tried have always worked better on the P910 than on the Treo.

One other thing: the beauty of this device is that it has never been sold locked to any company/network. So, if you change carriers (or if you're stuck on "Cingular Blue--the old ATT wireless", like me, and don't know when you'll be forced to "Cingular Orange"), you can have no fear that the SIM and your number will certainly migrate to the new service.

I purchased this phone to use with T-Mobile service in US.
It's an excellent phone, though not fully 5.0 may be about 4.75

Display is bright and it has excellent rf and audio perfomance.
Flawless operation on USB, IRDA, Bluetooth.
Excellent battery life.
Excellent music player and memory expansion capability.
Very good software to sync contact/calender with outlook.
Excellent form factor, a five way jog button lends to one hand operation.
Camera is ok, audio record capability is easy and useful.

Thera are a few negative:
not loud enough ringing, though music plays loud enough!

LCD screen has a penchant for getting smudgy, have to wipe it twice a day .. SE does provide a small towel though!

The full keyboard is not very useful, the number keys have to be used with a shift (2 key op.).

My basic idea of phone was only making calls. It is the reason I had a phone that doesn't even do SMS for 5 years. Thats' right 5 years.

Now I wanted few things on the go, storage on the go, Music player and PIM. Being phone an absolute necessity and my hatred for filling up my pockets with lots of gadgets, I was searching for a device that can do all.

It was a close call between Palm Treo and Sony Ericsson P910a. I am glad I chose P910a.

I took the key board plate off. now mines looks like a PDA than a phone. There are few quirks, I don't like but overall would give it a 4 1/2.

Since my idea is not to duplicate everybodys comments, I will just added new stuff that needs improvement

* There is no way to figure out where the sound recorder saved the file.
* I cannot lock the screen immediately with the flip removed (I have to wait for the timer to lock it)
* Could have packed little bit more processing power to it.

Got this almost 3 weeks back. I wanted to discover its features first, before writing this.

Undoubtedly, the best mobile phone I ever had (had a Sony Ericsson T637 prior to this).

The Symbian operating system is awesome and never crashed so far. P910i does not have common problems that are reported by my friends (who use Palm Treo 650, Siemens and HP PDA phones).

Here are the CONS:
1) Not an EDGE phone. It is NOT big problem, unless you are a heavy duty internet user.
2) The pouch provided for the phone could be better designed.
3) Battery life could be better - especially with Bluetooth it gets drained faster. This is a typical problem with all bluetooth phones I have used.

Here are the PROS:
1) The flight mode is quite a smart design (you can turn off the phone and use all other PDA, video, audio features).
2) The touch screen is very nicely crafted (better than my Palm-V).
3) The additional memory stick helps a lot for music, to download attachments etc. (I got a 1 GB memory stick duo pro and the combination rocks!!).
4) The speaker phone is much better than many Motorola models.
5) The Jog Dial does a great job, when the flip is closed.
6) It comes with all accessories - you do not need to buy anything, other than the Bluetooth headset. Kudos to Sony Ericsson for saving money to customers!!
7) The headset's stereo effect are unbelievable.
8) Handwriting recognition is really nice (like my old Palm-V).
9) The PUSH Email feature is a nice feature.
10) The camera and video recorder are OK (I do not care about these for business purposes - I would use a high pixel camera and a camcorder for that).
11) The screen colours are better than comparable Nokia/HP/Palm models.
12) You have everything built into one mobile phone (MP3 player, sound recorder, camcorder, office needs like word, spreadsheet, PDF etc.).
13) Can use the wall charger and old DCU-11 cable that I used with my old T637.

I would give a 4.95 for this wonderfully crafted phone. GREAT UNLOCKED PHONE for the price I paid ($249.00)

I have had this phone for well over six months now and it is the single best piece of electronic equipment I have ever owned.

I am a Staff Sergeant in the Army. The Military applications of this phone are extremely helpful in my job. First off, it reads and creates Word documents and Excell. It reads Acrobat reader and Powerpoint. If the phone can't read it, you can store the document on the memory stick and with a card reader on your key chain, you can plug it into any computer and read everything.

I have a 2 GB memory stick high speed card. I have computer files that contains Form flow for my job. I even use it in my Playstation Portable. None of this extra data interfers with the phone's functions.

If you are in the Army, just imagine having your leader's book at your finger tips. Wanna phone that will work in Iraq? I have the P 910i version. It works anywhere I have been. Even the reception is better than a normal cell phone. Plus the fact it is unlocked, so any sim card will work.

I have my phone set up to use the internet. It works great! I can look up anything I want. I even ordered things out in Hoenfels Germany and got what I wanted before we redeployed! Try that with any other phone!

Even though there are other phones that can do a lot of the same things I mentioned I ask you this, "can you add programs just like a computer to YOUR phone???" This one you can. I don't care what the other reviews say about this or that doesn't work, mine does! Not only that, the Sony website does support the phone. If worst comes to worst, you can always call Sony Ericsson and they will configure your phone thru a SMS. It's just too easy!

I am very dependant on my phone. I use it every single day for something. It even syncs with the Outlook calender on my computer. Once again to any soldier, I know a lot of training schedules are done with outlook. How would you like that in your phone?

Some people will say the phone is too big. I say it is just right. I wouldn't want it any smaller. If they can do it, just make it slimmer. It would be too small for all it's functions if it was downsized. It's perfect the way it is and from what I have seen, it's way smaller than any PDA/cell phone combos.

Normally I wouldn't write a "Hallmark card review" which I have seen so many products that didn't deserve it on Amazon but this is such a good product! I am a big fan of the P 910i and when the P 990i comes out, I am going to buy it.

Last thing and the bottom line. I read a article in a magazine while waiting at the dentist. It talked about the way cell phones should be if the experts designed one. Everything I read in that magazine the P 910i has. If you want a smart phone that lives up to it's name, then wait for the P 990. The price will be worth it, especially when you learn to use all the functions.

One thing about that too. You don't need to spend hours reading a tech manual learning how to use this phone. I had a girlfriend who I gave my P 800 to. She just kept messing with it and learned to use it just fine. She didn't even need me to help her. Yes, that means it's easy to use without calling her... "not too bright".

I bought this phone to get a complete organizer for my busy schedule. I was pleasantly surprised to find a well designed phone. It has alot of great features and some very standard features that are good enough for me. Im not the most tech saavy person, but this phone helps me out alot in my day to day.
Plus I dont have to carry a phone and pda, now its just the phone.

My only problem with the phone is the size....If they made this
phone to be slimmer like the RAZR, I would buy another in a heartbeat. Oh year batteries last for almost 3 days full!!!
One one full charge, pretty good if you forget to charge sometimes.

But the size of the phone would be my only concern, other than that, this phone is extremely useful in my day to day planning.

the P910a is the very best...it takes a little time and patience to master its multi functionality but once you are there it is unquestionably the best communicator and connector available, awesome when you are 'on the road' ... looking forward to the 3g version

This is a good phone indeed, I have it Sync with my imac G5 and it's wonderful.

Nevertheless the p800-900 series is a little bit old now and will very likely change soon so if you buy it now you might end up with an old platform soon. better wait.