Sony Ericsson P990i

I've owned the p800, the p900, the p910, and now have the p990... and have to say that they seem to get worse with time... Clunkier, more restrictive, and more prone to lag, and slow response times. Whether it's to do with my phone being an Orange model or not I don't know, but start up and shut down times are risible... It's a phone, and it takes nearly 40 seconds to start up... Ridiculous.

In all fairness the p910 was actually my favourite, with the addition of software like Sman, Tracker and Smartmovie... it became the device it was supposed to be. Completely accessible, able to play Divx files, and quick and responsive.

This will almost certainly be the last time I buy from the SE P series... I've had enough... bloated, restricted, and underpowered. The only reason I bought it was an upgrade from the p910 contract was free.. on a tariff that gave more for less money...

Should be in the rubbish bin. I've had nothing but problems with my P990i.

Bought the Sony Ericsson P990i to upgrade from really old T610, I wanted to use a better camera and email facility. I only have a few faults.

The phone 50% of the time, turns itself back on when I've switched it off. I have to remove the awkward battery case to stop this. Every time.

Can no longer receive or send MMS messages without "Kern applic Failure la la la " message appearing. The helpful chap in the Orange shop cannot fix it.

It's painfully slow to start, open applications, switch applications.

You can delete a selected bunch of messages in the sent box, but not in the inbox, it's 1 at a time or all of them. ??

Battery life's not great, It's heavy and bulky.

It's really hard to get to the handsfree quickly, especially if you're driving. Because it's so slow.

I can't really fathom out how to use the PC software and visibly see what it's backed up.

Sony give you a help email address at the back of the manual. They haven't replied over 3 messages/3 months. I'm scared to do the software update in case the phone gets worse.

It's absolutely awful at keeping the correct time, I lost 15 minutes in 3 weeks. You can however set time updates, but... you get these almost every couple of hours, have to scroll down 13 countries to select uk, confirm. It's all a bit of a kerfuffle.

The gaming is good though, and the screen pixel quality, camera quality, durability (dropped it a few times, still works ok), volume, video calling. WAP browsing's quick.

Good job I'm not the stressy type.

I have been a P series fan since the P800 came out. I have owned all and have found the P990i to be a huge disappointment. I upgraded from the P910i and still prefer to use it. It seems to be the best P series phone. WiFi is nice, internet browser could use a lot of improvement, but so can the browser for Windows 5.0. The screen seems to be very finicky for touchscreen purposes. The stylus is located in a poor position. Battery cover is very difficult to remove. Volume on the handset is very attenuated which makes it hard to hear out of in a car or average noisy environment. Sony has replaced the phone once and did some kind of software upgrade to improve it, but there is no change in performance or reliability. If you don't need WiFi or a 2 megpix camera, buy the P910i. I have no issues with my P910i

The Sony Ericsson P990i is a very bad product. Considering its retail price, it is not really worth it.

I have owned the P800, the P910 and now the P990 so I am not new to these phones. Sure they are bigger than a standard mobile, but right since the P800 they have been a lot more than a phone. For me the ability to take MS Outlook contacts, diary, reminders, etc out of the office has always been the reason for buying one, and I am prepared to overlook some of the other shortcomings in order to get that.

The trouble is, this latest incarnation of the phone is a step backwards.

On the plus side, the size and weight is about the same as the P910/P900 (all bigger than the original P800!). The screen is slightly bigger, but not in any really usable way. The keypad is better than before and I would suggest removing the flip - it makes the phone a bit smaller and you lose nothing. (there is now a screen/keypad lock slider on the side of the phone so removing the flip does not cause the same problems with making inadvertant calls all the time as with previous models).

On the minus side, the GUI (graphical user interface) has changed for the worse. It is confusing, very slow (you often sit there for a second or 2 waiting for a press on an icon to actually do anything!). Its very frustrating. Oddly, the reception seems to be worse (in fringe coverage areas) than the P910. I have had the unit changed by Vodafone and it is still the same. Finally, switching on the the hands-free speakerphone is no longer a single a click (like most other things).

All in all, there are a lot of very smart features in the P990, but reaching them is often so complicated that you tend not to bother.

I would not buy this phone again - if I could find something else to deliver the same integration with Outlook (that does NOT use Windows CE/Mobile like the latest Palm Treo- which is vastly MORE frustrating in my opinion) I would dump the P990 tomorrow.

Sorry Sony, as I have been a great fan up till now. :-(

Right, before I start my ramble please understand this and remember it as you read. I am a life long fan of the 'P' series PDA phones having owned every one and recommending them across the board to everyone.

The P990!!!!!!!!!! read on.

I have had a P990i for some 4 months now it is my second one, the first being faulty with numerous defects. I think 4 months is long enough to give a reasoned review.

I have the following problems with this phone;

Cannot use calendar, any attempt to access it results in a small box flashing 'busy' for 30 seconds before it tells me their is insufficient memory (I currently have 62MB on the phone and 960MB on the card). After this I have to restart the phone (again)!

The phone only rings on calls as and when it decides to, I can put it on my desk here with a full signal, call it from my landline and 3 to 4 times out of 10 it will not ring!

The whole phone process is extremely slow, painfully slow to be precise taking a long time to switch between screens in any application.

The video camera is useless, if videoing a person speaking the words are spoken almost half a second before the person moves their lips!

People will tell you to go to task manager and close the programs after you use them, why does the phone not do this if your not multitasking (try it its laughable). Their was no need to do this on the 910.

Sony will tell you to re-load the software from their update service (done this 76 times), restart it to free up memory blocks (usually occurs 6 - 10 times per day) or master re-set (very convenient).

Add to this a little story for you to read; at a New Years Eve party I received a call during a conversation with a person I had just met (yes the phone actually rang, novelty) after the call he looked at me and said "P990 eh" and then proceeded to reel off all the defects on the phone I have plus a lot more! does he have a P990? NO he is an independent reviewer of hardware released by or used by Orange and as he said and I quote "they are rubbish, simply rubbish".

To summarise, it's useless and I am really surprised by this after having all the previous incarnations of the 'P' series (910i was brilliant).

A very shoddy device which will cost SE many loyal customers, me included.

Sorry SE but the truth is painful.

****Update

Hi again,

Posted review of this phone yesterday.

Since then it completely failed just flashing black and white.

I called Orange, they sent a replacement and it arrived at 9am this morning (nice one Orange)

Guess what, it has all the same faults straight out of the box, this phone is absolute rubbish, don't go within a million miles of it, get a cheap phone and a notepad, way better.

Marcus (extremely disappointed)

I was very excited about getting this phone, but I am now a bit depressed.

The frequent software glitches and hangups that I get with the Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone are now very frustrating, and I am not multitasking.

I have owned the P990i for about 2 weeks and I LOVE IT. If you use the phone properly you will find out it does not crash. When you finish using a program you CLOSE IT. Try using the task manager for multi tasking. That should solve the problem. Give the phone a chance. It is an awesome phone and one of the best phones I have owned. I used to be a Nokia customer but after buying the P990i I stopped and transfered to Sony Ericsson right away. I read many bad reviews about the P990i but i still bought it. Most of the peoples reviews i have read don't even know what the Task manager is. Obliviously its gonna freeze if your using 5 programs at a time. Lets not forget its a Phone. I recommend it to every one. Trust Me.

I have had the previous two versions (Sony Ericsson P900 and the P910), and they all worked brilliantly. I was really looking forward to the Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone, and I waited until October to upgrade, as I heard there where software issues. Since then, I have had to replace it three times. Vodafone have been good in replacing them immediately, but they have told me over the phone that they have had no complaints. However, the relief when I read the Reviews on Review Centre, that so many of the other reviewers, also on the Vodafone network, agree with me that this is probably the worst phone ever produced. It is a real relief that as a business user (not a great computer buff), that I am not alone in owning a worthless piece of plastic. It makes me feel human again, and not a complete dunce.

Sony Ericsson have got to sort the issues out.