Chris Ullrich @ micro dot blog

It’s been another week or two with the Sony Ericcson P910i and I have a few more observations and will try to answer some questions people have been asking about it.

First, to clarify, I purchased the phone from a retail store here in Los Angeles. It was unlocked and unbranded and I think just off the boat from the UK. My current cell provider is T-Mobile. All that was necessary to get the P910i working was for me to take the SIM card out of my old phone, a Sony Ericsson T610, and put it in the new phone.

The P910i was able to read the SIM card and get my contacts and cell provider info immediately so I was able to make an receive calls. The next step was configuring the phone for SMS text messages, MMS multi-media messages and for T-Mobile Internet. That was and can be accomplished relatively easily by using either the Sony Ericsson support site for the phone or using T-Mobile’s own configuration site.

Both sites work in essentially the same way in that you click on what you would like to configure, say SMS text messages, and then follow the directions to have the settings sent to your phone wirelessly. The phone gets the settings and uses them to auto-configure itself and that’s pretty much all it takes.

I used this method for setting up text messages, multi-media messages and T-Mobile internet. The two sites differ in that on the Sony site you need to select the phone, select what you want to configure, select your wireless carrier and then have the configuration setting sent to your phone. The T-Mobile site only needs you to select what you want to configure, select your phone and then send the configuration through.

Of the two, I prefer the T-Mobile site as it is from the carrier I use so I feel that the settings will work better. I don’t really have anything to back that up, its just my preference. You can probably use either and be fine.

As for usability, I am getting pretty good with the phone. I now have it set up to check my POP email every hour via T-Mobile internet and that works every time. You can also set it to do IMAP if you want but my accounts are all POP. I can also use it to instant message with AOL, MSN, Yahoo and even ICQ using a third-party tool called IM+ from Shape Services.

Also, I am using a couple other third-party apps, AvantGo and Resco Photo Viewer. Resco Photo Viewer I like better than the native photo viewer that comes with the phone. AvantGo is still in beta so it has a few bugs and is pretty slow but still, its kinda cool.

I have solved my bluetooth issues, at least for the moment, by doing a clean install on my 12" Powerbook and then paring the phone and the Powerbook to use iSync. That has worked four or five times in a row so, fingers crossed, it will keep working. I’m not saying that wiping your computer and reinstalling OSX is a good work-around, I just happened to have to do it anyway due to another issue to it worked out.

Other than that, I still love the phone. It gets great signal, sends email, text messages, pictures, instant messages, reads word and pdf files, browses the web (albeit at GPRS speeds. yawn) and is not that big and looks cool. Plus, it takes pretty good pictures and video and finally syncs with my Mac using iSync. What more can you want?

Oh, I almost forgot, it does give me some sort of error, as indicated by a yellow icon with an exclamation point, during certain calls that I have made or received. I think it might have something to do with encryption of calls but I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet. I’ll let you know.

Also, I have tried to update the phone’s firmware using the Sony Ericcson Update Service but as of yet have been unsuccessful. You need to use a Windows machine and the two I have don’t seem to be able to manage it. I am going to be building a new Windows gaming rig in the next week or so (so I can play Half Life 2 as God intended, of course) so I will try to update using that pristine install of Windows XP. I’ll let you know on that one as well.

Cheers.

The saga continues. To reiterate, the P910i is a great device. It does it all: phone, decent camera (still only VGA but a vast improvement over my previous T610), video, web browser, works with ichat, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, email, calendar, contacts, reads word, pdf and excel files and a crap load more things. It has completely replaced my Palm and cell phone. For my purposes, it works as advertised and does the job with style. I purchased it unlocked from Avi at World Wireless in Beverly Hills. I use it with T-Mobile and have had no issues.

I have had more time to work with the phone and wanted to elaborate on my previous post. So, here goes. f I have any complaints its because i’m a Mac person. If I used Windows, I would have nothing to complain about (except Windows). The phone includes software for Windows which works perfectly to sync the phone with Outlook, install apps, etc. using the included usb cradle or bluetooth. If I didn’t have a Windows machine around, I would not be able to install any software as far as I can tell. Nor would I be able to update any of its software or the phone’s firmware using the Sony Ericsson update service. That’s a bummer but I can get around it.

As for iSync and bluetooth, it has been an interesting few days getting that to work. I was able to pair the phone just fine with my G5 and Belkin bluetooth adaptor. When it came to the services page, the only two things available were to use the phone with address book (good) and as a modem. Sadly, the option for sync was not available.

Undaunted, I launched iSync and looked for new devices. To my happiness, the P910i showed up and I was able to add it as a new device and then proceeded to sync it for the first time. It all worked perfectly. Contacts and calendars were carried over and the sync had no errors. I though that was it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Subsequent attempts proved unsuccessful unless I first paired the phone and the computer again to establish the relationship prior to using iSync. If I did that, it worked. If not, iSync gave an error that it could not communicate with the device. I even went to far as to try it with Tiger but met with similar results. I hope nobody at Apple is reading this as I might have just violated my NDA but if you are, how about an iSync update please? This should be an easy fix.

Even that workaround didn’t last though. It stopped working at all after a few more attempts so I looked around for another solution. No third-party software is available as of yet (at least that I know of) which will allow me to sync with iCal and Address Book. After much research, I found a couple of sites devoted to making the P900 work with iSync. Those hints and tips seem to have done the trick. Even though they apply to the P900 and in iSync it now says P900, it works fine. The work-around involves editing of a couple of plist files so it isn’t for the novice but after I did it, syncing worked again and has worked on subsequent attempts over the last week.

As for other practical considerations like reception quality or battery life I can say that I have never used a better phone here in LA. Calls go through and don’t get dropped. Some of the credit probably goes to T-Mobile but the phone performs well. I get reception where others, even fellow T-Mobile users, do not. So it has to be the hardware that is superior as well as the network. It is somewhat of a battery hog although I have never run out of power yet. I do plug it in to charge every night and also have a charger in the car, just in case.

So really, my only major problem with the device is how it works with iSync which isn’t the devices fault. Other than that problem, which now seems to be solved (at least for the moment) I love it. I do wish there was more software for it too, like for Palm, but I think that’s coming sooner rather than later as more devices start to use the Symbian OS.

As I continue to put it through its paces, I will post some more updates.

I’m putting my new cell phone / pda through its paces for the last few days and so far, so good. I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and go for the Sony Ericsson P910i. It’s a phone, a Symbian OS based pda, an mp3 player, a camera and a bunch of other stuff. In short, its a way cool gadget. I wrote about it earlier.

I have only had it for a few days so I don’t have much to say in regarding long-term usability and reliability but I have used Sony Ericsson products before and found them to be quite good. I’m sure the P910i will be no exception. My only complaint so far has been the less than stellar bluetooth synchronization with my Macs using isync.

I’m not saying that the P910I doesn’t sync with my computer using bluetooth and isync, its just a little temperamental. At first, it worked fine. On subsequent attempts, I would say one out of two times it will work. Not terrible but not what I have come to expect from my previous Sony Ericsson phone, the T610, which would sync flawlessly every time.

I have found several helpful sites that may give me the info necessary to solve this problem. Really though, it seems like its either a problem with the phone itself or with isync. Granted, the phone isn’t technically available here in the States yet so to expect it to work flawlessly is, I suppose, too much to ask. However, bluetooth is bluetooth and my previous product from the same company worked flawlessly. So, I could also make the argument that it should work flawlessly as well.

Perhaps when Apple updates isync it will work better. I have not had a chance to test it with Tiger yet but I will shortly. Until then, I will keep using it and testing it. My next challenge is trying to figure out which songs to use as ring tones for my various friends. Yes, I am a geek. So?

Cheers.