Sony Ericsson P1 is the successor to two smartphones which existed before: The M600i and P990i. Carrying a P990i was like carrying a large concrete brick. In a world where ultra-thin Smartphones like the Motorola Q and Samsung BlackJack are ubiquitous, the P990i definitely looked out of place. Naturally, there were very few takers for this phone.
The M600i had its own problems. There was no Wi-Fi and no HSDPA, which meant that high speed data transfer was not possible. Add an awkward keyboard and you know that you have a phone doomed for failure. And it did bomb in the market.
At this juncture, Sony Ericsson is the only leading mobile phone vendor without a killer business phone. Nokia has a bouquet of offerings with the hugely popular E-series phones, Motorola has the slim Windows Mobile Q series phones and Samsung has the 'i' series of phones, again based on Windows Mobile. Sony Ericsson's upcoming P1 may change all that. P1 comes in the candy bar form factor of the M600i, but adds Wi-Fi, a 3.2 Megapixel camera and a Walkman player. All this along with Push Email and Document editors! The phone looks trendy and professional.
I like the combination of auto-focus camera and a walkman-like player. Note that the camera is not Cybershot branded, so it may not give you the image quality of K790i or the K800i. The Xenon flash is also missing, but the auto-focus and 3.2 MP more than make up for the lost features. The media player comes with mega bass, so defintely it can replace your current Walkman phone. The only negative of this phone is the lack of HSDPA.
All-in-all, a clear winner on paper. We have to wait to see how it fares in the market when it is released sometime this quarter.
