Anyone tempted from 9210?

I'm kind of tempted by the P800. If I can get the pennies, it'll be a close shave between that and the 7650.

Call me shallow if you like, but I think the P800 looks like a bar of soap, and it seems to me that it wouldn't be long before that front panel goes bye-bye.... but then again, there's the technology behind it that's excellent.

Anway, until I find the money (and that won't be for a while), this is something that won't be vexing me right now ;-(

Hmmm...

My contract runs out in November

Yeah, I know what you mean. The P800 has an amazing spec. It'll probably have an amazingly big price too though

My other Nokia is a 7650?

My temptation to wait for the P800 has just gotten more intense since learning that it will have a slot for a Memory Stick.

Ok, so Memory Stick isn't CF or MMC, but it is expandable memory!

www.mobilemusings.co.uk

I just returned my 9290 when I found out that the P800 will have a memory stick slot...although I liked the 9290, it lacks features (bluetooth and GPRS) that make it a viable nextgen phone until 3G rolls out in the US.

OK, as much as I like the 9210, I have to admit to P800 looks too good to resist.

The 9210 is on ebay! Hope I don't regret it.

Anyone know if the P800 has high speed Dialup. (I know it has GPRS)

Zuber

I played around with a prototype in Singapore. I found the screen very good indeed, in fact the whole ergonomic design feels just right. Very easy to use. The UI has improved a bit since the original Quartz Emulator, though it is basically the same core ideas.

It seems faster than 9210i, even though the S-E people said that the release version will be trimmed further. Taken as a PDA alone, IMHO it run circles around iPaq or any of Sony's own PDAs. It's a wonderful piece of engineering. Though I forgot to check out if it has a speakerphone feature like the 9210.

As far as I can judge, the camera is better than that of the 7650, which is not surprising given Sony's experience in this area. Will Nokia be going to bed with Canon now?

The stylus is a bit flimsy, but I will probably always bring a long a few Series 5mx styli anyway - they're still the best.

As indicated in another thread, I am more worried about the built in applications. I am not happy with the statement that only Microsoft format viewers will be available. At least initially, Symbian OS Word and Sheet will not be supported, not even as viewers. This is a major disappointment.

Despite the last bit, I rate it a 'buy'.

I was initially suprised when I found out ER5 Word was not compatible with Word on the 9210. IMHO compatibility isn't important because Symbian Word exists to be converted once it leaves the device (to MS DOC in the case of the 9210). Outside of the 9210 people don't use Symbian Word files...Because they can't use them...it's only possible to convert a file using Symbian Connect (as supplied by Nokia) through the serial cable connection. There isn't anything on a PC which can open a Symbian Word file properly.

I think they should have just gone with RTF in the beginning - then we'd have a file that can be opened (unconverted) on a PC in Office, AppleWorks on a Mac, and StarOffice in Linux.

Maybe someone will do a little converter program?

BTW Anyone know why ER5 Word handled inserted audio objects, but Word on the 9210 doesn't...ie was that Nokia's choice, or Symbians?

I think that the P800 is a real killer! Better than the PocketPC Phone Edition and the Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002.

With 1st Person 3D games as part of the package, top power, expandable memory, multimedia, digital imaging and that's they're just the beginning, it's everything that a power user could ask for and the <B>logical upgrade from a PocketPC</B>!

PPC's have become really boring. They're no fun. That whole PPC format is getting as tedious as a beige desktop PC. Why is it everything Microsoft lends its hand to so uninspirational and dull. Quite amazing. Style wise the S-E P800 looks great - it looks like FUN - but it all comes down to the price in the end! Can I afford it?

To be honest, the one thing that I might consider instead of a P800, is an IPaq with bluetooth and a bluetooth, gprs etc. phone.

It all depends on whether the P800 turns out as good as it looks. Having had the 9210, I would definately prefer a single device but I'm still not sure if the Sony is small enough.

It looks small in the pics/videos, but the dimensions suggest slightly wider than a 9210, just as deep but a few cm shorter.

To those who have actually handled one, how does it compare in size. Is it pocketable. Also, is it fast, the 9210 is a little sluggish (but then the battery life is excellent).

Finally, anyone know if the 12Mb ram is all executable memory.

Zuber
(staring wonder if I should keep the Nokia until 9510 comes).

Zuber - Yes, according to the P800 whitepaper, besides GPRS, it will also support HSCSD. Furthermore, the white paper describes the 12MB as "user storage", so I would assume that it is indeed all executable memroy.

I hope it really is 12 Mb of available executable memory. Looking at the sonyericsson site, it says

16 + 16 Mb flash.
12 MB available for images, contacts etc.

If interpreted like the 9210/9210i that could mean
12 Mb of User memory for storage of apps/data
4 Mb for for progam execution.

If that is the case, I'd be looking at a 9210i or Bluetooth IPaq again.

There are other interpretations as well eg 16Mb for exexution/storage of which 4Mb used by OS (Nokia uses 4 Mb of 8 with nothing else running)

Just have to wait someone to get a proper look at it I guess.

Zuber

I know what you mean. I can see that having either one or two devices has both advantages and disadvantages. It depends what you want to do, and how you want to do it.

I think the Nokia Communicator still needs 'tweaking' somehow, and as a private user it's too focused on the corporate market (this will probably get worse as the Communicator gets shoved into the 'Business' section of the 'new Nokia' business. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed in some of the PDA functionality which is lost using a so-called Smartphone, I feel that the 9210 is a bit underpowered too (even if that does make the battery life better).

I'm not a fan of the Microsoft Corporation and it proprietary-ization of the world. I find that organisation a bit sickening frankly, there's something plain unjust, and greedy about the way they opperate...But I can see the merits of PPC - even the PPC Phone Edition too. I think the Communcator is phone-centric, and the PPC Phone Edition is data-centric. I'm begining to think along the lines of Bluetooth and TWO devices next as well Zuber. Also I feel that my Nokia 9210 is already getting to be 'space-junk', it's out of date (sure, it still does what it did when I bought it, but technology is rapidly moving on...) If I had a seperate PDA I'd just have to buy a new small mobile phone - much cheaper. And - with a PPC you get the opportunity to buy add-ons (for iPaq's especially), although these are expensive and suck battery power like nothing else! I think the 02 XDA is pretty impressive, but then again you're stuck with the two-in-one format, and I really don't think the PPC form factor makes for a good phone.

So...the SE P800. I'll definately be checking it out with interest, but lets hope it's not limited in the ways the 9210 was. I've got a fealing that it's going to be quite expensive. I want the SE P800 to be good but I'm much more hard headed about things now. If it doesnt deliver - forget it. Wait and see...

I've just checked the price of PPC's. The iPAQ H3870 is �517 at www.expansys.com - think about that price with a decent mobile phone for �150/�200 as extra! Forget that!

Have you considered the O2 XDA (I think it's also called a Wallaby)? It uses the Pocket PC OS and is currently on sale now in Europe. I don't know much about the device, but it looks pretty slick. I don't believe it has Bluetooth support, but it does have a SD slot.

>>I was initially suprised when I found out ER5 Word was not compatible with Word on the 9210.<<<

I was more disappointed that there was no ER5 import function than surprised, since we knew about the ASCII-->Unicode move.

>>>IMHO compatibility isn't important because Symbian Word exists to be converted once it leaves the device (to MS DOC in the case of the 9210).<<<

I totally disagree. This assumes that 1. you will always want to be dependent on PCs and be a victim of Microsofts secret format changes and 2. you will not want to have a format strategy for Symbian OS. We do not believe in this PC centric philosophy. Instead, Symbian OS should offer a few Symbian controlled formats and provide editors and viewers for those formats. They should ensure that Symbian OS devices support these formats, at least for viewing. If they don't, it will contribute to further Symbian OS divergence and reduce its ability to compete with WinCE in the enterprise market.

>>>Outside of the 9210 people don't use Symbian Word files...Because they can't use them...<<<<

That is what we want to change! Microsoft has been keeping their formats secret since Office97. But all WinCE flavours have interchangeable native Word and Excel formats. That makes, at present, PPC/HPC a stronger enterprise alternative. Symbian needs to ensure interchangeability of its Word and Sheet formats (whether or not those are the same as any open source or industry standard formats) between different Symbian OS devices.

>>>There isn't anything on a PC which can open a Symbian Word file properly.<<<

That is less of an issue if sending files between different Symbian OS devices is what you want. You can always convert over to PC formats when needed as, for instance, Neuon did on ER5 with their nConvert.

>>>I think they should have just gone with RTF in the beginning - then we'd have a file that can be opened (unconverted) on a PC in Office, AppleWorks on a Mac, and StarOffice in Linux.<<<<

I understand that Symbian Word is closely based on RTF so conversion should indeed be easy. However, saying that you will adopt RTF - or XML for that matter - as your format is very different, since you will then give up your option to develop the format for future needs, e.g. insertion of new objects.

>>>BTW Anyone know why ER5 Word handled inserted audio objects, but Word on the 9210 doesn't...ie was that Nokia's choice, or Symbians?<<<<

Very interesting question. Was it because of bringing the ER6 Word format closer to RTF? It is further puzzling since ER6 in general has much better sound options than ER5.

I completely understand what you mean. I don't understood why Symbian haven't done more to make the Symbian Word format more workable outside the device.

I realise what you mean about the implications of keeping control over the file format for compatibility reasons.

I thought it would be a good idea to have have a PC Symbian Word and Sheet Viewer for PC's...But no. I've also seen add-ins for Microsoft Word which enable opening Aportis DOC files to be opened from within MS Word...Wouldn't it be good if this kind of extension was available for Symbian Word in MS Office? I don't know very much about the corporate side of things is, but for private buyers it's good to have ready-made content for the platform (the kind of content available for ER5 using the Data program - which was simple but useful).

Maybe with ER5 the concept was that complete documents could be created on the device, but with ER6/7 (whatever), the concept is that users will primarilly want document viewers (Word, PDF, etc etc)?

Microsofts strategy has always been to control the platform (to the disadvantage of competing application developers) and to use the control of proprietary file formats for its own (compatibility and marketing) advantage. You say that the PPC has the edge in the corporate sector because of this, so I can't understand why Nokia haven't done more with the 9200 which is also targeted for the corporate market. I don't know what Nokia's strategy is, but they've obviously done a lot of thinking about it so they must have some 'longer term' plan in mind.

[quote="martinharnevie"]>>>>I think they should have just gone with RTF in the beginning - then we'd have a file that can be opened (unconverted) on a PC in Office, AppleWorks on a Mac, and StarOffice in Linux.&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;
[/quote]

if you use rtf or doc it's just the same, Mac has Microsoft Office to open it, pc has Office and Linux has StarOffice.

If you don't want to use a pc, like you said, what's the problem then?

You should be gratefull that all those formats are supported. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but i can't see what limiting the document support can be good for.

If you could watch the Doc files you'll be worse off, I've tried living without them for a year, was transferring trough linux/beos, and it's a pain. Everybody uses them, not supporting them that's what really would give pocketpc an advantage.