Why I'm thinking of Selling my P900

OOT

So... what r u gonna do after u sell it ??

back to the oldskool organiser with pen, pencil and paper ??? >_<

well nothing is perfect cos if there is, life will be boring as hell LOL

n1ghtFLY wrote:OOT

So... what r u gonna do after u sell it ??

back to the oldskool organiser with pen, pencil and paper ??? >_<

well nothing is perfect cos if there is, life will be boring as hell LOL

Pencil & paper? No... I will look into something like an iPAQ/PocketPC. The P900 sits on the fence and overlooks both the phone and the PDA fields, but unfortunatly lacks proper functionality in the latter (and surprisingly some functionality in the former too, e.g. profile swapping, voice recording).

I will see if there are any solutions on the PDA market that more appropriatly meet my needs as a business user (and an ad hoc user)

Bateman

Maybe old but the Communicator(9210i) might suit you better or you can wait for the 9500.I'll probably use a combo until the 9500 is released.An old Psion Revo and some cheap Symbian device,like the N-Gage.

I wouldn't go back to PockePC,although ActiveSync rocks,loosing data will be much more frequent then on the p900 plus the phone side is awful.

GhostDog wrote:Maybe old but the Communicator(9210i) might suit you better or you can wait for the 9500.I'll probably use a combo until the 9500 is released.An old Psion Revo and some cheap Symbian device,like the N-Gage.

I wouldn't go back to PockePC,although ActiveSync rocks,loosing data will be much more frequent then on the p900 plus the phone side is awful.

I actually never have used a PocketPC properly so I'm not sure how reliable they are. I'm thinking of PIM compatibility between Windows Apps like Office.

It's a shame about the P900. It's just the software that's the problem. BTW I just found another bug. If you sync your email then read an email in the P900 and click on an email address you get a menu (Email, MMS) If you choose email then a couple of screens flash before your eyes and the Messenger App just exits! No email even in the drafts folder... (I haven't tried the MMS option yet 😉 )

These things SE have overlooked. If they only made these fundemental improvements to the software the phone would be close to perfect.

But out of all these gripes, lack of mapping via syncing the contacts is I think the worst. I see it as a flaw in the product.

Does anyone know if there IS any 3rd party software out there that can map contacts with the P900? What about email apps for the P900? Is EmailViewer anygood (and can it sync with outlook?)

Regards,

Bateman

Oddness.
I have not got half the bugs on my phone that you have.
The email and mms work 100%
No data loss. (the sync should have a map option i agree... even the mac does not have that sob.)
The memory bug i had... but i did a restore from my p800.
I then did a format installed everything from scratch and it works 100% now.

KayonLord wrote:Oddness.
I have not got half the bugs on my phone that you have.
The email and mms work 100%
No data loss. (the sync should have a map option i agree... even the mac does not have that sob.)
The memory bug i had... but i did a restore from my p800.
I then did a format installed everything from scratch and it works 100% now.

It could be because you have an email account set up on your phone. I do not. All I do is sync my Outlook email and the P900 creates the email profile. I do not have an email account set up on the phone, which I am guessing, is why it fails as per my previous post.

Bateman

Bateman, although I don't suffer many of the bugs you do, I agree about the lack of functionality. I kind of made the decision to move away from my PDA as I was sick of carrying a phone AND pda everywhere. The SEP900 is a compromise and I feel it's the best compromise I could have made.

I think you should write to SE and tell them where you think it is falling down. I will be doing so.

rb14 wrote:Bateman, although I don't suffer many of the bugs you do, I agree about the lack of functionality. I kind of made the decision to move away from my PDA as I was sick of carrying a phone AND pda everywhere. The SEP900 is a compromise and I feel it's the best compromise I could have made.

I think you should write to SE and tell them where you think it is falling down. I will be doing so.

Hi,

I think I will be writing to SE soon. I agree with what you said; the P900 is the best compromise I could find too, but these issues really need to be sorted out. I blame SE for their advertising of the P900 as giving the impression it has the functionality of a business class product, when in reality and practice it doesn't.

If such a high-flying device claims "email functionality" for example, one would expect just that; Email functionality, not "partial email functionality". Same goes for the other things I listed.

In short, I think the P900 is too expensive, and there isn't enough there to justify the price. But it does make a good compromise if you don't want to carry a Nokia Communicator or a PDA around. I think if one stops thinking of the P900 as a business class phone it suddenly becomes sufficient, because then you don't expect to be able to do things with it you should be able to do on an expensive device advertised as a business class / leisure product...

Regards,

Bateman

Although I acknowledge all the faults you've listed, I think your conclusion is a little harsh. Yes the P900 has bugs and is missing features, but what business class product isn't? You mention that you require perfect synching with Outlook and yet Outlook XP is probably the buggiest piece of software I have used since Word 95 and lacks so much seemingly obvious functionality, I have to wonder what the developers were smoking when they wrote the spec.

But, I say this coming from Lotus Organiser. As a PIM, for me, Outlook is so lacking and buggy, the two aren't even in the same league.

Yet a colleague, who had to switch from Outlook to organiser, couldn't believe how primitive the collaboration features were in Organiser and complained constantly. Apparantly, all the extra features in the calendar and contacts were completely lost on him.

I think it comes down to the fact that losing something is always harder than gaining something. If you suddenly loose the ability to do something that can in actuality, with a little effort and thought, easily be worked around, it affects us far more than gaining something. So, losing the ability to map fields in your PDA to synch to Outlook seems to FAR outweight the benefit of being able to send an e-mail on the move without having to carry a PDA and infra-red phone and connect the two and wait an age whilst the data transfers accross and....

This isn't a criticism. It's human nature. Someone did a study a while ago. They took two groups. One they gave a 5% pay rise, the other a 5% pay cut. Two months later they surveyed them to find out how much it had affected them. The 5% payrise people hadn't noticed any tangible benefits. The 5% pay cut people didn't know how they were going to survive!

I think the P900 is a mixture of the two with many benefits over a speparate PDA and phone combined, but many disadvantages over just a PDA, and many disadvantages compared to just a phone. I think it depends on where you have come from as to what affects you the most.

In the end, I suppose it just goes to prove that we're all different and so even the most advanced phone in the world can't possibly be right for everyone. But to state it doesn't qualify as a business class product because it doesn't suit you personally seems to be over simplifying things a little.

I haven't actually got my P900 yet, it should arrive in the next couple of days but I have been using a P800 for 14 months.

While I agree that the P[89]00 is a compromise, there are areas where the phone really isn't suitable for business use. The email client (I understand there has been no material improvement P800->P900) is truly atrocious and synchronising with Outlook has some real drawbacks.

I have also found Bluetooth to be thoroughly unreliable on my P800. I hope it improves with my new P900.

On balance I feel that the P900 is a great gadget and I am really looking forward to getting mine, but I don't really believe it's a suitable business tool yet.

Bateman and to whoever is reading this,

The inability to custom map P900 contacts with MS Outlook is a huge downfall. I just purchased the phone, and this is really pissing me off. But! This is not a problem of the phone: the PC suite is what sucks. Hence, I was wondering if you found any 3rd party SW that enables better mapping of contact fields between the P900 and MS Outlook.

The other annoyance I can live with, but with no custom mapping I don�t need this. Any low level Nokia provides better mapping capabilities.

Calhoon

CuttaCalhoon wrote:Bateman and to whoever is reading this,

The inability to custom map P900 contacts with MS Outlook is a huge downfall. I just purchased the phone, and this is really pissing me off. But! This is not a problem of the phone: the PC suite is what sucks. Hence, I was wondering if you found any 3rd party SW that enables better mapping of contact fields between the P900 and MS Outlook.

The other annoyance I can live with, but with no custom mapping I don�t need this. Any low level Nokia provides better mapping capabilities.

Calhoon

Or low-level SE for that matter. In fact I could map fields with my SE T68i... so I wonder how seriously SE has taken the P900...

On this exact issue, I called up SE data support and asked them if there was a way round it or to inform me of other 3rd party s/w that would do the trick. As to the former they specified that it is highly unlikely that there will be future builds of the s/w that will include this functionality. As to the latter they refused to point out any 3rd party s/w out to me. I have looked everywhere but cannot find any 3rd party s/w that will solve this problem. I realise it's a s/w problem and nothing to do with the P900 per se but since it directly affects the way you use it I mark
the P900 down anyway.

Does *anybody* know of any 3rd party P900 sync s/w that allows you to map custom fields with Outlook?

Regards,

Bateman

Bateman wrote:

2) General issues:

a) There is a 'known' bug that causes calendar, task, jotter etc data to be lost upon turning the phone off then on. Apparently this bug is related to the low battery power in the P900. SE has done nothing to advertise the status of this OR as to whether they are aware of it or if it has been fixed. I have lost data a number of times and this is unacceptable for the price I paid for the P900.

At least this bug is solved in AquaCalendar.

While I too don't have many of the "bugs" listed by bateman, I believe he is making a very valid point. The important thing to note, Bassey, is that he is making these points in the context of the way the phone is advertised and the price. I used a P800 earlier and now a P900, and it does seem extremely frustrating to find that it still doesn't do a great job (it does a GOOD job) of being either a phone or a pda. I mean, from the P800 what are the two major improvements - T9 (which they had no business to leave out in the first place), and the camera (I would rather have had some improvements in the business functionality than in the camera). In fact, why doesn't SE have a cheaper P900 without a camera as an option??

I agree wholeheartedly that its much better to have one integrated device than two great separates, but the fact remains that the P900 IS a compromise - which is fine to start with, but they will HAVE to better themselves if only to keep up.

Incidentally, here's another annoying feature (unless there's a way around it which I haven't found) - I use Outlook for my mail, and have also created an account on the phone to access the same mailbox when I'm on the move. But if I also want to synchronise mails with Outlook, it creates a separate messaging account, when in fact they are the same account! Can't I have all mails from the same mail box in the same messaging account whether I sync from Outlook or poll my server directly?

I have to agree w/ bateman. The bugs and whatnot are really annoying. I constantly get memory errors. The phone itself is still the best pda/phone out there....but it's definitely not worth the price given the loss of time and data from bugs. I'm starting to find that the quality Sony products are falling.

vikast wrote:Incidentally, here's another annoying feature (unless there's a way around it which I haven't found) - I use Outlook for my mail, and have also created an account on the phone to access the same mailbox when I'm on the move. But if I also want to synchronise mails with Outlook, it creates a separate messaging account, when in fact they are the same account! Can't I have all mails from the same mail box in the same messaging account whether I sync from Outlook or poll my server directly?

I don't think you can. As long as you have two different ways of accessing your email from your P900 (sync and GPRS/Dialup) the P900 treats them each as two seperate mail boxes.

I just got Vodafones GPRS Internet set up on my P900 and I will encounter the same problem as soon as I use the same mail box for both syncing and downloading from. If I find any work-around I'll post it here.

Regards,

Bateman

as a prospective buyer of a 900, im a bit shocked at the big problems it appears to have (loosing data and lacking functionality etc). should i still get one?

ta

Dan,the p900 is an excelent device i just wish i can afford one.The problems vary from user to user and from device to device i guess.Some have it,some don't.

i think some of you are refusing to admit the failings of the p800/900, probably because you spent so much on it!
I too feel bad for wasting my money on the p800. I havent been able to afford a new phone so I've got to know the thing very well over the last year or so, and would hardly call it "great" or "excellent".. Best of a bad bunch? not even that. Its downfalls are so many and so annoying that they far outway any kind of benefits it may bestow the user with. Especially when you consider the price they are trying to sell it for.
This phone has caused me so many headaches its not funny, I've been stuck overseas and not been able to get home because its screwed up and wont turn on. Come on, what MODERN operating system would let itself fill up all its internal space and not be able to start again? I thought this phone was meant to be easy to use!!
Whats with only being able to run/switch between the 6 applications at the top of the screen? Like the previous guy said the user interface is far too linear, its totally disfunctional, badly thought out and not suited for a "smartphone" at all.
I'm not trying to troll or anything like that but I honestly think all the sony erricson fanboys need to wake up and admit how dismal the interface and general functionality of this phone is instead of patting each other on the back trying to convince themselves that it was a good investment.

The p800/900/910i is up to its 3rd incarnation now and they still dont seem to understand what there doing wrong. I'm sure the keyboard will be nice... but the company behind SE/P910i still seem more ERRICSON than sony. maybe one day sony will take them over properly and start making stuff that actually lives up to the sony brand.

I used to own a nokia 7650 and I thought that was annoying, but the p8/900 is much much worse... I wish I could get my old phone back!

i like my new 900. i agree that the UI could certainly be improved, and not having stuff like profiles is pretty silly. or apps that dont close down when you exit them. but so far i think it is pretty good. i do like the way it send email, starts up the gprs connection and gives lots of conection info so you know what it is up to.

maybe the 910 with UIQ 2.1 will improve the feel of the UI? :icon14:

And the P910 has more internal memory, so that you can run more apps at the same time.

I agree, my P800 crashed occasionally, but I can't remember that my P900 crashed in the last 6 months. So I think SE already upgraded the OS if you compare the P800 and P900. I had a Pocket PC as well (and a nokia as well for that matter, so I am not really an "SE-fanboy"😉 but can't think of any disadvantages of UIQ. Ok, some things might have been a bit more user-friendly, but after using it for a while I did get used to it. I'm even considering the P910 (even if it has the same price as the MPx for example).

For me, it is just the perfect combi of a PDA and a phone. I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm just saying I can't think of any better alternatives!

Unregistered69 wrote:
This phone has caused me so many headaches its not funny, I've been stuck overseas and not been able to get home because its screwed up and wont turn on.

Your phone not turning on has left you stuck overseas and unable to get home?

Unregistered69 wrote:
Whats with only being able to run/switch between the 6 applications at the top of the screen?

I don't understand this comment at all? You do realise that the icon in the top right-hand corner gives you access to the full list of applications, sorted into groups of your own choosing and allows you to run\switch between any of them? I fail to see how you can have used the phone for 12 months and not realised this.

Plus you can install Tracker, HandDay or several other applications that will give you one click access to any number of programs - all customised by you.

Unregistered69 wrote:
I used to own a nokia 7650 and I thought that was annoying, but the p8/900 is much much worse... I wish I could get my old phone back!

Everything you've said so far simply suggests that a pen based phone\PDA is not for you. There is nothing wrong with that. That's the beauty of an open market with many different designs and form factors. But to suggest that those for whom a pen based device is suitable are in some way ignorant or blinkered just because they don't agree with you is a bit immature.

The 7650 is a good phone but not for me. I can't use those fiddly little keypads to enter data and find the interface far too slow and have never managed to customise it to a way I like. While by no means perfect, the P9\800 suits me much better. You feel differently. So what? Neither device is perfect because everybody is different. Just accept that other people are different and don't get so wound up if they don't all agree with you all of the time.

the p900 isnt perfect, but what is? it is the best choice if you want a pda/phone combo. think the only other one is the xda, and that weights a ton and is MS 😞

im running HD2004,Aqua,X,key mapper and Magic profiles to boast my 900.

i think a bit more flexibility in what you can shortcut too would be good. like a s/c to get&send email, and such like. thats the sort of stuff i could do on my sl55, but cant on a smartphone? seems silly

elaborating on the hassles it caused me is not for this discussion.. lets just say its caused me ALOT of problems.

I'm not sure why your bothering to make excuses or justify its obvious problems... its not perfect" and "its not designed for you" after the 3rd or so incarnation is just dumb, its a phone/pda it was designed for people like ME. Who do *you* think it was designed for? Simple fact, it has many bugs and UI problems that still havent been fixed. I look at this thing and I can see what SE were *trying* to do, but they just dont seem to have an understanding of the market or how the technologies are being used

I feel sorry for the people who may be taking your recommendations and buying one of these phones as they will be very dissapointed once they work out all the problems in it and its too late to take it back.

Have you ever thought that maybe if people stopped buying it they may get there act together and make a decent product? They obviously arent reading any of these forums :P

I don't understand this comment at all? You do realise that the icon in the top right-hand corner gives you access to the full list of applications, sorted into groups of your own choosing and allows you to run\switch between any of them? I fail to see how you can have used the phone for 12 months and not realised this.

Plus you can install Tracker, HandDay or several other applications that will give you one click access to any number of programs - all customised by you.

I did realise this, why do you think im complaining about the UI?! Do you call this way of switching apps intuitive? This is the equivelent of having to go through the start menu in windows to find an application down many levels of menus. Who knows if its even running already? It doesnt tell you?

I shouldnt need to pay for dodgy 3rd party software most of which looks ugly and unprofessional for features that should be available out of the box. I paid a fair bit for my phone, how much did you pay for yours?

Until they fix all this, this phone will always be trying to be something its not. Simply beause they cant change a few SIMPLE things.

You said yourself you still own a P800. How could you know SE didn't already fix the problems you're having, in the P900/910.

I feel app launching is much EASIER and quicker then with a Pocket PC (where you get that today screen first).

I think calling all 3rd party software "dodgy", "ugly" and "unprofessional" is a bit of an insult to all companies/persons that make apps for the P800/900/910. There are a lot of GREAT 3rd party apps. Although I agree with you some could have been included from the start...

And I'm buying it because I LIKE what SE is doing with the P-series

Unregistered69 wrote:
its a phone/pda it was designed for people like ME. Who do *you* think it was designed for?

It was designed primarily for business people. I personally use mine for mobile e-mail, a little bit of mobile internet (though not often), Excel (a lot) and word (a little) in addition to the Calendar, tasks and contacts. Plus I keep track of all business expenses, personal outgoings and car mileage. All of which is does perfectly adequately. In fact, I rarely use it as a mobile phone!

Unregistered69 wrote:
Simple fact, it has many bugs and UI problems that still havent been fixed.

No-one here is denying this. However, if you were to refuse to use anything that still had bugs and dismiss it as "crap" then you'd have to dismiss every piece of oftware ever written. MS Word is the buggiest piece of rubbish I've ever come accross and Outlook is so full of bugs and UI inconsistencies I'm amazed anyone ever uses it. Excel, on the other hand, is a superb piece of software, but there are still hundreds of documented bugs in it.

Again, no-one is denying it has bugs, but it comes down to individual useage (and possibly patience and tolerances) as to whether these are mild annoyances that you learn to work around or major problems that render the device not worth bothering with.

Yes, I occasionally find the fact that the whole e-mail header is not downloaded annoying. Not often. Most of the time I can tell what the e-mail is without the rest of the header, but if I've got a 250K e-mail and the only bit of the header I can see is "Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:" it's annoying. Of course, the reason it says "Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:" is because of a rediculous bug that's been in Outlook since day one and MS refuse to fix it. Even PINE (for those that remember it) could figure out if the header already began with "Re:" and didn't insert another when replying. But most people have learnt to live with this and those of us who couldn't, quietly went and used another e-mail client without feeling the need to insult all of those for whom it isn't an issue.

Unregistered69 wrote:

I feel sorry for the people who may be taking your recommendations and buying one of these phones as they will be very dissapointed once they work out all the problems in it and its too late to take it back.

AGAIN. I'm not denying it has problems and, by your own admission, have stated several times that I don't think it's suitable for everyone. If someone then goes ahead and buys it and doesn't like it, I'll sleep easy.

Unregistered69 wrote:
Have you ever thought that maybe if people stopped buying it they may get there act together and make a decent product? They obviously arent reading any of these forums :P

Actually, they do read this and several other forums, and lots of the new features and bug fixes in, firs the P900, and now the P910 have been discussed here and elsewhere for a long time (including the problem with partial header downloads).

Unregistered69 wrote:
I did realise this, why do you think im complaining about the UI?! Do you call this way of switching apps intuitive? This is the equivelent of having to go through the start menu in windows to find an application down many levels of menus.

Yes, I do find this intuitive and yes, I do go through the start menu in windows down many levels of folders. I only have my most used shortcuts on the desktop. For me, it's not a shortcut if I have to look through 200 icons for the one I want. By organising them logically into groups, I can go straight to the program I want with, at most, five clicks.

In my P900, everything is also arranged into logical groups and it only takes three clicks to get to any app.

Unregistered69 wrote:
Who knows if its even running already? It doesnt tell you?

Actually, it does. This was a feature the "They're obviously not listening" guys at SE added to the P900.

Unregistered69 wrote:
I shouldnt need to pay for dodgy 3rd party software

Neither should any of us. That's why I won't buy software until I've thoroughly tested it in the trial version.

Unregistered69 wrote:
most of which looks ugly and unprofessional

That's your opinion and your entitled to it. Personally, I think the likes of RMR Bank, HandDay, WorldMate, Tracker and many others look very professional. But I guess that's just another example of a way in which we're both different.

Unregistered69 wrote:
for features that should be available out of the box. I paid a fair bit for my phone, how much did you pay for yours?

�500 Sterling. But I knew from past experience that I would need to buy more software (probably about �200 woth) to take full advantage of the device. I fail to see the point in buying a device with an open OS and then leaving it as is. Plus �30 on a case, �70 on an MS Duo. Plus more on Screen Protectors, a Media Card reader and other bits and bobs. Probably getting on for �1000 in total (god, I hope the wife doesn;t read this!).

Unregistered69 wrote:
Until they fix all this, this phone will always be trying to be something its not. Simply beause they cant change a few SIMPLE things.

Fix all what? You haven't said anything yet (other than you don't like the App Picker). Do you really want them to fix "a few SIMPLE things" or are you looking for SE to send a designer around to you to sit down for a few days and design a device to do exactly what you want it to, in the way you like it?

Unregistered69 wrote:Come on, what MODERN operating system would let itself fill up all its internal space and not be able to start again?

Not completely filling up the internal memory is to me just common sense. But anyway, SE fixed that 'problem' in the first firmware update (if I remember correctly). You must have a very early version of the P800, dating back almost two years. But even so, I bought a P800 from the very first batch to ship and I never had any major problems with it, during one year of ownership. I also seem to recall that I would get several warning messages if I was close to filling up the internal memory, asking me to delete some data. Did you just ignore the warnings, or what?

I do think that these devices definitely should provide some way of performing a hard reset without having to turn it on though.

The P800 had a few bugs, but most of them were fixed with the P900. Also some UI inconsistencies that people complained about with the P800 are no longer there with the P900. The P900 is the most stable phone/PDA I've ever used. You keep saying that the P-series is up to its 3rd incarnation, and that they still haven't fixed anything. -Have you even tried a P900? I very much doubt it, let alone a P910.

I'm not trying to troll or anything like that but I honestly think all the sony erricson fanboys need to wake up and admit how dismal the interface and general functionality of this phone is instead of patting each other on the back trying to convince themselves that it was a good investment.

You do come off like the typical troll. You don't have to be a fan boy of any brand to love your device. The P800 served me very well for a whole year, and I loved the UIQ interface as well. Even more so with the launch of UIQ 2.1 (P900). I use a Series 60 device now and there are many things I miss from UIQ. Mainly navigation, but also the look and feel of the UI, which to me was unique. UIQ has also proved to be a bit more stable than S60, especially when it comes to the handling of 3rd party software. There are of course a few things I dislike with both the UI's, but no piece of software is perfect, overall I like them both. And I can't wait to get my hands on a Nokia 9500 (Series 80 v.2.0).

Besides, anything is better than Windows Mobile. 😊

DAN55 wrote:i like my new 900. i agree that the UI could certainly be improved, and not having stuff like profiles is pretty silly. or apps that dont close down when you exit them. but so far i think it is pretty good. i do like the way it send email, starts up the gprs connection and gives lots of conection info so you know what it is up to.

maybe the 910 with UIQ 2.1 will improve the feel of the UI?

The P900 and P910 are both using UIQ 2.1. The P800 is using UIQ 2.0. UIQ 3.0 was unveiled in February of this year, and we should see devices incorporating it next year.

UIQ 3.0 is expected to be commercially available by Q4 2004 with phones shipping in 2005.

http://uiq.com/uiq3

i particularly got my 900 so i could load 3rd party apps, as it is v hard to find a good phone with good organiser apps adn shortcuts etc. i use the 900 mainly as an organiser (handy day04 and Aqua), and it seems to be good. i really like the way it does the whole email thing, actually starting up gprs and telling you lots of connection info. nice 😊

give me more apps! 😃