My apologies to all readers, but I won't be updating in the next week because of my exams. Expect new updates and news on the Sony Ericsson P1i after the 23rd of this month...

Nope, you're not looking at my review today; this is Anton Spiridonov from SMAPE taking a look at the new UIQ 3.0 interface that's in the upcoming Sony Ericsson G700 and G900. I'll do some comparisons with the current P1 interface soon.

Good news too: I'll be dedicating this summer to maintaining this blog, so you can start expecting near daily updates and fast responses after the end of my exams.

This should be interesting for business users - both phones cater for the business audience. Sony Ericsson's flagship is known for it's business capabilities, such as handling documents, as well as it's all in one features. It's got a 3.2 Megapixel Camera, Wi-Fi, and "Blackberry Connect" (which counts as push e-mail). On the other hand, you've got Research in Motion's top of the line Blackberry Curve - incidentally challenging the P1's position as one of the top phones for businessmen and entrepreneurs. So which one should you get? Here's my take on the issue:

Sized Up:

Both share similar sizes, so don't expect anything drastically different when you're using one or the other. Similar thickness, similar height. Probably the largest difference when it comes down to it is the...

Screen: 2.5 inches on the BB Curve, against the 2.6 inches on the SE P1. Both have a resolution of 320 x 240 - however, the BB Curve still uses the older 65K colour screens, as opposed to Sony Ericsson's 262K screen. So you can definitely expect to see better colours on the P1 than on the Curve. And also, the P1 sports a touch screen, which may be a tipping factor for many business users who also need handwriting input for languages such as Chinese/Japanese.

Keyboard: Ah, the Blackberry's famous QWERTY style keyboard against the Sony Ericsson's new semi-QWERTY keyboard. I think it's down to personal preference again, but SE's implementation seems to save quite a bit of space compared to the Blackberry (or maybe I'm just slightly biased here). Think you have to try it out to see which one you'll prefer more in the end.

Operating System: Blackberry's proprietary OS against UIQ, developed by UIQ technology (owned by Motorola and SE). In terms of applications and functionality, UIQ has the edge simply because there are more apps for UIQ than for Blackberry. But UIQ also suffers from set backs such as not as stable as Blackberry's OS (although this is not such a huge issue on the P1 unless you constantly tweak it like I do), and having a steeper leaning curve, in my opinion, than Blackberry. But there are more games, applications, and themes to offer for a UIQ handset than a Blackberry one.

Networks: Unfortunately Blackberry's Curve is still on the 2G network, running on EDGE. SE's P1 runs on the 3G network, so if data is a must for you (such as for surfing in your free time) then the P1 has a distinct advantage over the Blackberry. However, the P1 only supports European 3G (3G 2100) - and it's only triband, as opposed to Blackberry's quadband Curve. That means that if you'll be travelling to America, then the P1 won't be able to take advantage of 3G, falling back to GPRS - which is slower than EDGE.

WiFi: The Blackberry Curve has built in WiFi for both 802.11b/g, giving it the slight edge compared to the P1's B-only WiFi. And Wireless G is up to 5x faster than Wireless B - so if you're always working in a WiFi hotspot, this might also be an important factor to consider.

Surfing: The P1 uses Opera 8.65 as it's browser, whilst Blackberry uses their own proprietary one. Opera is definitely the winner here - it's well know for it's browsing performance and speed.

Camera: 3.2 MP on the P1 against 2 MP on the Blackberry. Need I say more?

So here's the P1i pitted against the newest Blackberry. Stay tuned for more soon - I'll be 'borrowing' my friend's BB Curve for a hands on review. Oh, and that won't be for another week or so, so feel free to leave requests and comments on what I should test on.

I've got an email some time ago as well as a reader asking the other day how to make a conference call on the P1i, so here's a simple guide in laymen terms on how to do it:

1. Make the call to caller A. Alternatively, accept the incoming call from caller A. Either way have a call going on.
   
   
2. Now tell caller A to wait.
   
   
3. Click on 'More' which should be the center option on your current phone interface. Click 'Add Call'.
   
   
4. Key in caller B's number in to the phone. Click the left button 'Call' and then wait for caller B to connect. Presto - now you have both callers on the line!

Update: okay, I'm stumped. It seems like my World Generic 1 R9K009 P1 is having some issues - when I dial for caller B both calls are dropped automatically. Is anyone having the same issues? It worked before I updated to the new firmware...

ares on the UIQ Evangelist has just posted an article taken from smart-se.ru - it's basically a hack to speed up the loading of the Messaging and the Contacts applications.

If you're curious as to how this hack works - the 2 applications that you install on your P1 are meant for porting applications by developers. The speed boost that was provided is a nice side effect of the applications, and currently there is no explanation for it yet. If you've got a theory, feel free to post it here!