Sony Ericsson announced today the P990, the first commercially available smartphone to adopt the Symbian OS version 9.1 and UIQ 3 software platform.
This UMTS smartphone is Wi-Fi enabled, has a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus and
features a new hardware keyboard beneath the flip-down keypad. The phone
will start shipping during Q1 of 2006.
The P990 is the next in a line of successful Sony Ericsson smartphones ?
the P800, P900 and P910.
As with its predecessors, the P990 offers all the benefits of UMTS including
video calling, high-bandwidth multi-media downloads and the ability to
browse the Internet with full HTML pages on the new Opera 8 browser.
In addition, the P990 enables full e-mail access with attachments. Writing e-mails is made easier by the new hardware keyboard positioned beneath the flip-down keypad on the main
body of the phone. Reading them is simpler on the large 2.8 inch
QVGA touch screen. Multi tasking ? being able to browse the Internet,
send and receive files at the same time as talking ? is now possible
due to the enhanced capabilities of the new software platform.
Memory has been extended in order to handle all multi-media downloads and
e-mail attachments. Memory Stick PRO Duo up to 4GB will be available in
the market at launch and the P990 now has up to 80 MB user free memory.
A 64 MB Memory Stick PRO Duo is included in the box, preloaded with a VPN
client and trial version of a virus scan package.
The combination of UMTS and WLAN features will also improve
the flexibility of applications such as e-mail, browsing
the Internet/Intranet and video telephony. WLAN, available in hot spots
all over the world, acts as a complement to high speed 3G services.
Other new features include automatic time zone change to the Calendar
diary and updated PC sync software with extended synchronization
possibilities. Additionally the 2 Megapixel camera with autofocus,
digital zoom, photo light plus the TFT screen and video
recording provide a quality imaging experience.
The P990 will be commercially available in Q1 2006. The variants will be:
- P990i Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia
Pacific, Middle East, Africa
- P990c Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland China.
Launch for mainland China dependant on availability of 3G services.
- The P990 will be available in 4 hardware keyboard variants: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian