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I decided it was time to try a new gadget direction, so after some research, and following a LOT of auctions on ebay, I got a Sony Ericsson P910i. Why did I go this way? Well, let me lay this out in some bullet points:

1. It’s a smart phone, which means, it turns out, that it does less out of the box than a normal (regular, dumb, unsmart; what is the opposite of ‘smart’ in this case?) phone but can have a lot more features added through software. More on that in a minute.
2. It’s got a bigger screen, which makes the other software easier to use.
3. It’s a Sony Ericsson, which is important to me, not because I’m some crazed Sony fan (a large proportion of my gear is Sony but that’s another story) but because it can connect to my cars phone kit with just a change of a cradle rather than a complete new kit.
4. Unlike many smart phones, it’s got a touch screen. I’m not convinced that a device like this without a stylus isn’t a step too far.
5.  Sony Ericsson have a decent track record with phone hardware and PC <-> phone sync software which is important when it comes to getting your numbers onto the thing, if only when it’s new.

I won the phone on ebay about a week ago having watched and bid on a lot of auctions; one of which ended at £500! I got mine for £130 which was a fair price for a phone that is like new. In the past week I’ve used the phone quite a bit, half of which was while away on a training course, and I’ve learned few things. First off, the operating system, UIQ, is a bit different to what I’m used to: I’m a Windows man primarily and I’ve used Pocket PC / Windows Mobile for a good few years now, The link I included towards the start lists all the software that’s included and it’s a lot of stuff that works well. There’s plenty of software that can be added and I’ve picked:

1. Magic Profiles Pro, which adds normal Profile support (something that almost every phone already has) but builds it up to provide changing profiles automatically based on geographic location (by GSM tower ID), specific times of the day, and by key words in the agenda, so if I’m in a meeting and it’s in my agenda the phone switches to a meeting profile for the duration and switches back to the office profile when it ends.
2. TomTom Mobile, sat nav! Essentially the same thing as on my iPaq but on the phone.
3. Sony Ericsson Desktop, a freebie from the manufacturer which adds a ‘today screen’ with the latest tasks, calls, messages and appointments displayed along with an application launcher.
4. SMan, this app does a lot, from task managing to bluejacking. If you’re interested, look it up,
5. Opera, a full feature web browser with java support and great support for restructuring pages for the long, narrow screen,
6. Resco Photo Viewer, I use this on the Pocket PC and find it to be a really good picture viewer and basic editor.
7. Orange music player, lets me access the Orange online music store and gives me five free downloads. Careful with that, there was a bit of a hiccup and I ended-up downloading the same track twice. I know why Orange allow it to do that but I think it’s a bit of a dirty trick.

What I can’t find is a decent RSS reader that supports pictures and can import an OPML file, and a currency converter with online updates. Is it just me, or are currency converters that need you to manually enter the conversion rate just a waste of time?

I did have one show-stopper problem with it, which reminds me of one of the cool features; It comes with a docking cradle which can be used to upgrade the firmware (I think I’m addicted to firmware upgrading). So naturally, the first thing I did was upgrade the firmware to the latest version. That went without a hitch, I installed all the software I wanted and headed off. So where’s the problem? Well, when I got back from my course I installed TomTom Mobile on my new 1Gigabyte Memory Stick Duo card (ebay again) an switched the phone off while the TomTom was still running. When I switched the phone on again… nothing… it vibrated once, showed the Sony Ericsson logo but the backlight didn’t switch on, and that was it. A protracted Google later and I discovered on Esato that the solution may be to reflash the phone. So, back to the cradle and the update software and… success: This time I installed all the software on the memory stick which frees up a lot of memory on the phone and lets me restart the phone more or less vanilla if something goes wrong.

The phone’s not as big as I thought it would be; it’s about the thickness of a closed Sony Ericsson Z600 but about 50% wider, which makes it a bit on the large side for pocketing but still fits in a shirt pocket.

Battery life is… debatable… I’m not sure how long it lasts yet because at first it seemed to hardly last a day whereas now it can go for several even under similar conditions. It’s possible that the bloke I bought it off hadn’t used it enough to break the battery in (if that’s even a problem these days).

I realised recently that it’s just turned a year since I got broadband. If I can find it I’ll post an article I wrote for my original website describing the experience of getting broadband installed.

Anyway, Bewitched is on so, time to go.