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PART II: Software (UIQ 3 platform and system applications)

1. UIQ 3 and P990i - general information

Sony Ericsson P990i is powered by Symbian OS 9.1 and the new UIQ 3 platform. Symbian OS 9.x includes a lot of serious, structural changes and causes that development platforms based on it (both UIQ 3 and Nokia's S60 3rd Edition) aren't backwards compatible, which means that you cannot use software released for older devices (UIQ 2.1 based P910i, P900 or Motorola A1000). That's the price to pay for OS 9.1's much higher security (providing very strong protection against viruses and piracy), new kernel and more efficient and optimized binary format resulting in better performance. New, UIQ 3 compatible versions of popular UIQ 2.x software already started appearing and we expect that the most popular P900/P910 applications will be available for the P990i/M600i by Autumn. All new UIQ 3 releases are being added as they come to our UIQ 3 Software Catalog so it's a good place to check from time to time. Another way to stay informed is to subscribe to My-Symbian's UIQ 3 News RSS feed and UIQ 3 Discussion forum RSS feed.

UIQ 3 looks a little bit different compared to older UIQ versions. First of all, screen resolution has been changed (from 208x320) to the "industry standard" 240x320 pixels QVGA. This not only means additional 32 pixels per line but, first of all, makes the display "compatible" with 4:3 aspect ratio, which causes that e.g. 4:3 video clips or 4:3 images (most of standard PC resolutions are derived from VGA and thus 4:3) are shown on full screen, without black bars. Another change is that UIQ 3 no longer includes the "App Picker" bar with shortcuts to 5 favourite applications, located in UIQ 2.x phones on top of the Flip Open mode screen.

The next thing you'll notice compared to UIQ 2.x is that UIQ 3 is now FULLY skinned, i.e. that every single user interface element can be (and is) customized with a theme. Moreover, certain UI elements (icons, menus, selection lists) are now animated, with nice, semi-transparent transition effects. It would be great, however, if Sony Ericsson included a Control panel option to disable the animations as some users may prefer faster UI over the sometimes slow(ish) eye-candy.

Despite the above described changes, general look&feel of the user interface remained very similiar and those who previously owned a UIQ 2.x phone (Sony Ericsson P800, P900, P910 or Motorola A925/A1000) shouldn't have any problems with quickly adopting to the new UIQ release.

UIQ 3 supports a very long awaited feature: horizontal (landscape) screen mode (both in Flip closed and Flip open mode). It is available in certain applications (Web browser, Video player, Pdf+ viewer, QuickOffice) and can be used by 3rd party applications (e.g. Mobipocket Reader). Browsing web pages, reading ebooks and editing spreadsheets on wide screen is so much better and easier!

P990i features a Today screen. It consists of two tabs, one of them showing information about current tasks, appointments, unread messages and missed calls, and the other one providing configurable shortcuts to your preferred / most frequently used applications (or pictures, videos, radio stations, sound files, documents, web pages and even settings, contact cards or common tasks). Unlike in the Sony Ericsson M600i, the Today information is not shown directly on the default screens (so called Activity menu) of the Flip closed or Flip open mode and it takes selecting/tapping a dedicated icon to open it. While it is fully understandable in the Flip closed mode as there is simply no space to show it on the smaller display, in Flip open mode the "Activity menu" screen is almost empty with just four icons and date/time on the bottom and network information on the top; the central part is completely unused and could be used to show some basic Today information.

The P990i also has a built-in task manager. It's not as advanced as 3rd party task managers available for the P900 or P910i and its main purpose is switching between applications running in the background and closing programs you no longer use to free operating memory. There is also an "End all" function which closes all tasks. Task Manager is available in both FC and FO mode.

The most serious POSITIVE change, however, is that the Flip closed mode is now fully functional and supports third party applications, including even Java midlets. When you're on the move and it's impossible or simply inconvenient to use touch screen and stylus which takes two hands, you can take advantage of the one hand controlled Flip closed mode using the phone keypad and the 5-way control button.

2. Flip closed mode

Not all standard applications are available in the Flip closed mode and it also depends on developers whether to make a 3rd party application available in the FC mode or not. Contrary to this, all midlets are available in the Flip closed mode without any restrictions and can be controlled using the 5-way button, which is a very good news for gamers as it's certainly a much better controller for action games than the touch screen/stylus/jog dial combination. The resolution of the Flip closed screen is 240x256 pixels. Text input method via the phone keypad can be set to either multitap or predictive text entry, with up to two dictionaries selected as primary and secondary language and available simultaneously.

The main Flip closed view (so called "Activity menu") consists of status bar with network/connectivity/battery indicators, network information, five icons of the most frequently used applications (three of them customizable), date and time (and alarm indicator) and a bottom bar showing current functions of soft keys and the 5-way button.

The following system applications are available in the Flip closed mode: Today/Favourites screen, Messaging, Media player (only Radio and Music player are available, Video player isn't), Phone, Calendar, Contacts, Camera (full functionality), Picture gallery, Sound recorder, preinstalled QuadraPop game (Tetris clone written in Java MIDP), Notes, Tasks, Connections manager, Stopwatch and Timer.

As mentioned earlier, the Today tab shows current tasks and appointments, as well as unread messages and missed calls. The Favourites tab lets you create any number of shortcuts to the most frequently used programs, documents and functions.

Messaging application is fully functional in the Flip closed mode and allows sending and receiving all kinds of messages (including email), as well as accessing all folders.

Media Player is somewhat crippled in the Flip closed mode as the Video Player module is not available. It's strange because the size of video clips in the default portrait mode (on Flip open screen) perfectly matches the Flip closed screen area so it should not be difficult to implement an FC mode as well. It would be great to be able to view video clips on the move in FC mode, so let's hope that Sony Ericsson adds FC mode support in future firmware releases. Radio and Music player modules provide full functionality in FC mode (described later).

Phone application in FC mode provides access to all phone and video phone functions, as well as to the Call log and Speed dials. Calendar, Contacts, Camera, Picture gallery, Sound recorder, Notes, Tasks, Connections manager, Stopwatch and Timer provide the same functionality in FC mode as in the FO mode. Detailed descriptions are available in the Flip Open mode chapter below.

As you've probably noticed, the Flip closed mode doesn't provide access to the built-in Web browser. Fortunately, you can download and install free Opera Mini web browser, which is written in Java MIDP and works just fine in the FC mode providing quick access on the move to your favourite Web pages. Let's also hope that some 3rd party RSS feeds reader with support for FC mode will be released soon as the standard RSS reader isn't available in FC mode, either. It's a strange omition as ability to quickly check favourite RSS feeds (latest news, exchange rates, stock exchange news, etc.) without having to open the flip would certainly be more than welcome by many business users.

Another highly useful (and missing in FC mode) application is Calculator. Again, it's hard to understand why such a frequently used tool hasn't been made available in FC mode, if we have much less frequently used Stopwatch or Timer. Calculator is another function that in my opinion should be added to the Flip closed mode in one of the forthcoming firmware versions or released as a 3rd party application.

3. Flip open (and Flip removed) mode

The Flip open mode provides access to full functionality of the device. You have access to full QVGA (240x320 pixels) resolution of the display, with the main control method being the touch sensitive screen and the stylus. The FO mode supports three text input methods: handwriting recognition, virtual QWERTY keyboard and hardware QWERTY keyboard, all of them with the aid of predictive text supporting one or two languages simultaneously. Handwriting recognition works the same way as in previous Pxxx series phones, with the screen divided into three areas for writing lower case, upper case and digits/symbols, but now with the predictive word completion support it is even faster.

As mentioned earlier, the default view in the Flip open mode is called "Activity menu" and it contains four hardcoded icons (Today/Favourites, Main menu, Phone, Call log), date and time (+ alarm indicator) and network information. The whole central part of the screen remains completely unused and it makes me wonder WHY. Is this Activity screen still "under construction", to be enhanced in future firmware releases? Even though there is a separate Today/Favourites view, in my opinion this empty area should still be used to show some basic "Today" type information. Or maybe it's a good place for third party plugins, letting developers release useful enhancements, making this Activity screen truly active. Just imagine how useful it would be if you could have your favourite RSS feed scrolling through the centre of the main view and showing latest news or exchange rates, or if you could have current weather forecast shown there all the time and automatically updated when you're in reach of your wireless network. Well.... in my dreams :-)

Tapping the leftmost icon of the Activity menu takes you to the Today/My shortcuts screen. The Today tab shows information about missed calls, unread messages, appointments and tasks, as well as hardcoded shortcuts to Messaging, Tasks, Calendar and Main menu. The 'My shortcuts' tab contains customizable shortcuts to most frequently used applications, documents or functions. Available shortcut types include: application, picture, video, radio preset, sound, document, contact card, web page, setting and common task. You can decide which tab (Today or My shortcuts) is shown by default.

Messaging application is where all supported kinds of messages are stored. It consists of one unified mailbox for SMS and MMS messages and separate mailboxes for your email accounts. It lets you create custom folders and move messages between them. Automatic email downloads can be scheduled by time (three settings) or interval (period of time between downloads, configurable start and end hours).

Sent and received messages include contact picture thumbnail of the message sender or receipient. Contact pictures are also shown in the "You have new message" dialog. Delivery reports can be enabled or disabled globally but the setting can also be temporarily changed for each message. Delivery confirmation no longer comes as an SMS. Instead, an information about successful delivery is shown, the sent message gets a different icon showing its delivery status and information about delivery date/status is stored with the original message and available via menu.

Media Player in FO mode consists of four modules: FM Radio, Music Player, Video Player and Online. To use the FM radio (even in loudspeaker mode) you have to connect the wired headset as its cable works as an antenna. The radio supports RDS and allows storing presets. It can work in the background, letting you work with other applications while listening to your favourite channels.

Music Player allows playing all supported audio types (AAC, AAC+, AMR, iMelody, MIDI, MP3, WAV, RealAudio). It will check all drives and folders for all your audio files and will automatically list them sorted by Artists, Albums and simply all tracks sorted by title or size. You can also create your own playlists. There is also a separate folder containing all your voice notes called "My recordings". You can enable filtering all files smaller than 1 MB or of low quality to exclude such files from the lists of tracks. Playback automatically pauses on incoming calls and can be resumed automatically or manually, depending on your setting.

Video Player supports 3GPP, MP4 and RealMedia content. It supports full screen 320x240 pixels playback. The quality is very good although some occasional stuttering appears from time to time, however audio and video always remain synchronized. The Online module is where you can store your streaming audio and video links to be played back using the Video Player.

The Phone application has the same functionality as in the Flip closed mode. It consists of four modules: Phone, Video Phone, Call log and Speed contacts. There is nothing unusual to describe here, except for the very low quality of Speed dial thumbnails - it's hard to recognize who is on the pictures.

Calendar and Contacts look nicer than in UIQ 2.x but provide similiar functionality. Both applications now allow to quickly backup their data to Memory stick so that you can always have a copy with you. The backup files are stored in industry standard VCF and VCS files compatible with all popular PIM applications. Calendar includes month view, week view and day view and supports creating custom folders for your reminders and appointments. Contacts application no longer has the quick jump tabs with letters known from UIQ 2.x models but now you can simply press a corresponding key on the QWERTY keyboard. Compared to the M600i, the P990i offers extended Find function searching in all fields.

The Mutimedia folder contains Camera application, Web browser, RSS feeds reader, PlayNow application, Picture gallery and Sound recorder.

Camera viewfinder works in landscape mode. Using jog dial you can switch between the still picture and video mode. By tapping an icon on the right side you can open a settings screen with the following parameters: Shoot mode (Video, With frame, Burst 4, Single shot), Self-timer, Shutter sound, Auto review, Save to (Memory stick, Phone Memory), Night mode, Quality (Fine, Normal, Economy), Effects (Black & White, Sepia, Solarize, Negative, Off), Microphone (Muted, Enabled), White balance (Cloudy, Daylight, Fluorescent, Bulb, Auto), Video length (Normal, Messaging) and Frame size (up to 320x240 for video and 1600x1200 for photos). There are also two sliders displayed on the screen and operated using the 5-way button in FC mode and the stylus in FO mode: the one on the left side controls EV (-2 to +2 EV) and the one on the top controls digial zoom (up to 2,5x). As mentioned in the Hardware part, the quality of pictures is very high and the video quality is quite decent, too.

"With frame" is a shooting mode which adds funny frames to the pictures. It's great for MMS but it's a pity that this mode is limited to 640x480 resolution and that it cannot be used for video recording as it would allow recording funny clips.

The camera supports Night mode and there is very little noise in low light pictures. However, the built-in LED flash is definitely to weak.

The P990i includes Opera 8.60 WWW browser with HTML 4.01 and Javascript support. The browser works in both Fit-to-screen small screen rendering mode (which modifies page layout so that you only scroll up and down) and in normal mode (which preserves original layout but requires scrolling in all directions). The browser also supports Full screen mode and a landscape mode (plus a combination of all of them). The Opera is fast and offers similiar performance as the Nokia browser used in recent N-series and E-series phones. Opening large pages over WLAN or 3G connection only takes several seconds and most of the pages I tried were rendered fully and correctly. The landscape mode is very useful and I tend to use it all the time. The only thing I really miss a lot in Full screen and Landcape modes is some kind progress bar.

The Multimedia folder also contains a full featured RSS reader. It allows bookmarking your favourite RSS feeds and schedule automatic updates by time or interval.

The PlayNow application allows downloading and/or purchasing some music content. The currently available tunes are all free but rather poor.

Picture gallery lets you preview and manage your graphic files. There is also a slideshow function which shows all selected pictures with nice transition effects, configurable rate and soundtrack. Picture gallery can also display images on a remote screen via Bluetooth.

Sound recorder hasn't changed much since P900/P910 times. It simply allows recording voice notes. Recording phone conversations is unfortunately still impossible.

The Entertainment folder contains MusicDJ (a program to compose melodies to be used as ringtones), Vijay Singh Pro Golf 3D game, QuadraPop (Tetris like game written in Java MIDP, available in both FO and FC modes) and phone demo.

The Office folder contains QuickOffice, Pdf+, Notes, Tasks and Business Card Scanner. QuickOffice is a Microsoft Office compatible documents, spreadsheets and presentations editor. It hasn't changed much since the P910 times, with the exception that now it supports landscape mode. The same applies to Pdf+ Adobe Acrobat PDF reader which is very similiar to the P910 version, with the addition of the landscape display. I haven't noticed any changes in Notes or Tasks applications, either.

The Business card scanner program lets you quickly scan a business card using the built-in camera, convert the scanned picture to text using OCR technology and automatically add it to your Contacts. And it's not only a good idea but it also works extremely well! Just press "Capture", take a picture of a business card, tap "Process" and in just several seconds all the information will be automatically added to a new Contact card. What a time saver!

The last folder, Tools, contains the following items: Control Panel, File Manager, Connections manager, Remote sync, Calculator, Converter, Stopwatch, Time and Timer.

Like in the previous models, Control panel contains all the device settings, including Call settings, Connections, Device settings, Messaging and Internet accounts, Security settings and others. One of the new functions is Internet wizard: if you have any working Internet connection (e.g. WLAN) it will automatically download all settings for your operator, including GPRS, SMS and MMS settings. Connection Manager allows managing active network connections and provides access to their logs. File Manager is a simple tool with file system access restricted to the "Media" folders. The remaining applications are known from the previous models and haven't changed much.

4. Stability

The P990i is based on the new Symbian OS 9.1 and new UIQ 3 platform. It started shipping only several weeks ago and being such a new product it can be generally considered stable. Existing problems mainly result from its limited operating memory size and quite imperfect memory management. As system tasks tend to keep data in RAM, after launching several programs and doing a couple of things with your phone you can't go back to its initial free memory size. It just goes lower and lower as you lauch (and close) programs and use the device. When free memory drops below some acceptable level, the phone starts occassionally showing "Out of memory" messages or KERN errors and eventually it reboots itself and informs the user that "The phone has been restarted in order to improve performance". It doesn't happen too often but it's quite an annoying thing and Sony Ericsson should definitely improve memory management as fast as possible. The reboot to improve performance sometimes occurs even if you do not use the phone, so it may happen inconspicuously and cause that your phone will lose network connection as after the reboot it stops on the "Enter PIN screen".

The remaining problems reported by users on our Discussion forum are mainly small user interface related issues. Let's hope that SE will quickly release new firmware updates fixing all the problems and making the P990i as stable as its predecessor, the P910i, considered one of the most stable smartphones ever made. Until then, the P990i remains an usable and powerful device but doing a preventive restart once a day or once every two days will certainly help avoiding low memory situations and uncontrolled reboots "to improve performance".

5. Summary

The P990i is a powerful, modern, feature rich and very good looking device. The most important advantages compared with the P910i are first of all UMTS, WLAN, high quality 2 MPix camera, faster processor and fully functional flip closed mode supporting third party applications. The only serious disadvantages are limited free operating (RAM) memory (which can be 'fixed' in a large degree by improving the memory management) and lack of EDGE support. Other issues described in the review are software-based and as such can be removed in future firmware updates. Sony Ericsson has proved several times with previous models that they take good care about such software bugs and all previous P-series phones ended up with fully stable and functional firmwares. I rest assured that it'll also be the case with the P990i.

What I like:

• UMTS
• WLAN
• faster processor with hardware graphics accelleration
• high quality 2 Megapixel camera with autofocus
• fully functional flip closed mode supporting 3rd party applications
• UIQ 3: intuitive and good looking
• Opera 8.60 browser with landscape mode
• predictive text input supporting two languages at the same time
• hardware keypad
• 5-way controller in FC mode: good for games and for one-hand navigation
• high quality screen
• lock button
• A2DP support
• USB 2.0 with
• good standby time (at least with BST-34)
• support for large memory cards, up to 8 GB
• very professional and stylish look, robust feel.

What I don't like:

• no EDGE support
• only 15,5 MB free RAM available, almost 6 MB less than in P910i
• memory management needs to be improved; currently causes stability issues
• max audio volume too low (probably because of EU regularions)
• several useful applications are not available in Flip closed mode: video player, calculator, RSS feeds reader, web browser
• minor stability issues need to be fixed in future firmware releases.

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