Charles Hudson's Weblog

At the CTIA Wireless Expo I finally got a chance to play with the Sony Ericsson P800, one of the hottest new handsets on the market from the Sony Ericsson consortium. The device was pretty impressive, but there are the usual set of pros and cons:

There are a lot of things that I like about the P800, most of which I have listed below:

-Synchronization with Microsoft Outlook and other desktop PIM applications
-Large, high-resolution screen
-Very convenient stylus that is easy to use
-Integrated camera is very easy to use
-The box ships with *everything* you would need to use this phone, including carrying case, charger, replacement flip and styli, and sync software
-Support for Memory Stick
-Support for Bluetooth

The P800 also has one of the better integrations of PIM, phone, and super-PDA that I have seen. I am an avid Treo 300 user, but I would consider putting down the Treo for the P800.

In spite of these great things, the P800 does suffer from a number of deficiencies:

-High cost (projected retail price of US$650 before carrier subsidies)
-Large form factor
-GSM only at the moment, which is a problem for U.S. consumers

Also, to make matters worse, there is not a single U.S. carrier that I know of who plans to offer the P800. Calls to AT&T Wireless and Cingular yielded responses along the lines of “Yes, we have heard of that device, but we have no plan to offer it anytime soon.”

As much as I like this phone, I would put it in the class of the Treo 300 and the Palm Tungsten W — it is really only for the data-hungry consumer with a corporate expense account.