Jan 27, 2003, 12:40am

Meet the New Phone, Same (not) as the Old Phone Finally, the (near) answer to my telco dreams. The Sony Ericsson P800 does almost every single thing I'd want in a personal communicator / organizer device. Until real 3G comes along, this is my baby.

Finally, a phone has arrived that meets the needs I've wanted in a cell phone for about two years now. But it's not Palm based or Pocket PC Based. It runs on the Symbian operating system. It's the Sony Ericsson P800.

Here's my shopping list of what I wanted in a personal organizer / communications device, in order of importance.

• GPRS connectivity, not only within the phone, but to external devices (till now, all the PocketPC GSM phones that have come out do not share their GPRS signal with external things like notebook computers)
  
• Bluetooth or WiFi connectivity
  
• Big screen, big enough to replace my existing PDAs (currently a Sony Clie T615 and a Compaq iPaq 3650)
  
• LONG battery life
  
• Pocket PC based (or)
  
• Palm OS5 based
  
• Ability to play video and MP3 files
  
• Ability to read and write to Word documents
  
• eBook reader ability
  
• Built in Camera
  
• Built in removable storage (prefer Compact Flash, would go for Secure Digital
  
• Light and small and thin.
  
  

Okay, so the Ericsson P800 doesn't 100% fit the bill above: the removable media is Sony's (ugh) Memory Stick Duo, which sucks. It can't write to word documents out of the box (it can read them). It uses an alternative operating system (Symbian) that shows promise, but there's a dearth of software currently out for it (this could change though - it's all Java based).

And it isn't the thinnest - it's almost an inch thick. Buti it is surprisingly small - it is about an inch shorter than my iPaq, about a half inch shorter than my Clie, and easily a full inch or more narrower than either PDA.  It's got bluetooth, connectivity gallore, ebook reader, camera, it's light (150 grams - my clie weighs more), and it is just about the coolest cell phone on the market today. This phone is being introduced in the US, Canada, and Europe first, and rumour has it that this is the first cell phone ever that has made the Japanese jealous. They want it bad. They have nothing like it. The closest thing is the Nokia 7200 series phone, but it is a pale comparison.

It's also insanely expensive. I've seen it for as much as $1200 US dollars, and $1700 Cdn dollars. I do think that this will be the next "iPaq" though, and will be a product that simply will not sit on store shelves. It will fly. So hopefully software will be written for it, and the price will come down.

Speaking of price, I found a place that sold it for $829 USD, unlocked. So I did some math. I could sell my Motorola P280 for around $300 with the accessories I have. I could sell my Clie for about the same price. I could also sell my iPaq for around the same price. That's $900 Cdn. $829 USD is about $1300 Cdn. If I sell all three devices, and buy this, it will cost me net $400 Cdn.

Yep. I bought one. Just placed the order with www.just-talk.com in the US. Even paid for two day express delivery. Now I can't wait!

Hey, anyone want to buy a well maintained Sony Clie T615 with an extra 32mb Memory Stick? :) (I'm serious!).

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Mixelania

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