It has been a very interesting few days with the Sony Ericsson P1i and after only 96 hours I have found myself to be more than comfortable with the phone and its various quirks. For someone who had supposedly found his perfect operating system, Windows Mobile Smartphone, the P1i has been a pleasant surprise.It will struggle long term for me unless more third party software is released but when I consider this my mobile usage has become simplified over the past few months this particular set up is more complete than most others out of the box I have tried. It would be nice if more third party software could be added free of charge in the same way Nokia do but alas in the meantime money will have to be spent to give me all of the functionality I need.
My main concern was the battery life which on my first full day of usage dropped to under 50% by lunchtime. Turning 3G off has produced a result of 88% by midday under the exact same usage conditions. This is ample for my needs and thus that is one concern that I can put out of my mind for the time being. It is annoying that so many smartphones are unable to cope with 3G from a power point of view but if it is easily turned off I would rather have it than not.
I have not had time to look into GPS solutions but must admit to not expecting a range that is comparable with Windows Mobile and Palm offerings. It does look as though a standalone TomTom unit will be the way forward for me anyway- I change devices a lot, need a full range because of the sites;), and it is painful dealing with TomTom when changing devices.
On the whole, and I am trying to ignore the novelty factor, I have been more than impressed with this phone and when I pick up the HTC S620 it feels like a toy. That is a glib comment bit it is true- the silver casing and general build quality married with the UIQ interface creates an environment that oozes class. The most shocking discovery is that this will now be my main device for the foreseeable future- not for one minute did I believe that the P1i would come close to the S620 but it has won the battle.
I also had the problem with the battery lifetime, my p1 used to drop to 50% during the day with normal use, or even lower if the 3g connection was bad. However, after updating the software using the sonyericsson update service, the problem has all vanished. In an area with with bad 3g connection my battery never drops under 80% after a full day.