It would appear as if such a negative experience would have stopped the development of the UIQ direction of the company’s smartphones; the user audience was but a fraction of the number of people who used S60 – a family of products looking very user friendly and generally sporting in smaller size, though having smaller screens as well and lacking the touchscreen functionality. Here we approach the main question: the touchscreen feature is Sony Ericsson’s biggest advantage over Nokia, which is very much asked for on the market in present days. Ironically, the extremely limited number of models supporting this feature can hardly pose a competition to the rich variety of Nokia’s portfolio. The two obvious ways of survival are expanding portfolio at all costs and reducing the prices in order to target a mass consumer audience.

That’s how a new model line emerges, currently comprising the two models: G700 and G900. The P-series remains labeled as a flagship family, meant to further host innovative devices basing off the UIQ platform, sporting the maximum functionality while the G-series is intended for the mass market of smatphones. None of the devices from this product family will be priced over 400 euros, which is good just at that. The senior model, G900, is meant to be the main market player for the time being, while G700 is seen as a complementary offer, looking very unimpressive if put aside from its elder sister. The price difference between the two is minimal, and there’s hardly a single reason for taking preference of the junior model.

Sony Ericsson G900 is the company’s second 5 Mp handset. Previously the only model to boast a 5 Mp camera module was the K850i flagship, which displayed a photo quality often inferior to that demonstrated by the competitors. This was simply unforgivable to a flagship model, that’s why the gadget sold rather poorly. The situation is cardinally different as far as G900 is concerned. It’s a full-blown smartphone sporting minimal physical dimensions in its class, the 5 Mp only acts as a secondary bonus; none of its powers are accented. We could recall Nokia N95 which had an etalon quality of shots combined with a very rich variety of other features, yet it played in a far different price bracket.

G700 and the recently released W960i alike appear rather bleak against the background of G900. W960i seems plainly outdated, since it loses to G900 in almost all departments: size, camera, ergonomics, etc., though the prices of the two seem to keep to a comparable level. It goes without doubt that a slightly altered, music-focused version of G900 is to appear shortly; it’s going to feature a small scrollwheel where the navigation button would normally reside, drawing an analogy to certain Japanese market devices, just with seriously updated specifications. The device is going to make a very appealing offer, combining the UIQ functionality of a smartphone, a touchscreen, a large amount of RAM (all of this was present in W960i), but the price and size will be much more favorable than what its less successful predecessor could boast of.

GPS functionality is a characteristic feature of the latest and yet unannounced Nokia gadgets. The P-series flagship comes equipped with a GPS unit, yet one product in a whole year just is just insufficient to be able to compete with the whole model range of Nokia, where every hi-end smartphone has GPS as a standard feature. The devices’ target audiences hardly intersect, - if we were to judge from the point of positioning and functionality, - yet comparing the prices we see a chance for something sounding much like direct competition. It’s hard to tell what kind of turn the story is going to take in the closest future, so let’s now pass to the device itself.

	Sony Ericsson G900 Main Specifications
Connectivity:	GSM 900/1800/1900, UMTS 2100
Memory:	160 Mb of user memory, M2 slot, no card bundled
Screen:	2,4" , QVGA (240х320), 262K, touchscreen
Connectivity:	USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, A2DP supported
Camera:	5 Mp (up tо 2592x1944), AF, Touch Focus
Battery:	BST-33 3.7V 950 mAh up to 12 hours of taltime up to 380 hours of standby
Size:	106 x 49 x 13 mm
Weight:	99 g
Guiding price:	€350

All the native features of the standard UIQ interface have been reviewed in a separate article, so we won’t duplicate our observations on the messaging service, phonebook, personal information manager and so on. The camera utilized by G900 is something unimpressive, yet it doesn’t make a serious downside for a mid-end smartphone with lots of other functions. Please refer to this link to learn more about the camera interface; it will take you to an article which spotlights a deathmatch between Nokia N82 and G900 competing solely in the camera department.

Design & Ergonomics

The model is made in a classical candy bar form factor; the one thing unusual is that the handset size has been considerably reduced which distinguishes the product from the preceding models. The size is comparable to that of a conventional phone, the gadget is even smaller than K850i, especially when it comes to thickness. Finally we see a UIQ smartphone mass market emerging, for previously the large size and weight (in league with a narrow specialization and high price) prevented this kind of products from sporting high sales.

The next point on our way is the lack of a traditional QWERTY keyboard below the touchscreen. Similar to W960i, this model uses a numerical one, plus a block of navigation buttons was added – a standard navigation button, a back button, a delete button, a message menu button and a reminder menu button. Sony Ericsson G700 features a few hardware soft-buttons, which makes it very reminiscent of handsets basing off the A200 model. The soft-buttons of G900 are virtual (three dots at the bottom of the screen), though this brings about no inconveniences. It typically takes but a couple of days to get used to it. The keyboards of the two models are pretty comfortable, no problems here. The backlight is of an even white color, perfectly visible in any conditions. The presence of a dedicated button for the messaging menu is obviously justified, but we have to dwell a bit deeper on the reasons which made SE add a dedicated button for the reminder menu.

The only real reason behind doing so is just the developer’s intention to further demonstrate the convenience of a touchscreen. The application interface looks nice, it’s even possible to switch the color of the ‘paper’, select a font from a variety available, and also customize the alarm clock sound. These features don’t appear to be of a great importance, yet they look very appealing to the potential buyer’s eye. Reminders can be sent over via Bluetooth, E-mail, MMS or SMS, the latter working only if a reminder is composed of standard keyboard symbols and doesn’t contain any handwriting or media attachments.

The quality of assembly and materials keeps on a fair level. No metal pieces are used in the construction, nevertheless the plastic is of a high quality and all the parts fit each other pretty tightly. Even the traditional problem, - a screeching battery bay cover, - is something you won’t find in this model. The handsets feel stocky, the ribbed side pieces of G900 and the soft touch coating of G700’s plastic prevent them from slipping away from the hand, now it takes quite a bit of skill and cunning to manage and drop the handset accidentally. The casing surface isn’t glossy, save for the screen area and a small piece of the back panel of G900, which is naturally exposed to scratching and wearing. It’s unclear why on earth they haven’t made it matte, given that the rest of the parts were designed to resist this kind of damage.

The right side surface houses a two-position volume button, also sharing the functions of a camera launch and shoot button, neighbored by a screen / keyboard block button; so you no longer need the “asterisk + right functional button” combination. On the left edge, a firmware Fast Port slot is located; a bit below you will find a light indicator and a small eye for fastening the wristband. The side position of the slot is something we weren’t happy to discover, that’s the only but quite remarkable downside in the handsets’ ergonomics. It’s hard to handle the numerical keyboard with a cable plugged in, the headset jack gets twice as annoying while in your pocket. The only control element positioned on the top edge is the power button.

The back surface is where you see the 5 Mp camera lens accompanied by a LED flash (a double one in the case of G700), a polyphonic speaker of a quite fair quality resides just nearby. The stylus is quite a plain piece, with a plastic tip, moderately sized. The memory card slot is found right above the Fast Port slot; it’s necessary to remove the battery bay cover while swapping a memory card in the case of G900; G700 has it covered with a small plastic flap and is accessible without removing the back panel.

Battery

The both models make use of a BST-33, 950 mAh battery. The manufacturer claims up to 12 hours of continuous talktime which equals to 380 hours of standby. As compared to P1i (1120 mAh) the new products have a curbed battery capacity, however this practically doesn’t tell on the battery lifetime test results, the score s are pretty comparable; save probably for a decrease in the mp3 cycle equaling to about 1 hour. Comparing G900 to W960i, we’d check out the advantage of the former, which sports a greater lifetime while sporting a battery capacity equal to that of the competitor. Surprisingly, the large-capacity battery extracted from a P1i worked all right with a W960i; it didn’t fit into the battery bay of G700/G900 though.

	Sony Ericsson W960i	Sony Ericsson P1i	Sony Ericsson G700/G900
Regular duty cycle	2 days	2 days	2 days
Multimedia cycle, video (3GP)	3:45	4:11	4:06
Multimedia cycle, audio(MP3)	13:51	16:42	15:55

A standard duty cycle (around an hour of talktime, 3-4 hours of listening to mp3, more than a hour of menu interaction and misc fun, a few short Wi-Fi sessions) lasts for about two days, an average fair score raising no reprimands.

Screen

The first Ericsson smartphone, - the elderly Ericsson R380, - debuted with a touchscreen, which was a groundbreaking feature in those days. After the merge with Sony, the touchscreen wasn’t forgotten and found a use in the P800i model. P900i and P910i followed, keeping the touchscreen as a signature feature of the company starting from the days of Ericsson and taking the heritage over to Sony Ericsson. It’s great that the new smartphones keep up with the established tradition.

The Motorola company, on the contrary, issued the two UIQ-based models, Z8 and Z10, coming with conventional, non-touch screens. Since the UIQ interface was originally optimized for the touch interaction, such a unnatural solution gives little ground for appraisal; the new G700/G900 contrastingly profit from the use of touchscreen functionality, outpacing the products of Motorola in the overall comfort score. It’s pretty characteristic that all the new models by the American company running UIQ are equipped with hi-res touchscreens (240x400, WQVGA).

So, the both models are equipped with 2,4 (320x240) screens with a 262K color palette. The screen size is pretty large, the practical difference from the 2,6 inches of (W960i) is minimal. Brightness and contrast are plausibly high, no problems here. The view angles are also pretty good, this feature has been highly improved as compared to the company’s earlier solutions. The display bravely struggles the sunlight and glare, though is no better than the Finnish-made N78, which wins by a margin. We intentionally tested the two with the brightness set to maximum.

Let's compare G900 and Nokia N82:

As you see, Nokia N82 poses as an outsider while N78 is leading. The screen duo of G700 and G900 assume a middle position in the chart.

Any type of a touchscreen has the native drawback of a high vulnerability to physical damage. What would happen to be a small accident for a conventional screen is likely to severe or kill a touchscreen. That’s why the protective plastic of the screens used in the two new models is pretty durable and resistant to all sorts of physical impact. We didn’t even notice a slightest scratch or worn spot after a long period of testing. Which is, of course, a plus.

The screens of the two smartphones are optimized for finger control; they aren’t sunk into the casing, unlike the rest of the UIQ family members. The sensitivity is on a good level, the icons and menu items are large enough, no problems at all. Text input should better be done with the help of a stylus, for the screen isn’t large enough to make the virtual keyboard handy enough. The stylus is concealed in the top left corner of the casing and is made of plastic with an aluminum piece for a middle section.

Connectivity

The models support GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS 2100 networks; traditionally for 3G models of this brand, only GPRS functionality is supported; not EDGE. This tendency currently ceases its existence in conventional phones like K850i, yet is persistent among smartphones.

In addition to the above-mentioned data cable slot, phone-to-PC synchronization can be done through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (in the case of G900). Once a BT connection has been established, the phone's onboard storage area becomes accessible as a file/folder structure where you can drag and drop the wanted files. The following profiles are supported:

• Basic Imaging
• Dial-up Networking
• File Transfer
• Generic Access
• Generic Object Exchange
• Handsfree
• Headset
• HID
• JSR-82 Java API
• Object Push
• Personal Area Networking
• Serial Port
• Synchronization
• SyncML OBEX binding
• A2DP
• Audio|Video Remote Control
• Phonebook Access

Data transfer speed (via WIDCOMM driver) didn't go above 70-75 Kb/s, so the claimed EDR support was hardly perceptible. The model supports the A2DP profile, which allows for audio signal to be broadcast to a wireless headset. In our case, the HBH DS-200 wireless headset was doing quite well using this profile. Also you can establish connections to other devices using the mentioned Bluetooth and Wi-Fi protocols. The level of implementation of the latter is analogous with P1i, nothing new on this front.

Wire communication is done via a firmware interface. A USB 2.0 Full Speed support is claimed, though in practice the speed revolves around 500-600 Kb/s. Modem, Mass Storage and PictBridge connection types are supported. The required mode is selectable from a corresponding menu. Mass Storage connection worked all right in our tests, both disks (onboard storage and memory card) were accessible. Synchronization can also be achieved with the help of Sony Ericsson PC Suite program coming on a bundled software disk.

Memory

Sony Ericsson G7000 and G900 have a 160 Mb of onboard storage; further storage expansion can be done with the help of a M2 flash card. No cards come bundled with the device; G900 has its memory card slot concealed behind the battery bay cover.

Multimedia capabilities

Both smartphones can't boast of a multimedia device positioning; though analogously with the non-profile S60 products (e.g. Eseries smartphones), here comes a full kit of multimedia tools. Let's start with enumerating the supported media file formats;

Audio:

• AAC-LC Advanced Audio Coding
• AMR-NB Adaptive Multi Rate
• AU
• iMelody
• MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
• SP-MIDI Scalable Polyphony MIDI
• MP3 MPEG audio layer 3. Layer
• RMF Rich Music Format
• WAV wave file
• WMA Windows Media Audio (WMA)
• XMF Xtended Music Format
• DLS
• Real Audio 9
• eAAC+ (eAAC+, AAC+ V2)
• eAAC+ (AAC+ с Parametric Stereo (PS)) (HE AAC, AAC+)‘High-efficiency AAC’

Video:

• MPEG-4 ISO File Format (.mp4), ISO/IEC 14496-14, including:
• MPEG-4
• AAC-LC, AMR-NB (audio)
• 3GPP File Format (.3gp), 3GPP TS26.234 V5.6.0, including:
• MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 (video)
• AAC-LC, AMR-NB (audio)
• RealMedia
• Windows Media Video, WMV

Graphics:

• BMP Microsoft Windows Bitmap
• GIF Graphics Interchange Format
• JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group
• MBM Multi Bitmap
• PNG Portable Network Graphics
• WBMP Wireless BitMap

The PhotoDJ graphics editor gives you the possibilities of photo processing, adding frames, applying special effects, making use of cliparts, picture resizing – in a nutshell, a good functionality. The homologous VideoDJ and MusicDJ application serve for handling videos and music respectively; these programs a much simpler – only a basic level of functionality is provided for.

The integrated audio player is quite good, yet is hardly comparable in functionality with the probably best solution currently available – the player of W960i. The interface uses the same colors, however this non-Walkman player is limited on the practical side, missing many features native to the Walkman player series. There are no options for choosing the visualization animation, Moods are missing as well, rating and bookmark features are nowhere to be found. Given the availability of a touchscreen it would have been logical to add a few quick shortcuts for playback and equalizer functions (in the way W960i has it), though even these features were cut down.

The remaining strong points are: the Auto Playlists functions able of sorting the tracks by rating, latest added, least and most frequently played tracks, as well as the latest played. The still available Time Machine feature gives full power for doing advanced timestamp searched. The standard Artists, Albums and Tracks categories are still available. The interface bears a strong resemblance to Sony PSP.

The player interface can be viewed either in the standard, portrait orientation or in horizontal. The album art picture is large enough and visible from a distance. A currently playing track can be set as the current ringtone or a contact’s personal call tune; set as the alarm signal, deleted, added to playlist or opened in the file manager; or transferred over one of the available wireless protocols. The only playback option is repeated playback. The Sleep function will switch the playback off automatically after a specified period of time.

The number of tracks on a playlist isn’t limited; 11 equalizer presets are available at the same time, ranging from the common Rock and Pop to the original Spoken word and the brand Mega Bass presets. Strangely enough, the equalizer presets can’t be edited. You can’t create a custom user preset either. In this sense, Nokia smartphones are a much better option.

A plain HPM-62 headset comes in the box, which is another argument supporting the product’s positioning as a versatile one (as opposed to music profile phones). However, W960i accessories are fully compatible with G700/G900, so getting some for your G900 will give it better chances for getting closer to somewhat of a real music phone. The actual audio output quality of the G700/G900 handsets is just the same with W960i, P1i – there’s no difference between Walkman and non-Walkman products here, save for the difference in the quality of the bundled headsets. The manufacturer’s strategy appears to be that of separating products by solely manipulating the software side and design to distinguish between the photo and the music product families, while keeping to a more or less unified hardware platform. Cameraphones tend to get more options for the camera application while music phones sport an enhanced player. Getting back to the question of how justified is the market presence of W960i when G900 is already out, we’d like to check out there’s little new that the new flagship can offer in the music department: the only remarkable changes being an increased amount of onboard storage and an improved player interface. In the Flight Mode, G700/G900 make a score of 14 hours of continuous playback cycle. The traditional plague of the UIQ smartphones (and of any Sony Ericsson product in general) is still there: once you’ve pulled the SIM card out, the phone won’t work even in the flight mode. This is really annoying since the competing companies have long been releasing handsets which would let you take photos, record videos, listen to the music and the radio – all of this available without a SIM card.

The onboard radio unit works only with a plugged headset; it’s still possible to transmit the signal over to a wireless headset (using the A2DP profile) while keeping the wired one working as an antenna. It’s possible to search for radio stations in an automatic mode with auto saving for all detected frequencies in the 87.5-108.0 MHz range (up to 20 stations). In the manual mode, you have to tweak the frequency manually (obviously!), then save it to a selected slot. The FM tuner skin is selectable from an available variety, the background color is customizable. RDS headers are supported. The radio can be engaged in a background mode. The availability of a sleep mode is another surprise, enabling the application to terminate playback automatically after a specified period of time. The overall level of FM functionality implementation is quite impressive.

The characteristic TrackID service is quite expectedly found in this model as well. You can acquire samples from a currently playing track either through the means of the voice recorder or using the FM tuner. The acquired sample is further uploaded to the web for recognition in the global database; if the track is identified, the response is forwarded back in the form of an SMS message, listing the track title and performer name. The solution is obviously victorious over the Shazam ID by Samsung due to a larger track database.

Preinstalled software package

In addition to the standard kit of office and multimedia applications native to the UIQ platform, Sony Ericsson G00 features two games – The Sims 2 and Sudoku. Both games are very entertaining and will be of help killing the time during a boring train ride. We were especially fond of Sims 2 sporting some really nice 3D graphics.

Performance

An increased RAM size (128 Mb) stands for even more application functioning simultaneously; it’s pretty easy to switch between the currently running processes, we were never able to squeeze out an ‘out of memory’ error message. On the other hand, the overall performance rate is utterly disappointing. It’s the same with P1i, W960i, no visible improvements at all. The hardware platform is outdated, just look at it – ARM9 Philips Nexperia PNX4008 (208 MHz) can’t even decently handle some of the resource-demanding applications, that’s why a gallery packed with photos or a long contact list take too long to open. Standard actions like menu navigation, photo shooting and similar things go along without lags, so the situation isn’t too dramatic, to say the truth.

The quality of Java implementation is strikingly better than the overall performance rates (what else we could expect from Sony Ericsson) – the device supports 3D profiles and midlet sending over Bluetooth, Java applications run smooth and fast:

Java Performance on Sony Ericsson G700/G900

Модель:	Sony Ericsson G900	Sony Ericsson P1i	Sony Ericsson P990i
JBenchmark 1.1.1 Score	4213	4194	3561
Text	1178	1105	939
2D Shapes	1120	1065	959
3D Shapes	495	478	449
Fill Rate	181	173	60
Animation	1403	1373	1154
Jbenchmark 2.1.1 Score	295	276	184
Image Manipulations	280	273	239
Text	466	454	404
Sprites	222	202	200
3D Transform	671	619	561
User Interface	628	541	454
Jbenchmark 3D HQ	578	555	521
Jbenchmark 3D LQ	549	536	496
Triangles ps	41231	40749	11296
KTexels ps	2987	2821	3663
Jbenchmark HD Gaming Score	205 (6.8 fps)	201 (6.7 fps)	181 (6.0 fps)
Smooth triangles	77982	75274	70615
Textured triangles	101348	98433	76132
Fill rate, KTexels	13116	12452	9051

Camera

Sony Ericsson’s second 5 Mp cameraphone has already been spotlighted in a pit fight against its No. 1 rival, Nokia N82, in this article:

Camera Deathmatch: Sony Ericsson G900 vs. Nokia N82

SMAPE's opinion

Sony Ericsson G900 is a highly functional smartphone sporting the great addition of a touchscreen. If regarded from such a viewpoint (mind the quite affordable price!), it makes a very balanced solutions which we’d certainly advise buying. The implementation of the touchscreen in G900/G700 is worthy of admiration, that’s exactly the case where the traditional keyboard input is complemented by the touch functionality, but not substituted, combining the best sides of the both. Earlier UIQ smartphones by this brand had no navigation buttons which only served to shrink the target audience, one-handed text input was a slow and painful process unacceptable to most users; now these problems are gone in G700/G900.

A number of successive improvements introduced in the UIQ interface are easily identifiable when you get hold of this phone – it’s very pleasant to deal with because of the omnipresent tabs which make the use of the main menu a rare occasion. G900 is the world’s smallest touchscreen-equipped smartphone, actually being its largest advantage. The drawbacks including a poor hardware platform and the overall interface lagginess make a very bad point here, the difference from Nokia in performance rates is so significant that a part of the audience will surely prefer to stick to the latter’s products, however the more patient user will eventually get used to the smartphone’s trademark sluggishness and no longer be annoyed by it. The lack of a GPS functionality is another serious downside, since this feature is widely accepted as standard even in mid-end phones nowadays. The third thing which might upset you is the lack of standardized interface slots. The side-positioned Fast-Port is a very poor solution in the aspect of ergonomics; it looks plainly archaic in music-profile handsets by SE.

All in all, G900 is a smartphone with a lot of compromise points, yet looking a rather interesting offer in its segment. The company will be forced to correct the price, pushing it below the currently recommended 350 euros, for the more technically advanced Nokia N82 now costs even less – being the most powerful solution in the class of mid-end smartphones. G900 would be the best choice for those after a very compact size combined with a user friendly touchscreen; that comes at the price of surrendering the extra functionality in favor of the mentioned advantages.

Sony Ericsson G700 is reviewed in an article of its own; however a negligible price gap of 50 euros differentiating it from the senior model makes it a purely niche offer, only meant to complement the bigger sister. The advantages of an auto-focusing 5 Mp camera and Wi-Fi are apparent. Judging from this position, G700 appears to be plainly overpriced. Unlike G900, it is exposed to a formidable competition from a host of well-balanced rival products like Nokia N78 or the now-underpriced W960i. Either of the two sports a powerful camera and Wi-Fi; N78 also comes with GPS. That’s why Sony Ericsson’s main player on this field remains the G900 model, which is going to have its price cut by 80 euros or something about that in about two months since the start of the sales.

+ Compact size
+ Good quality of assembly and materials
+ Handy interface
+ Touchscreen
- Poor hardware platform
- Mediocre camera
- Lack of standard soft-buttons
- Lack of standardized sockets and slots

Author: Anton Spiridonov, playdead1@gmail.com

SMAPE.com

	Comments: