SonyEricsson P800 - What's Hot & What's Not ...
ngws 30th Dec 2002

Audio/Video Player

MP3 Playback

    The SE P800 has built-in audio player capable of playing most sound formats (amr, wav etc) including MP3s! The sound is just gorgeous although some minute details in the background are overwhelmed or 'lost' in the playback through the loudspeaker. Plug in a stereo headphone and everything is forgiven. The sound is nicely balanced and somewhat bassy. 

    You can create your own playlist by moving songs you want into different folders. Just make sure that you didn't select the 'All' option which will of course play everything :)

Packet Video

    The SE P800 also has a bundled video player from Packet Video. It's however only capable of playing mpeg4 files but not EVERY mpeg4 files you can find. There are some restrictions on the encoding part and the player will only recognize .mp4 (Simple Profile) in a certain size (and fixed frame rate) with audio encoded with AAC or AMR. AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) is something that I have been watching for a long time in addition to Ogg Vorbis .... These two formats are touted to take over the aging MP3 format in the very near future but until the softwares/codecs are widespread (and most importantly FREE!) ... MP3 is still surviving. AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) needs no further introduction ... it's the defacto audio standard as defined in the MMS specifications ...

Camera

Settings ... settings ... settings!

    The SE P800 has an integrated camera ..... but none of the competitors even come close to the features found on the P800! 

    Brightness Control  /  Contrast Control  /  Backlighting (strong light source behind subject)    

Flicker free (for fluorescent lighting/Great for taking shots off TV screens!)  /  White balance  /  Picture size/quality

    In addition, there is also a timer selection of 15 seconds / Photo Album  /  View Int or ext memory

Quality

    You can have the honor of having multiple settings but the quality is what many sought after in a camera ... how does it compare to the Nokia 7650? At the highest settings, the SE P800 gave a whopping 81 kb per file! On the other hand, the Nokia 7650 with the highest settings gave a 28 kb file. *Please bear in mind that the Nokia 7650 has been through numerous drops, bangs for the past couple of months*

SonyEricsson P800 (original file size : 81 kb)

Nokia 7650 (original file size : 28 kb)

Games/Java

MIB (Alien Pursuit)

    While many has fallen heads over heels for the Men In Black game, I am sorry to say that it's entertaining but the graphic sucks! The game should be longer though ... a tad too short for my liking :)

Stuntcar

    Stuntcar is a different story ... difficult to control ... acceptable graphic and it has "feedback"! Feel the vibration when you crashed down the slope ... Still in one piece ... Phew!

Chess/Solitaire

    The chessboard is nicely done up and entertaining for those chess-lovers out there and the oh-so-standard Solitaire. One complaint I have for the games is the lack of sound effects (with the possible exception of Stuntcar). It's too quiet except for gunshots when you are shooting aliens!

Java (J2ME/PersonalJava)

    The SE P800 supports J2ME and PersonlJava but I can't seems to find any on the market now that ran fine on it. Maybe it needs more time ..... come on programmer, developer, do your job and let it entertain!!!

How good is the screen?

    For starter, the screen on the P800 is bright, clear and concise. However, when I compared it to the Nokia 7650 ... the saturation is NOT as vibrant as I would like ... see for yourself. To recall, the P800 reminds me alot of the Samsung T100 which incidentally also uses a TFT screen (see bottom pic).

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