I’ve always paid the best respects to Sony Ericsson with regards to their products. They always released a wonder phone that catered to different market segments at the right time of the year. Take for instance the Z series of phones … the Z200 and the Z600 fit the respective customer brackets like an old shoe. And mind you, these were for clamshell lovers. SE had the same phone with a candybar design in the T610, T630 and the all new K700.

Then of course you got the Symbian 7 power PDA-phones found in the P800 and the P900 The P900 was a great move, having been announced in the rumor mill early on to wet consumer lips. The upgrade from the old wasn’t incremental in features but it got an outer shell facelift. The P800 had an ugly blue toy plastic case design, an ugly guitar pick stylus and basically everything else that made the design “panget” (ugly). In other words, the P800 was like your good friend whom you had a good time with, hung out together, helped you meet other friends, kept you entertained, and basically helped you get along with your life … except that he was aesthetically challenged!

The P900 however is the same friend who underwent plastic surgery. Basically the same great features but with looks that could kill. Then SE decides to release the P910. This is where it gets iffy and fishy. Of course, anybody who hears the SE is releasing a new phone will go gaga over the news. Where Nokia is to MS Windows - releasing new products all year round to cater to every single niche and nook market all over the world, SE is to Apple which only comes up with a new product once in a blue moon. So it makes me wonder why the P910 is to be released in September with no big upgrades, save the ugly thumboard, when the P900 hype is still very much at its peak.

The P910 is a P900. A P900. With a thumboard when you flip open the keypad. Can you imagine how much tactile feedback you’re gonna get? Just look at the physics man. It’s going to be very uncomfortable to text or write your long emails. I thought they shot the design of the stupid thumboard a long time ago, when engineers realized that the phone’s center of gravity will take a big shift if you try texting on the thin side. Oh and it’s supposed to retail at around the same price the P900 sells now. So you do get additional software bundled … but really, who cares?

Of course I am biased, but so that I cannot be accused of jumping the SE ship, I do have to say that integrated client services such as Blackberry’s Push Email are a big help. Point is, I just wish SE would have kept the P910 in the rumor mill a lot longer and make it debut in 2005, sporting a megapixel camera and a bunch of other neat stuff, aside from a better screen and more memory.

m|ph magazine has an article on the best corporate phones for 2004 in the July/ August issue. The P900 along with other great phones are featured here. For a detailed comparison of the P800 and P900, check out Jim’s article in our third issue (Issue 3 Vol 1).