Sony Ericsson P900 review

The P900's battery life is just as impressive as its huge screen.

A full working day of constant use or well over a week of light use is an incredible achievement, especially considering that it has the highest clocked processor of the group. The least impressive thing is the quality of the camera - it's truly awful.

The high-resolution screen and stylus input make the P900 a joy to use, and although it can be a little quirky at times, all of the important functions are fast and straightforward to navigate. Shortcut icons are permanently available for mail, contacts, calendar and the Web, although quite what the speed dial settings are doing with their own shortcut is anyone's guess. The e-mail program looks ugly but works well, while Contacts benefits greatly from a set of tabs at the bottom of the screen to jump to specific letters.

The stylus makes all the difference to Web browsing, as Web pages are just as likely to look screwy here as on the other phones, but navigating links isn't the painstaking process it can be with a four-way pad. The stylus speeds up text entry, thanks to a choice of on-screen QWERTY keyboard or basic handwriting recognition.

The phone still works well when you only have one hand free. All the main functions remain accessible when the keypad is in the 'up' position, although it obscures a large part of the screen. However, a navigation wheel on the side of the phone makes light work of navigating the menus, and fast screen updates keeps everything moving along swiftly.

Considering that the P900 runs a Symbian operating system, it's good to see that its PC synchronisation facilities are just as thorough as with the Windows-based phones. In fact, support for Outlook, Lotus Organiser and Lotus Notes makes it even more versatile, and there are plenty of options for synchronising with specific folders within Outlook and for resolving conflicts in the calendar.

The ability to open e-mail attachments in .doc or .xls format is really handy, but navigating them is painfully slow and they can't be edited - for this, you'll need a proper PDA. Demanding users may be better off with a cheap Bluetooth phone and a handheld PC such as HP's iPAQ 1940. This will cost the same, and allow you to edit Office documents on top of mobile e-mail and Web browsing with a Bluetooth link between the two devices.

If you're after a single device, consider the forthcoming P910i with its mini QWERTY keyboard - see the Sony Ericsson Web site for details. But for now, the P900 is a highly specified phone that packs a lot into a reasonably sized case.