2005 Sony Ericsson P990

April 10, 2022 Luisa Rey

Sony Ericsson was early with the smartphones. In 2005, the Swedish-Japanese manufacturer released the Sony Ericsson P990; a smartphone with a striking design and Symbian. We discuss it this week in this edition of ‘The forgotten smartphone’.

Sony Ericsson P990

The Sony Ericsson P990 was the successor of the previously released P910. The smartphone was announced in October 2005, but was delayed for a long time, so the Sony Ericsson didn’t hit the market until the summer of 2006, well before the company released its first Android smartphone; the Xperia X10. The P990 had everything on board to meet all needs of the user, okay, almost everything. The P990 was launched as the manufacturer’s flagship. On board, the device was equipped with the UIQ 3 platform, which was based on Symbian OS 9.1.

Keyboard(s)

The P990 from Sony Ericsson stood out mainly because of its design with regard to the keyboard. Just like with BlackBerry, there was a full keyboard. This could be illuminated blue in dark environments. However, if you didn’t want to use this keyboard, you could also use the well-known T9 input with separate (numeric) keys. These were on the cover with which you could ‘hide’ the full-fledged keyboard again. However, you couldn’t just type your messages with the keyboard; Sony Ericsson also supplied a stylus. You could store this in the housing of the phone.

Service

Operating the telephone could also be done in different ways. As with the mentioned stylus, but also with your fingers. After all, the P990 was equipped with a 2.7-inch resistive touchscreen. With the cover of the numeric keys up, you could also use the navigation keys. To scroll, for example through your emails, you could use the gear on the side of the phone. On the side of the Sony Ericsson, the device also had a camera key, a key to quickly start the browser and there was an opening for a memory card. There was also a music button, a back button and a lock button. All this on the sides of the Sony Ericsson P990.

Sony Ericsson P990i

On the back of the phone was a cover that you could remove with the special screwdriver. Sony Ericsson also placed the 2 megapixel camera there, behind a rotating lens hood, with which the lens could be protected. On top, the device from the Swedish-Japanese manufacturer was equipped with an infrared port, and the Sony Ericsson P990 was also equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth, an FM radio and support for GPRS and UMTS. Support for EDGE was missing with the device. You could download free and paid (Symbian) apps via the Sony Ericsson Application Shop. Before using the internet, the smartphone was automatically equipped with Opera. An app that was also already on the device was a business card scanner.