London, October 10, 2005 – Sony Ericsson
emphasised its continued commitment to Symbian OS today with the
announcement of its next generation smartphone to the global
development community. The P990 will be the first commercially
available smartphone to adopt the enhanced Symbian OS version 9.1 and
UIQ 3 software platform. This flagship UMTS smartphone is Wi-Fi
enabled, has a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus and features a new
hardware keyboard beneath the flip-down keypad. The phone will start
shipping during Q1 of 2006.
The P990 is the next in a line of successful Sony Ericsson
smartphones - the P800, P900 and P910 – and is based on the same proven
concept and recognisable form factor. All have been popular with users,
operators and software developers thanks to their powerful productivity
features. Operator feedback and download statistics from the Sony
Ericsson Application Shop have shown that consumers, both business and
personal, are interested in using their smartphones to the fullest
potential. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) can be as high as 4 to 5
times that of more traditional voice-centric mobiles.
To ensure a large proportion of applications are available on the
new Symbian and UIQ software platform when the P990 goes on sale, Sony
Ericsson has decided to announce the smartphone well in advance of
availability so that developers have time to create and certify as many
applications as possible.
"The technical prowess of the P990 will be brought to full life by
applications from the third party developer community," said Jan
Wäreby, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing.
"Demand for applications on the P800, P900 and P910 has been very high.
Our smartphones have been recognised as the most advanced and useful on
the market, and we want to maintain this reputation with the P990 by
ensuring there’s a rich supply of top applications for enterprise,
productivity, leisure and gaming when users make their first visit to
the Sony Ericsson Application Shop."
As with its predecessors, the P990 is designed to be first and
foremost a great mobile phone. It also offers all the benefits of UMTS
including video calling, high-bandwidth multi-media downloads and the
ability to browse the Internet with full HTML pages. These are viewed
in landscape on the new Opera 8 browser. In addition, the P990 is
prepared for all major push e-mail clients enabling full e-mail access
with attachments, anywhere, anytime.
The P990 has multiple text input methods enabling it to support all
users’ needs and preferences. Writing e-mails is made easier by the new
hardware keyboard positioned beneath the flip-down keypad on the main
body of the phone. Reading them is made simpler on the large 2.8 inch
QVGA touch screen. Multi tasking – being able to browse the Internet,
send and receive files at the same time as talking – is now possible
due to the enhanced capabilities of the new software platform.
Memory has been extended in order to handle all multi-media
downloads and e-mail attachments. Memory Stick PRO Duo up to 4GB will
be available in the market at launch and the P990 now has up to 80 MB
user free memory. A 64 MB Memory Stick PRO Duo is included in the box,
preloaded with a VPN client and trial version of a virus scan package.
The combination of UMTS and WLAN features will also significantly
improve the efficiency and flexibility of applications such as e-mail,
browsing the Internet/Intranet and video telephony. WLAN, available in
hot spots all over the world, acts as a complement to high speed 3G
services, enabling widespread access to corporate network services.
Other new features include automatic time zone change to the
Calendar diary and updated PC sync software with extended
synchronization possibilities. Additionally the 2 Megapixel camera with
autofocus, digital zoom, photo light plus the bright TFT screen and
video recording provide a high quality imaging experience.
In a separate announcement today, Sony Ericsson Developer World and
UIQ Technology outlined their plans to support UIQ 3 developers.
Developers can program in C++ or Java™ to create powerful
professional and personal productivity tools for the P990. The
smartphone is based on Java Platform 3 (JP-3). It supports four new
Java Specification Requests (JSR’s) including Web Services (JSR-172)
and is the twentieth phone from Sony Ericsson supporting Mobile Java™
3D, demonstrating the company’s leadership in this new technology.
Standard Java™ applications can be run with either the flip-down keypad
open or closed.
The P990 will be commercially available in Q1 2006. The variants will be:
- P990i Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa
- P990c Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland
China. Launch for mainland China dependant on availability of 3G
services.
- The P990 will be available in 4 hardware keyboard variants: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian
The P990 will be demonstrated in booth # 124 at The Smartphone Show
2005 in the ExCeL Centre in London on October 11-12, where Sony
Ericsson is headline sponsor. Rikko Sakaguchi, Senior Vice President
and Head of Product & Application Planning, gives a keynote
presentation.
Technical specifications
Function or feature, P990 support
- Operating system - Symbian OS v9.1
- Software platform - UIQ v3.0
- Size - 114 x 57 x 25
- Weight - 155g with battery and flip keyboard
- Screen - Large 2.8 inch QVGA (240 x 320) touch screen with 262 k
colours that supports landscape view for camera, video imaging and
browsing
-
- Interaction - Using touch screen, 3 way Jog Dial and dedicated buttons
- WLAN - 802.11b compliant
- Bluetooth - Includes car handsfree profile
- Infrared - Yes
- USB - Yes and charging via USB
- UMTS - E-GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900 and UMTS 2100
- Application memory - Up to 80 MB user free memory
- Camera - Integrated 2 megapixel CommuniCorder 24 bit colour depth,
autofocus for still pictures, video clip recording and video calls
- Video telephony - Application included which allows video calls and video conferencing via the built-in dual cameras
- Media player - Supports playback, streaming and playlists
- Activity menu - Customizable top level menu
- Upgradeable - Via Sony Ericsson Update Service
- FM/RDS radio - Yes
- Browser - Opera browser (version 8) supporting frames and javascript
- Push email - Prepared for all major e-mail solutions including Research in Motion (Blackberry)
- Messaging - SMS, MMS and email
- PIM applications - Contacts, Calendar, To Do, Jotter for notes and
sketches, Voice memo and Calculator, Converter, Stop Watch and Timer
- Viewers - Microsoft Excel. Word, Powerpoint and Adobe PDF
- Editors - Microsoft Word and Excel
- Themes - Easy personalisation of animated icons, screensavers, wallpapers and skins
- Speaker phone - Yes
- Memory Stick - Memory Stick PRO Duo slot for up to 4 GB removable memory. 64 MB supplied
- Flight mode - Includes option to turn Wi-Fi on
- Local and remote synchronisation - via SyncML
- Business telephony - Yes
- Java™ ME platform support - Both CDC and CLDC environments supported:
- JTWI 1.0 (JSR-185) consisting of Connected Limited Device
Configuration (CLDC) 1.1 HI (JSR-139), MIDP 2.0 (JSR-118), WMA 1.1
(JSR-120). - PDA Optional Packages (JSR-75), Bluetooth (JSR-82),
Wireless Messaging API 2.0 (JSR-205), Web Services (JSR-172), Mobile
Media API (JSR-135), Mobile 3D Graphics (JSR-184), Nokia UI API 1.1
- Connected Device Configuration (CDC) 1.0 (JSR-36) - Foundation
Profile 1.0 (JSR-46), Personal Profile 1.0 (JSR-62),PDA Optional
Packages (JSR-75)
News Source: Sony Ericsson Press Release
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