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The Sony Ericsson P910a is a follow-up to the company's popular P900 model. Like its predecessor, the $799 P910a is a Symbian OS device running the UIQ interface—albeit with a couple of significant improvements over the earlier model.

First, internal memory has increased from 16MB to 64MB. (There's also a Memory Stick Duo slot that can accommodate up to a 1GB card: A 32MB card is included with the phone). The P910a's display is also capable of displaying 262,000 colors rather than the typical 65,000, a nice improvement.

While the color depth has increased, the P910a maintains the previous models unique screen configuration. The device's numeric keypad flips down to reveal additional screen real estate, resulting in an increase of display resolution from 208x208 to 208x320.

But the biggest improvement to this phone is in the area of text input. This is always somewhat of a challenge on a small device and the P910a offers a rather innovative solution: The aforementioned numeric keypad flips down to reveal a conventional QWERTY keyboard on the reverse side. This preserves screen space by eliminating the need for an on-screen keyboard.


Keypad Folds Down to Reveal Keyboard

The quad band GSM 910a's design also compares favorably to devices like the palmOne Treo series, since not having to cram an entire keyboard on the front of the device makes for larger keys—with presumably fewer input errors for all but the most ham-handed users—while doing away with the need to awkwardly embed the heavily-used numeric keypad into an alphabetic keyboard.

While you certainly can't touch type on the P910a, using a real keyboard is far superior to an on-screen keyboard or to cycling through the alphabet with number keys as you must with smartphones like the Motorola MPx220.


Keyboard Up Close

If you prefer interacting with the phone via the stylus and on-screen buttons, the keypad/keyboard assembly can be removed. Doing so isn't necessarily difficult, but neither is it a swift procedure, necessitating the removal of two tiny screws (an appropriate tool is provided).


P910 in Hand with Stylus

You wouldn't necessarily expect a phone with as many improvements as the P910a to shrink in size, and in this case you'd be right. The P910 measures 4.5 x 2.3 x 1.0 inches and weighs in at a tick less than 5.5 ounces, making it negligibly larger than its predecessor. These dimensions also make the P910a relatively hefty by the standards of some handsets.

There are certainly smaller and lighter phones to be had, but the P910a's large screen and innovative keyboard compensate for the bulk. Plus, the P910a is still smaller than most cellular-wireless handheld phones that offer similar screen sizes and features.

Battery life for the P910a does suffer somewhat—its 1260mAh battery is rated for 13 hours of talk time and 400 hours standby, compared to 16 and 480 (respectively) for the P900.

The Symbian 7.0 operating system offers a host of business productivity tools like personal information management software and word processing and spreadsheet applications, and the 910a's jog dial button makes one-handed menu navigation easy. Voice quality

Multimedia applications for playing digital media and other sundry utilities are also included. The P910a's 1.2-megapixel digital camera produces decent quality images (motion or still) but the camera button located in the upper right corner is annoyingly close to another button that activates the Opera Web browser, causing us to be surfing rather than snapping on several occasions. The P910a also lacks a flash, which limits its usefulness for picture-taking in low light.


P910 in Dock with Headphones

The Sony Ericsson P910a's very high price tag will undoubtedly give some pause. But what you get in exchange for your coin is a fairly powerful and versatile smartphone with good voice quality. And those who send a lot of e-mail from the road will likely find the added keyboard gratifying.