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. 
It is designed to be first and foremost a great mobile phone but 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.
Sony Ericsson today revealed a host of unannounced applications and entertainment content features for its flagship Wi-Fi enabled UMTS smartphone, the P990, which was introduced to the Global Developers community in October 2005 They include:
- Details on supported push email partners
- Anti-virus/Firewall and VPN clients for secure corporate business
- Business card scanner
- New entertainment content and features
Push Email
Secure, simple and fast access to email and the Internet are critical requirements for true office mobility, and this is an area where the P990 excels. The ability to access email and calendar while out of the office is critical for mobile executives as they no longer need to return to the office to perform this task. The P990 will support a range of push email services from the partners listed below:
- AlteXia
- Ericsson Mobile Office (EMO) (Try and Buy)
- iAnywhere OneBridge
- Intellisync
- Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
- RIM - BlackBerry Connect
- Seven
- Visto
- Standard Email - IMAP IDLE working on all standards compliant servers
Security
Sony Ericsson has partnered with antivirus software giant McAfee to offer McAfee VirusScan and Firewall Mobile to further strengthen the P990's email and web browsing security. This Try & Buy software provides scanning services on emails, attachments and web downloads for cellular communications, all to the same standard as its well known computer applications. Secure access to corporate networks completes the remote email story as Sony Ericsson offers a free VPN client powered by Certicom.
Business Card Scanner
Cameras in phones have any number of business applications for capturing and sharing images. Creative minds have moved a few steps further by turning the P990's 2.0-megapixel with AutoFocus camera into a Business Card Scanner, using character recognition software to convert the scanned information from the card to Contacts on your P990.
The large 2.8 inch QVGA (262K TFT) touch screen and large viewfinder help you to capture the full business card size in one go.
Entertainment
P990 users are expected to spend a fair amount of their time travelling on business and more has been added to the smartphone to make this 'downtime' in their working life as relaxing or entertaining as required. The P990's suite of entertainment applications is supported by a 3D Hardware Accelerator and exciting 3D Java games such as Vijay Singh Pro Golf 2005 from Gameloft, which will lighten up the longest journeys together with a fully equipped music player that supports MP3, AAC and AAC+ formats, and includes a flight mode allowing the music player to be used when the phone is switched off.
Application Shop
The broadest possible choice of new applications for the P990 will be available at launch from the Sony Ericsson Application Shop. The Application Shop is an important part of the Try & Buy concept. It will feature the full versions of the trial applications that are preloaded on the Memory Stick of the P990, included in the box. With the new mobile storefront, applications can be purchased directly from the phone and downloaded over-the-air.
The P990 will be commercially available in Q2 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.)
P990 - Features at a glance:
Imaging & Messaging
- 2.0-megapixel camera with AutoFocus
- 2.5x digital Zoom
- Video Telephony application with dual cameras and MPEG4 support
- Camera light
- Streaming video and playback of video (30 fps QVGA)
- Touch based Picture editor
- Large 2.8-inch QVGA (240 x 320)
- Touch screen with 262K-colors
Entertainment
- Stereo Bluetooth support
- DRM: OMA phase 1
- Ring signal: 40 voices MIDI
- Music player: dedicated access button, play lists support (m3u) and MP3, AAC ,AAC+ and E-AAC+ and m4a support
- MusicDJ
- 3D touch based Golf game
- FM RDS radio with Clock radio
- Stop watch and timer
Connectivity
- 80 MB internal memory
- 64 MB Memory Stick PRO Duo in the box
- Memory Stick PRO Duo support up to 8GB
- Bluetooth 2.0
- IrDa
- WLAN 802.11b
- High speed UMTS modem (384 kbps)
- USB Desk stand
- USB full speed and charging
- USB Mass storage
- PC synchronisation software
Business
- Business card scanner
- Backlit thumb keyboard available in 4 hardware keyboard variants: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian
- Smart typing: Word completion, next word prediction and handwriting character recognition Word, excel and PowerPoint viewers/editors (text only)
- Adobe PDF viewer
- Opera 8.0 web browser with landscape full screen support
- RSS news feeds support
- Flight mode (Activate WiFi)
- Office hands free (speaker phone)
- External antenna connector
- Calculator and Converter application
- Multi tasking
- E-mail provider support:
- AlteXia
- Ericsson Mobile Office (EMO) (Try and Buy)
- iAnywhere OneBridge
- Intellisync
- Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
- RIM - BlackBerry Connect
- Seven
- Visto
- Standard Email - IMAP IDLE working on all standards compliant servers
- Security and VPN support
- Anti virus - McAfee (Try & Buy)
- Firewall - McAfee (Try & Buy)
- Encryption - Pointsec (Try & Buy)
- VPN - Certicom (Free)
- Symbian 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 software platform
- Size - 114 x 57 x 25 mm
- Weight - 155 g with battery and flip keyboard
