Back in the mid-2000s, Sony Ericsson phones were really popular. In fact, back then, the brand was one of the major players in the market! While things have gone downhill ever since Sony split up with Ericsson back in 2011, the joint venture managed to churn out a lot of interesting phones in the industry. For this week’s edition of Throwback Tech Thursday, we take a look at one such phone – the Sony Ericsson P990i. There are several cool features that make the phone special for its age and we’ll take a look at them down below.
One of the highlights of the Sony Ericsson P990i was its special flap design. The phone was one of the few phones to actually feature both a regular alphanumeric keypad and a QWERTY keyboard. It had a flap with a numerical keypad on top and once you opened the flap, you got a QWERTY keyboard inside. The design did make the phone a bit chunky, but there were hardly any phones in its time which offered both these methods of input.
What’s interesting is that the phone featured a 2.8-inch touchscreen display. So, you could also use a provided stylus (which hid neatly on the side) to browse through the phone. That was pretty cool back then and even now. But there was one more special method of navigation. Apart from the keypad, QWERTY keyboard, and touchscreen display, the phone featured a scroll wheel on the left side. So, Sony Ericsson had really got you covered in the navigation department.
There were several other special physical buttons too. Apart from the power button on the top, the phone featured an internet button, play/pause button, back/clear button, and a screen lock button. There was a camera too – a 2MP shooter with LED flash, which was pretty good for its age. What’s more, the camera housing could slide clockwise / counterclockwise to reveal the sensor. Plus, there was a self-portrait mirror on the camera housing, for the selfie lovers of its age. There was a front camera too, but it was a simple VGA one for video calls.
The Sony Ericsson P990i wasn’t a revolutionary device. It didn’t even have a crazy design like the Nokia Lipstick phone. But the phone was feature rich and was way ahead of its time. It clearly isn’t a phone you’d forget easily.
Did you ever use the Sony Ericsson P990i? Did you like it? Tell us the features you miss and which you feel modern smartphones should have.
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