I have my P800

I am one happy tech'd up mothafugga.

I haven't turned it on yet, just sharing the moment with you guys.

H.

Good news:

It's :eek:

Bad news:

OS X's Bluetooth set up doesn't give me the option to sync calendars. And iSync can't find the phone.

I don't care at the moment. I probably will soon. Get that app out of beta already!!!

Edit: Duh. On the iSync site the P800 ain't listed as compatible. Going to try copying all the vCards over via BT. Oh the pains of early adoption.

And Address Book.app won't go connect via BT.

I CAN beam photos taken on it to the G4 though.

[ 12-18-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]

[ 12-18-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]</p>

OK. Back again.

Been playing with it HARD as you can imagine, and will post a bunch of photos and impressions today.

Any questions / requests welcome ... I should work today but sod it.

Edit: taken some snaps. Anyone want to host?

H.

[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]</p>

Here we go.

First impressions: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It's lovely!

Quick overview: It does everything. It has one, whatever it is. {edit: doesn't ship with a timer like T68} It's got some niggles. I love it.

OK, second impressions ... I reckon they've taken a bite of Apple pie in the packaging / design stakes. Minimalist box, with everything inside ... everything. 16MB Memory Stick card, stereo headphones for the MP3 player that double as handsfree, little carrying pouch, 4 spare sprongs, CD's (more later) ... and the dock. Oh, the dock.

"Honey I Shrunk the Airport Basestation."

Your P800 slots in with zero insertion force ... underneath is a clever hideaway for a built in USB cable (don't need that: I have Bluetooth and no software ... when plugged in, System Profiler can see a "USB Device." Very useful ... ) The handset just seems to be floating at 45 degrees. DAMN it's cool. Charges the blighter fast, too.

And the phone ... well, it's not going to fit into your breast pocket any more, but it IS going in your trouser pocket not too uncomfortably. It certainly does feel big in the hand compared to one of the latest GSM phones. But ergonomic too. It's a beautiful piece of design (taste, I know). The flip is removeable, and there's a piece of translucent blue plastic to go in its place to keep that slickness factor high by covering up the internal mechanism. Everything is snug and compact and just, well, slick. It's shorter then the R380 and a bit wider. It's in a different class to the Treo. It's a communications device through and through, unlike the Handsprings, which remain PDA's with phones (sorry guys).

The screen is beautiful. Think iPaq v2. Possibly on the pale side, I've not played any video but the demo that comes with it so far, which looks great (again, no discernible difference to yer colour handheld computer).

The jog wheel is amazing: up and down scroll, in ... and towards and away too. If you see what I mean. New one on me. The buttons on the flip as you know mechanically press through to the touch screen ... unless you use appropriate force you can find that using triple tap you might miss a letter or two.

Still to talk about the speaker, the AV players, the camera, bluetooth, the interface, bundled apps, PIM, internet ... oh lordy ... I might not be able to cover all this ...

[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]</p>

(Nice one, Paul)

Part 2 ...

That interface.

Well, there's two modes: phone mode and communicator mode ... it's a phone with the flip closed and a communicator / PC with the flip open. When it's a phone, it's one hell of a phone, as you can still use the camera, BT and all the other gubbins. It uses animation and colour to let you know what it's doing ... zooming in on the circle that contains the functions you're after (messages / calls / contacts / calls / calendar / applications). Very Aqua. You can do everything you'd want on a high-end phone using what is still a large screen with the flip closed. A really good high-end phone with a great interface ... the trick is using the jog wheel to go back and forth, say yes and no.

The engineers have done a great -- spot on, excellent -- job with the way the small screen v. big screen modes work, and the way that you can share data between them. For example, using the jotter in communicator mode you can draw notes and back-of-napkin stuff, as well as enter text. If you open a jotter note in small-screen mode, you can read all the text but not see the images. There are more or less two applications for each view sharing the data. It's seamless so far (24 hours and counting).

If it's Aqua with the flip closed, when it's open it's ... not. It's nice though ... good Symbian implementation. Big screen mode (communicator mode) defaults to a long list of all the apps in the phone, which you can also filter a la Palm in categories such as media, tools, business &c. There's a little line of pretty insipid icons at the top that look like they're off Outlook PC for shortcuts to the functions described above, and a very Windowsy (but tiny) status bar on the bottom with signal strength, BT, battery and all that stuff.

The interface, in both modes, is very responsive. It loads apps very quickly, responds to interaction immediately (selecting fields etc.) and is as fast as any very high end PDA or Palmtop. It's got welly y'all.

When open you can enter text either using Jot HWR -- which is a good as any I've come across, certainly better then Graffiti, or by hunt and pecking on a pop up mini keyboard.

Setup -- particularly WAP, Internet and phone functions -- is not laid out well. When you find the appropriate control panel it's simple and logical but the problem is finding them. Not very intuitive, and not fun if you're not a geek I wouldn't imagine.

You have to learn how to use the jog wheel in conjunction with the prong for best use. I'm already getting pretty whizzy moving around.

It's a good interface.

[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]</p>

The Camera ...

Edit: in response (and thanks Paul), that's the sun shinging through buildings close to home in East London. Shot on medium quality -- it does get better. And yes, you can use the phone as a BT modem but I've not tried.

Anyway, it's not replacing my Leica.

Unlike the Nokia, the lens is always exposed. It's going to get scratched unless you're VERY careful, even though the designers have been careful to extrude the back and offer protection to the lens ... putting it down on a table won't touch the lens -- which is good -- but unless it's in its pouch, pockets will get to it eventually.

But as I say, IT'S NOT REPLACING MY LEICA ...

... meaning for snap'n'send it's great. The whole process is seamless; there's a mini iPhoto-a-like picture browser which lets you send images via email, MMS, IR or Bluetooth. Piece of piss. Does what it says on the tin. You can snap in 3 qualities, adjust the white balance, contrast, compensate for backlit subjects. Bueno quite frankly. But we're talking 640 x 480 here (what's that? 0.13MP or something ... ?) I'm going to have fun with it.

Well I will when I can get a GPRS connection going. For now it's Bluetooth.

Bluetooth works a treat as far as the P800 is concerned ... sending and receiving files is totally simple. You can tell it be extra friendly to specific machines, such as my G4. The file handling is also very intuitive on receipt of a file.

Bluetooth is fine as far as OS X is concerned if you ignore the iApps, which aren't working here yet. I never thought I'd be using Bluetooth File Exchange, but it's in my dock and is a perfect example of super-simple Apple engineering actually. Pinging multiMB images to see what it would do: and it worked perfectly.

But: I can't use Address Book or iSync with the blighter. iSync just can't find the phone. Address Book won't connect to the P800 via the Bluetooth button. I can't export the vCards and send them via BT (the phone tells me they're damaged) using File Exchange -- dragging contacts to the icon is cool though -- and I can't use the "Send" facility in Address Book either.

I'm CERTAIN who or whatever is responsible will be sorted out. But I'm annoyed as these facilities were what was going to make up for the larger size. Oh yes, iCal can't sync for the same reason. iSync is beta. They'd better fix it for GM ...

[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]

[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by snazlord:
<strong>question: can you install and run all the palm OS applications out there on the P800? or are palm OS apps not compatible with symbian OS? </strong><hr></blockquote>

Snaz,

Palm apps aren't compatible. But java apps are ... I think we'll be seeing a deluge of applications for this beast. Personally, there is nothing this can't do my Palm could. I sold it.

Aaaaalso ... the browser ...

I got it online yesterday by dialup (not GPRS because O2 are shit) and had a little look around the web. Apple.com rendered without a hitch. Looked small but beautiful, you could see the text incredibly clearly. Went to AI to see ... loaded slowly, told me they were javascript pages, rendered PERFECTLY (hilarious to see). I tried to log in, brought up the form, logged me in but took me back to the "FYI you're not logged in" page.

Hmm.

Browser can accept cookies, so I wonder what is up ...

[quote]Originally posted by lungaretta:
<strong>

harald, is that down-town dalston?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Shoreditchio babee.

Posted on the P800 in a central Lon :o n Bar. WOOT!

Posted on the P800 in a central Lon :o n Bar. WOOT!

Posted on the P800 in a central Lon :o n Bar. WOOT!

Oh. Shame on me. Triple post.

If I ever said anything bad about this thing, I take it back. It's lovely.

[quote]Originally posted by Producer:
<strong>How is the handwriting recognition/text input?

Also next time you're at a bar post some pics of some english babes for us...errrr just so we can see the quality of the pics ofcourse </strong><hr></blockquote>

It uses this "jot" gubbins. Real-shaped characters as opposed to the Grafitti nightmare ... for the first day I was making mistakes (and still occasionally make a capital by mistake) but it's like all these things ... you get used to them. In terms of speed it is incredibly fast. There's none of that thinking when you write an accented character. It's as fast as pressing a key.

I found out you can't set an MP3 as a ringtone. Get annoyed until I realised it does work with WAV. So, export some choice clips of your favourite music as WAVs and beam them over. Very loud, very cool.

There may be err PPP dialup bugs (sound familiar?). I've not worked out if it's my crap network (which won't let me have both MMS and GPRS data, thanks O2) or some configuaration issue or just a bug, but getting a connection isn't always a button push.

I can't begin to tell you how much I like this device. I don't miss the T68 even though it was more svelte. My girlfriend's not so keen on it though (purely for attention deficit reasons).

[quote]Originally posted by Escher:
<strong>Any updated thoughts on the P800, Harald? You've had several weeks to test it to death now. Any progress on the Mac compatibility front now that iSync has reached 1.0? Did the P800 survive Y2k3? </strong><hr></blockquote>

Eschska,

I can officially say I have tested it to death. I don't think there's one thing I've not done

So I know all it's little foibles (remarkably few) and all that's good about it (remarkable) and yes, iSync ... I know all about that little fellow ... In a nutshell, this thing OWNS ME. But ...

There's something weird with the P800 Bluetooth implementation, or possibly the SyncML implementation, and a huge and very technical thread on the Apple discussion boards. In a nutshell, you can send files back and forth and it works wonderfully. You can't sync it with iSync or successfully link it with Address Book. Some say they know a fix is coming. I know for a FACT (directly relevant SE employee) there's P800's syncing via iSync in this world ... I don't know who needs to release new software however. Timescale ... who knows.

HOWEVER, and this is the biggun, MAYBE tomorrow Apple will introduce a .Mac SyncML server so we can sync the phone via GPRS or GSM to our .Mac iSync server. Phew, acronym city. I am certain this will happen soon if not tomorrow as the phones support it, no-one's done it, Apple have mentioned Address Book --&gt; iSync --&gt; .Mac integration and it's innovative. I have no insider knowledge of THIS, it's just a no-brainer. In the short term, contacts can just be beamed over via BT and automatically get slurped up.

Apart from that ... this thing still surprises me. Insanely cool. I've been playing with the voice recognition stuff on the phone. The technology is vastly better then any other I've seen. "Magic Word" for example is now usable. You set the phone to permanently listen for a phrase (remember PlainTalk?) and when it hears it does what it's told.

Imagine this: walking down the road with the phone in your pocket and the headphones on. You're talking to other people, then realise you need to call a friend. You say, "My blower." It bleeps. You say "Hassan i Sabbah." It repeats his scurvy name back to you and phones him up.

No hands.

SO. DAMN. COOL.

The speakerphone is just great too. You're on the phone and need to take a note, so you just flip the flippy flip, let it go into speaker mode and use the jotter to write things down. Of course, it recongnises written numbers so you can dial with a single jab of the prong once you've hung up.

I also did my first "snap a picture and send it as an email instantly" the other day. Amazing. I have now got MMS working too, so I can send pictures in a jiffy to the one person I know on the same network with a capable phone.

I could just go on and on and on about the bugger. So many small details of usability and UI that are just great.

And there are no, I repeat, NO, little niggly usability issues that piss you off with common tasks (apart from the major issue of 'iSync doesn't work'). Maybe the fact that you're limited to MemoryStick which is expensive and reduced the ability of the device to act as an MP3 player (I mean, listen to me ... what a complaint!).

Apple aren't going to release a phone. I just don't see how they can compete in the way iPod pissed over other MP3 players.

Any Q's I'll be glad to answer.