Sony Ericsson P1i — a forgotten iPhone contender?

With all the talks about the upcoming Apple iPhone, there seems to be no contender on the market that can challenge it. Well, it just seems so, as SonyEricsson has recently announced a P1i model, which is a blend between their P and M series models.

SonyEricsson M600 did get very close to being a “perfect smartphone”, except for the fact that it didn’t have a camera. This is understandable, as the phone was initially developed for business customers and not all of the businesses would allow cameras on their premises. However, it has introduced a very usable QWERTY keyboard using rocking keys (each key has two letters mapped to it, which can be inputted by pressing on the right or on the left side of the key).

P1i follows this tradition, bringing the innovative keyboard to its design. This obviously sacrifices the space that could have been used for a bigger screen, but with the touchscreen having 240×320 pixels of resolution it is not all that bad. The huge benefit that it gives though is the tactile feedback of keys, which allows you to enter a number without looking at the screen, which, unfortunately, is impossible with the iPhone. Also, the benefit of having the keys on the front panel is that it cuts down on the thickness of the phone, as it doesn’t have to have a separate slide-out keyboard used on HTC models.

Obviously, the P1i might not be a perfect match to the iPhone’s snazzy effects, but it does offer some solid usability, features and applications (being a Symbian-based device) and, most likely, will be on a cheaper contract. After all, it’s probably better to go with a new SE model for now than buying a Rev. A Apple hardware.