10 reasons to buy the Sony Ericsson G900

We have compiled a top 10 list of reasons to purchase the Sony Ericsson G900 mobile phone. If you can think of any other reasons to purchase the mobile phone, let us know by leaving a comment using the form at the bottom of this post and we’ll consider adding them. Here goes:

1 - Touchscreen Technology - the Sony Ericsson G900 is the first mobile phone to bring touchscreen technology to the masses at an affordable price. Simply run your finger across the screen to navigate through menus, select options, and much more.

2  - Handwriting Recognition - the G900 is capable of recognising your handwriting. Use the stylus pen (included) and write down those important reminders, dates, and times. As Sony Ericsson so simply put it “What you can do with pen and paper, you can do with your G900. Press the Notes key and use the stylus to write in your own handwriting. Quick and easy, no keyboard needed“.

3 - 5 Megapixel Camera - the G900 comes with enough pixel power to allow amateur photographers to consider ditching their stand alone cameras altogether. Other impressive camera features include; auto focus, digital zoom up to 16x, image & video stabiliser which enables you to avoid blurriness caused by slight hand movements, photo fix which enables you to adjust light balance and contrast after your photo has been taken, photo light - handy for those nights out, picture blogging which lets you send photos directly to your blog, red-eye reduction - no more devil eye photos, and video light which enables you to spruce up the brightness of your recorded videos. The Sony Ericsson G900 also intelligently integrates touchscreen technology into the camera allowing you to set the focus area of your photos by touching the screen with your finger.

4 - WI-FI Enabled (WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g) - Use the G900 to connect directly to your wireless home / office network and avoid paying extravagant data fees charged by network operators. With WI-FI, the G900 really does bring broadband speed internet to your mobile phone. Whether its emails, eBay, or Facebook, rest assured that with the G900 you can put down the newspaper and pickup your mobile phone during those toilet breaks - just remember to keep your eye on the clock. 

5 - 3G Enabled - The G900 comes equipped with 3G allowing you to make and receive video calls, video messages, stream video and audio, and surf the mobile internet at a much faster rate that GPRS or standard WAP which is what you’ll find on older mobile phones. Although equipped with WI-FI, the importance of 3G for browsing the web cannot be disregarded as you’ll often find yourselves in areas where WI-FI is either not available or costs an arm and a leg to connect to - £5 per hour? No thanks.

6 - Integrated MP3 Player - Sony Ericsson have been integrating MP3 players into their mobile phones for years now so you can rest assured that with the G900 you’re not getting a mobile phone plus an average joe MP3 player. Granted, it is not as good as the iPhone+iPod (all bow down), however the integrated Walkman MP3 player does sound great and comes with loads of cool features such as Mega Bass™ which significantly increases the amount of bass that can be transferred through small headphones without damaging audio quality. In addition to this, the G900 also comes with TrackID™ which is capable of recognising the artist, song title, and album of a track that is played. Click here to see a 30 second demo of how it works.

7 - 10.6 x 4.9 x 1.3 cm - it’s not how big it is, it’s what you do with it that counts. Size does matter with a mobile phone and were pleased to see that big things really do come in small packages. Besides, there are lots and lots of things to do with a Sony Ericsson G900 anyway! And don’t forget the weight - at 99g you won’t know it’s there until it rings.

8 - Expandable memory - it would be unfair to say that the G900 doesn’t come with adequate memory for the average Joe user. However, if you have a million friends or are planning to really take advantage of the integrated MP3 player we recommend you visit Amazon where you can add up to 2GB memory (approx 500 MP3s) for less than a tenner, 4GB memory (approx 1000 MP3s) for under £20, or 8GB memory (approx 2000 MP3s) for about £25. Bargain!

9 - It’s FREE!! £0.00 - That’s right - when the Sony Ericsson G900 launches in July 2008 it will be free on a significant amount of pay monthly contracts (we expect it to cost approx £249-£299 on PAYG / Sim Free). Check out our where to buy section for the latest deals.

10 - We’ll let you decide - we can think of a million and one other reasons to buy the Sony Ericsson G900 but were gonna let you decide on number 10. Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment below and we’ll add our favourite(s) to the list.

- Click here to view Pay As You Go (PAYG) and sim free deals -

- Click here to view contract / pay monthly deals -

Sony Ericsson G900 Preview

Sony Ericcson unveiled the G900 in February 2008 at Mobile World Congress. The Sony Ericcson G900 is a 3G enabled candy bar mobile phone and is available in two colours - dark red and dark brown. The G900 will be the first in a new range of G series handsets when released in July 2008 (exact date tbc). It is worth pointing out that we initially mistook the colour of the dark brown handset as black when initial photos of the G900 were released, however on closer inspection we can confirm the handset is indeed dark brown.

As with other recent releases from Sony Ericsson, the first thing you notice about the G900 is its simple yet sophisticated design. We were immediately pleased to see that the layout of keys/buttons on the G900 are neither too crowded or too small to press - a factor that made operating the W880i/W890i more of a challenge, especially to those of us with sausage fingers.

Main Features

One of the most interesting aspects of the Sony Ericsson G900 is its touchscreen function - one of the first Sony Ericsson mobile phones to utilise such technology. At the touch of the screen, you can very easily and intuitively navigate your way through the phone. And for those who prefer, Sony Ericsson has kindly included a stylus pen which slots stylishly into the left hand side of the mobile phone.

Using the stylus pen, the Sony Ericsson G900 is capable of handwriting recognition. Simply use the stylus pen like any other normal pen and write on the phones screen. Then watch as the phone intelligently transforms your characters into corresponding letters on the G900’s keyboard. What’s even more impressive is the ability to use the G900 to write personal ‘sticky notes’ and reminders in your own handwriting saving time as the phones keypad is not required. However, it has to be noted that the stylus pen is on the rather small side which will make it awkward to use for those with large hands (try writing with an IKEA pencil and you’ll know what we mean).

The Sony Ericsson G900 comes packed with an impressive 5 megapixel camera which will enable the average amateur photographer to seriously consider ditching their stand alone digital camera. At the touch of the screen (using your finger or stylus pen!) you can set the focus area for your photo - as is happening in the picture below. Like other recent Sony Ericsson mobile phones, the G900 enables you to easily capture and edit images and videos so that you can quickly share content using either Email, MMS or by uploading the content directly to your blog. However, with a pleasant 2.4 inch 262K color TFT display of QVGA resolution, the G900 performs more than adequately when displaying images and videos on the phone itself. And if you’re worrying about where to store all your media files, the Sony Ericsson G900 comes with a generous 160 megabytes of internal memory which is expandable into the gigabytes with the purchase of a Memory Stick Micro^TM (M2^TM).

Will it fit in my pocket?

We know what you’re thinking - surely all this smart technology means the phone wouldn’t look out of place on a building site? Well you’re wrong (and so were we). The Sony Ericsson G900 measures in at an impressive 10.6cm in height x 4.9cm in width x 1.3cm in depth and weighs only 99g.

Built in WI-FI

The Sony Ericsson G900 comes with built in WI-FI (WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g for all you geeks) which means you can connect to your wireless home or work network and do all the usual internet activities - web browsing, emails (including push email), Google Maps etc - allowing you to avoid paying the excessive data fees that network operators charge for using their GPRS mobile internet services. However, in instances where you cannot connect to a WI-FI network, the Sony Ericsson G900 does comes with 3G technology, thus providing you with the convenience of broadband Internet to your mobile phone - even if at an extra cost. As is standard with 3G phones, the G900 allows you to make and receive video calls (using the secondary camera on the front of the phone) and stream video too.

But isn’t a phone for talking?

You’re not wrong there - and plenty of talking the Sony Ericsson G900 allows you to do with a credible 380 hours standby time, 12 hours talk time, and 4 hours whilst connected to 3G - not too bad given the aforementioned features of this handset.

In conclusion, the G900 is an impressive piece of kit which brings touchscreen technology to the masses at a more affordable price than the Apple iPhone. Coupled with an integrated MP3 player, 5 megapixel camera, WI-FI and 3G, this phone is certain to be a long term hit for both casual and business users.

The Good

Touchscreen
5 megapixel camera
2.4 Inch screen, 262k colours
WI-FI
3G

The Bad

Memory card slot under the battery
Stylus size - small hands beneficial
Memory Stick Micro not included

The Ugly

Nothing

What do you think? Please post your comments below.