Sony Ericsson X1. Photo by LetsGoDigital

Early August has already past us by and Sony Ericsson are yet to ease the anxiousnous of waiting for the immediate worldwide release of the new X1 model.

I have checked the Sony Ericsson X1 product page on a weekly basis and the “X1 is coming soon.” message is still boldly laughing at me.

Sony Ericsson have created an e-mail notifier to let readers know when the X1 is available in stores, sign up today. Hopefully the wait isn’t too long now…

I’ve known about this issue for some time affecting the Sony Ericsson P1i but never published the article. Sending a SMS from a pre-paid account with insufficient credit creates a error report loop that is very difficult to escape as new error report messages flood the Inbox.

This SMS rejection flood bug affects the latest Australian firmware revision for the Sony Ericsson P1i, I would expect this to occur across other regional firmware releases too.

The only way to cease the incoming error report flood is to:

1. Open Messaging
2. Open Messages > Draft (scroll to the left of the Messages menu item 2 times)
3. Delete the message or assign it as a Draft

Visitors have encountered problems installing custom themes on their Sony Ericsson P1i, I want to clear this up by explaining step-by-step what to do so we can move onto more exciting topics!

Download your UIQ 3.1 theme

As your Sony Ericsson P1i is built on the UIQ 3.1mobile platform is makes use of standard *.utz files for themes. Themes for your phone can be easily be downloaded from a variety of free and sponsored sites. Just look at these examples.

Once you have downloaded a theme it needs to be transferred from your computer to the phone and opened. We’ll cover transferring files now.

Transferring theme files to your Sony Ericsson P1i

Files in general - be that images, document or theme files - can be transferred to your mobile in the following ways:

• using Sony Ericsson PC Suite for Smartphones and a wired USB connection to your computer
• via an Infrared connection to your notebook
• via a Bluetooth connection to your notebook
• over a Wireless LAN (801.11b) connection

Create a directory on your phone memory or optional memory card called “Themes” to hold your theme files, I recommend storage on your memory card as these files are infrequently accessed.

Using one of the above methods transfer your theme file into your new “Themes” file.

Open theme file on your Sony Ericsson P1i

The Sony Ericsson P1i stores themes within restricted memory, this is to ensure system data is safe. Using the theme manager on your phone you can add and remove themes with ease.

1. Open Main menu
2. Open Tools
3. Open File manager
4. Navigate to the “Themes” director you created earlier
5. Open your theme file
6. If your theme includes sounds you will be presented with the option to preview them
7. Press Apply

Your new theme has now been applied to your Sony Ericsson P1i.

I will need to revisit this article shortly as I want to add step-by-step instructions on how to transfer the theme file to your phone via each of the methods listed.

conditioner3 asked…

how can we delete unused applications installed on P1i?

It turns out the Sony Ericsson P1i does have an uninstaller for removing software/applications you no longer require in your phone memory. The Uninstall feature can be accessed from:

1. Open Main Menu
2. Open Control Panel
3. Open Other
4. Open Uninstall
5. Select the application you would like to uninstall from the list
6. Press Uninstall
7. Press Yes to Confirm the deletion of the software from both your phone and PC
8. Press Done

Antu28 asked…

how to disable area selection in Sony Ericsson P1i model which comes in main screen below the Network Name?

This one’s easy!

1. Open Main Menu
2. Open Control Panel
3. Open Messaging
4. Open Area Information
5. Uncheck the fields Cell information and Area information
6. Press Done

I’m not sure why Sony Ericsson decided to place this function in Messaging on the Sony Ericsson P1i but there’s your fix.

Project Capuchin brings the ability to integrate Flash Lite technology into Java ME packages. In summary, a whole bag of fun is on the way for Sony Ericsson P1i and UIQ 3 users.

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communication today announced plans to release a new technology that, for the first time, bridges the Abobe® Flash Lite™ and Java ME™ development platforms. The new technology and tools, referred to as Project Capuchin, make it possible to combine the richness of Flash Lite and Java ME technologies allowing developers to utilize the best attributes of both software stacks to create content-rich mobile applications.

Read more about this announcement from Sony Ericsson in their online press release overview.

The Sony Ericsson Development team at have released their nominations and featured awards in the Sony Ericsson Content Awards 2007. Take a look at the winners!

Awards were divided into 5 categories including Productive Mobility, Gaming, Imaging, Music & Audio, Themes & Graphics. My favourites from each category are below.

Productive Mobility

1. 118 Adressboken
2. Opera Mini 4.0 - Surfing the web on your Sony Ericsson P1i just wouldn’t be the same. Love it!
3. AccuWeather
4. Fring
5. Mobispine

Gaming

1. Playman Extreme Running - Parkour (urban running) in your Sony Ericsson mobile, holy shiznik!
2. Brick Breaker Revolution
3. Deep
4. 3D The Fast and the Furious Fugitive
5. Fight Night Round 3

Imaging

1. Mobiola Web Camera - Use your Sony Ericsson built-in camera as a web cam for conferencing and video chat on your computer.
2. Slideshow Wallpaper
3. PullFace Image Manipulator
4. SlideShow Viewer 2
5. AutoCam
6. Vringo

Music & Audio

1. Music Quiz - Played iMusic on Facebook, it’s exactly the same only you’re in control. Play Name that track and Name that artist against the music on your Memory Stick and Phone Memory
2. Album Art Wallpaper
3. DROPme
4. Lyric Show 2.0/KaraOK
5. TrackID

Themes & Graphics

I have to say I was disappointed by the nominations of this category. I would have awarded the Apple iPhone Special theme a clear winner.

1. Contour Tracer
2. Nature Themes
3. Expressive lights Themes
4. Premium generic Themes
5. The Geeks

That was the 2007 awards, what is your favourite mobile content? Be that applications or themes. Find out all about the awards and download the winning mobile content by visiting Sony Ericsson Content Awards 2007.

Sony Ericsson has released a suite of new babies, real gems that I’m truly drooling over, but have the Sony Ericsson development team forgotten what got them onto the industry pedestal they are now firmly on?

There has been little discussion from Sony Ericsson or Motorola on bug fixes and feature updates across the UIQ platform, this still remains true after the publicised merger with Motorola with which you’d expect exceptional focus on the outstanding bumps across the suite.

A new poll has been created from which I invite you to tell Sony Ericsson your thoughts on future development, I’ll be sending an open letter to Sony Ericsson Australia and the American Public Relations and Media departments with your thoughts and inviting their interaction with customers. Get involved and have your say.

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Time to confess, we’ve all done it. Copied a video that plays fine on the computer yet shutters, skips and pops as soon as it hits your Sony Ericsson P1i. There is a fix. Limited system resources to decode large video files is one gotcha, the fact I broadcast audio to a Bluetooth headset makes the ‘shutter, skip, pop‘ effect even more annoyingly obvious.

This hindrance can be solved by re-encoding the video files with a lower resolution and bit rate that the Sony Ericsson P1i video processor can keep up with.

Requirements

• ImTOO 3GP Video Converter 3
• A video file format supported by ImTOO 3GP Video Converter 3 (various popular video file extensions)
• The supplied USB data-cable

Re-encoding your video file

1. Open ImTOO 3GP Video Converter
2. Press Add
3. Select your video file
4. From the list tick the check box beside the video file
5. Set Video Codec to mpeg4
6. Set Video Size to 320×240
7. Set Bit Rate to 256
8. Set Audio Bit Rate to 48
9. Press Encode
10. Transfer the optimised video file to your Sony Ericsson P1i

There you have it, smooth video playback on the Sony Ericsson P1i with the latest TV shows, feature films and music clips. What videos do you play on your Sony Ericsson P1i?

The Sony Ericsson P1i FAQ and Sony Ericsson P1i Forum are online.

If you have any questions about the Sony Ericsson P1i - from loading music onto your mobile to building UIQ themes - this is the place to ask. Drop in a request that you’d like answered, even the simplest questions will be seen to.

In addition, the home page now features a rotating FAQ Questions & Answer, maybe it’ll be the answer you’re looking for. An RSS feed of FAQ questions will be available shortly… stay tuned.

Update: I’ve integrated the earlier Sony Ericsson P1i FAQ into the new Sony Ericsson P1i Forum, take a look!