Texting with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Phone

I have found out that since I acquired my new Sony Ericcsson Xperia phone, I have been doing a lot of texting, and this has nothing to do with the generous 500 texts the O2 network gives me, but the ease with which sending a SMS is on the Xperia.

Not only can I use the fully qwerty keyboard, but I can write my messages using the stylus with the inbuilt handwritting recognition software.

I'm loving my current Sony Ericsson mobile phone.

Sony Ericsson Phone Stylus

It is a just a little over one week since I got my new sony ericsson mobile phone, and I've misplaced the stylus for my SE Xperia smartphone.

I don't know if I'm out of the ordinary, but I find it difficult navigating the windows mobile 6.1 menus and user interface with my fingers and have to use the stylus alot in order to make proper use of the phone even though on the Sony Ericsson website the product videos show the 3 people using their fingers.

While I can do some basic things with the finger, I need the stylus to send text messages, enter calendar appoinments and navigate through contacts.

I've ordered a replacement 3 pack of HTC Touch Pro Stylus from amazon.co.uk, just in case I lose the only one that came in the box, as I don't think I will be able to cope without it. I guess this is where the fans of the iPhone will be smiling, in any case, I still love my Sony Ericsson Xperia.

My new Sony Ericsson Xperia mobile phone

My new Sony Ericsson Xperia mobile phone arrived this morning, and I'm so excited. I have to go to work now, so can't play with it yet, but I'm going to charge it up ready for when I return and can setup and configure Windows Mobile 6.1 on it.



The Sony Ericsson Xperia in it's royal mail next day delivery bag.


SE Xperia X1 in its packaging box.





The Xperia phone, battery and stylus all ready for action.

Sony Ericcson Xperia phone mistake?

Did I make a mistake in ordering the Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphone last week?

While I knew that the Xperia X1 only had Windows Mobile 6.1 installed on it, I had assumed that I would be able to upgrade to 6.5, but Sony Ericsson has officially announced that they have no plans for 6.5 in their road map, i guess this is because they are concentrating on the Xperia X2 which is due to be released any time now.

This should not be a major blow to me, as there are only 3 major functions that I really need my new Sony Ericsson phone to perform.

1. Make calls
2. Have a reasonable calendar I can sync with a PC
3. Ability to access internet for limited browsing and maybe pick up the ocassional email on the Sony Ericsson mobile phone.
4. Have a touch sensitive display screen.

The following functions are desirable, but not a show stopper

5. Wifi connectivity
6. Take photos for blogging and family purposes

All in all, I knew I wasn't getting the latest Sony Ericsson windows smartphone (they always inflate the prices of new devices anyway), don't mind windows 6.1 and wasn't willing to spend lots of money on a monthly contract.

My new phone arrives tomorrow, so only time will tell if I will love the Xperia X1 as I did my old faithful SE K750i.

By the way there is an un-official Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 windows 6.5 rom available on the internet for those geeks out there who really feel up to hacking their phones.

My first Sony ericsson mobile phone.

Ordered New Sony Ericsson Phone

I have just placed an order for a new mobile phone, it is the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 on the O2 network pay monthly contract (my first in amost 2 years, I've been on pay as you go), I just couldn't wait for the latest version the X2 to come out since neither the Carphone Warehouse or Phones 4U could give me a concrete release date, and moreover with my current usage, I might not be able to get it for free anyway.

My new Sony ericsson Xperia should be arriving in the next 2 days, and I'm very much looking forward to playing with this Windows based phone, and hope that version 6.5 is installed on it, otherwise I'll be looking at doing the upgrade as soon as possible.

I'll be posting videos, pictures and writing a few articles on the Sony Xperia once it arrives, will be setting up email on the phone, uploading my contacts, populating the calendar with my appoitments and getting my little laptop alternative mobile office all configured (WiFi and HSDPA) on the O2 network.

Sony Ericsson Xperia

My Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone has served me well over the years, and now it is time for me to get something new, not only because the SE-K750i is now old, and the 2MP cameraphone is quite old school, but my requirements of a mobile phone have also changed since I first bought it, and while it still takes excellent pictures for blogging purposes, I now need something that can act as a sort of office on the go, and that is where the Sony Ericsson Xperia phone comes in.

I am finding myself out and about a lot these days, and need a phone which will allow me to surf the internet, make notes and create documents, have touchscreen facilities, maybe even handwriting recognition, still take decent pictures for blogging and capturing impromtu family events, and the new Sony Xperia X1 or X2(when released) will fit that bill.
I'm not too much a fan of Windows Mobile 6.1 or 6.5, but for some reason I just love the way the Xperia looks, the sliding Arc qwerty keyboard, and the high definition lcd screen, so I'm saving my pennies to get one.

Sony Ericsson Satio, Xperia X1 or X2

Intitally, I had made up my mind while doing my research that I was going to get the xperia X1 instead of a C902 as a direct replacement of the K750i, but when the mobile working requirements came in, it changed to the X1 even though it was using the windows 6.1 as opposed to the symbian operating system, but while out at Brent cross shopping centre, I visited both the carphone warehouse and phones4U and they all had huge posters advertising Sony Ericsson's latest realease the 12MP Satio camera mobile phone, so for a brief moment, I was tempted to change to this new touchscreen device, but I think I will do some more searching on the internet and see if I can get an online store that has the SE Xperia X1 in stock, otherwise I might have to wait for the release of it's sibbling the X2.

Whatever the case I've made up my mind, that this Christmas, I will be having my new Sony Ericsson mobile phone to celebrate with, and the K750i will have to be recycled and not sent to a landfill even though the screen is partly broken.

Sony Ericsson K750i email setup

The Sony Ericsson K750i phone is not going to compete with a blackberry or Windows mobile cellphone, but if you need to ocassionally be able to check for an important email, what to send a quick text via email, photo or are into mobile blogging (MoBlog), then the SE K750i has an email client that should be able cope adequately with those tasks.

To setup email on your Sony Ericsson Phone, you need to make sure it has email functionality, a connection to a mobile phone/cell provider that supports internet access via GSM, GPRS or 3G and if possible it is best to use your phone providers support department to get the email configured and tested as they will know of the settings not only for the mobile phone, but also for their network.

Email Primer

To fully understand how the configuration of email on the Sony Ericsson phone is done, a quick and short 101 on electronic mail is in order.

For an email to be sent successfully from one electronic device (computer, cell phone, PDA) to the another, you need the following.

An email client (software installed on the sending electronic device), the email client composes, formats and encrypts message before passing it to the SMTP server via the mobile phone cellular onto the internet. The smtp server acts as a messenger and relays the message including any attachments to the email server of the intended recipient.
To sucessfully configure your Sony Ericsson's phone email client, you will therefore need the details of your cellular's network smtp server if they provide this service, otherwise you can pay a 3rd party (ISP) or if you have the technical knowledge, can use your own smtp server. Due to the increasing problem of spam, anyone providing a smtp server will either require you to send emails to the server from their network or ask you provide a username and password to authenticate in order to send messages.

Sending Email from a Sony Ericsson K750i phone using your Mobile Network

Once you have taken your cell phone out of the box, fully charged it up, inserted the SIM card, switched it on and can make phone calls you need to visit Sony Ericsson's phone setup page where you can get the settings sent directly to your phone. Other mobile phone manufactures have similar facilities, so visit their website and check their support section for details of how these can be sent to your particular individual phone.
With the appropriate settings sent to your phone, make sure you press the OK button when asked if you want to install the settings on your phone. You should now be able to follow the instructions in your mobile phone's manual to send a test email.

sony ericsson phone manual email settings

On the Sony Ericsson Phone, press the menu button, choose messaging (envelope), scroll down to email and press select.
In email scroll down to settings (quicker if you scroll up), press select, scroll to account settings, select, and add new account (you can call the name anything you like).
Select connect using, and choose your networks WAP setting (this GSM), Enhanced (this uses the GPRS network and is currently charged at 0.5p per Kb in the UK), or 3G if you have Web and Walk or other type of mobile data service.

Under Protocol leave as POP3, only change to IMAP4 if you know what it means.
Incoming Server Enter here the name of the mail server from which you will be downloading your mobile mail, this could be googlemail, hotmail or your home broadband's service. Don't use the server you use at home for normal email, unless you want to download these to your mobile phone (this could be very costly if you get a lot of email/spam or large attachments).
Incoming port Leave as 110.
Encryption Leave default non.
Mailbox Enter here the username as supplied by your ISP/Network provider.
Password As supplied with username.
Outgoing Server This is the smtp server that you will use to send outgoing mail. Due to spam issues, you will need to use either your private one or one supplied by an ISP that supports send after POP3 authentication. No other form of smtp authentication will work with the Sony Ericsson K750i, as the supplied software doesn't currently support smtp authentication. I use my own private smtp server installed at home connected to a broadband line.
Outgoing port This is normally 25, but I have changed it to a different number to prevent my private smtp server at home from being used as a spam relay.
Email Address Enter the email address you want all emails from your mobile phone to be sent from. If you want to see replies on your mobile, then this will be the address supplied by your ISP/Network provider as above (mailbox).
Download I have this set as Headers & Text since I don't get any emails sent to my mobile address. To reduce cost if you get a lot of emails on your mobile address, you can change to headers only, this will give you basic information like sender, date/time and subject.
From Name I set this to Sony Ericcson Mobile, you can put any name you want.
Signature You can put here any text you want added to the bottom of all emails sent, e.g. mobile phone number, text to indicate email was sent from mobile etc.
Copy Outgoing I have this sent to off, as I'm not sure what it does (copies of sent email are still left in sent emails folder).
Check Interval I have this off, but if you need to automatically check for emails, set to the required time interval (again be careful as this could run up a bill).

Once finished, select Done. You should now have configured a cellular data connection with the correct email settings. Press back button twice to return to the Email menu. Scroll to Write New where you can compose a test email and send. If everything works you should see the phone dial (WAP) or just connect, find the server and send the email.
If you have problems, double check the email settings, the important ones are incoming server, incoming port, mailbox, password, outgoing server, outgoing port. If the problem is you can receive but unable to send, then check outgoing settings, if you can send without receiving check incoming settings. If you get server not found, then either your GSM, GPRS or 3G cellular connections are not working or setup properly, or one of the settings are not correct, you can either get the settings resent to you mobile phone and try again or contact the support department.

I hope you enjoy using your Sony Ericsson mobile phone to send and check emails while out and about.

My first Sony Ericsson Phone

My current Sony Ericsson Phone is a black SE K750i model which I bought a couple of years ago. I know it is quite an old sony ericsson phone, but I love it, it has been a very faithful device and though I'm considering upgrading to either the 5MP SE C902 or maybe the 8MP C905, this phone has served me well, particulrly the in built 2MP camera has captured many pictures for me memories I might never have had if not for my K750i.

The reason I bought my Sony Ericsson K750i phone, was at the time 2MP camera phone was very good, and the SE K750i had some other additional features that were useful to me at the time and are still being used today. The calendar function which could be synchronised with Microsoft Outlook, including contacts, an inbuilt voice recorder which was a bit of an anti climax, because you couldn't export the recordings from the Sony Ericsson cell phone for achiving or use on another computer, a MP3 player that would allow me to listen to podcasts while out and about and on the go and finally the Sony Ericsson mobile phone had an email client that would allow me via internet wap to check on my emails at home or the office if need be while I was away from them.

Over the years that I've had the SE K750i, I've seen many new mobile phones launched into the market from the stables of Nokia, Samsung, LG and other manufacturers, but I've never really been tempted to upgrade because I've not seen the need to, and wanting a cheap mobile contract, I've just kept my faithful Sony Ericcson phone, however I think the time has now come for me to finally upgrade especially in the light of the popularity of the Cybershot camera phones, the new competition for the Apple stable with first the 2G and now the 3G iPhone, but I'm still going to stick with a Sony Ericsson model, though I've had to fight hard not to got for a Nokia N95 or N96 especially in light of my interest in church video production where I could use a small video phone device to prove a concept before arranging bigger crews and equipment.

I'm still going to keep my SE K750i cell phone as a souvenir, since it holds many memories for me, including some from my powered hang gliding adventure preparation, photos of my young children and pictures taken during my trip to Nigeria after a long absense. I will be sharing my views of my next Sony Ericsson Phone once it arrives, and I've had time to have a serious play with it, hopefully it will continue my love for this manufacturers products.

Disable Bluetooth on your Sony Ericsson Phone

You should disable bluetooth on your Sony Ericsson Mobile Phone when not being used to prevent your cell phone from being Bluejacked!

While Bluejacking your Sony Ericsson cannot usually harm your phone, it can be upsetting to the unwary individual who gets these unsolicited messages, even if they are only playing a prank. Bluetooth is useful for sending small files, contacts between phones and is very popular among young phone users for exchanging pictures and the latest mp3 downloads including ringtones, so if you are in a public place it is not un-usual to find a lot of phones including Sony Ericssons appear as visible devices to anyone doing a bluetooth scan.

There have been reports of people trying to crash strangers phones by sending malware via bluetooth, so you need to be aware of that as well, so if you have a Sony Ericsson phone, disable bluetooth once you finish using it rather than setting yourself invisible.