Doing Most by using Less – “Super-tuning” Sony Ericsson P1i, available around 80 dollars.

Hello, here it is me again, HX.

Today I want to share my voyage in the land of abounded UIQ3 and its best ever gadget in hand-held form factor manufactured, announced and released by Sony Ericsson. As I am very practical guy I have not found any real propose of those tons of Megahertz and RAM in todays SmartPhones. Android, huh? I bet only advantage yet is its Linux kernel. I will now put this article to show that there is only few things you are limited with this – P1i – Smartphone, even in Year 2011 ! So, here we go

Presenting – Sony Ericsson P1i : http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/support/phones/p1i?cc=gb&lc=en.

Phone that Puts together:

1. easy-to-use QWERTY from SE M600i ( a.k.a Messenger );
2. feature-full WLAN from SE P9xxi ;
3. life-style Entertainment from SE W960i ( a.k.a Walkman Extreme ).

Before I get my hands on this one, I used to have modded my SE K550i to the max ( incl. crossflash to W610i ) … then I moved to SE W950i and this is keypoint.

If you used to have SE W950i you will understand that it lacks some features that has P1i, which is:

1. RAM Amount, which is 128 MB. I am not more-is-better fanboy and still doubt that 512MB on Smatphone is very useful If you want to play Counter-Strike on phone, that is pretty weird … but you can do it anyway … it is just total nonsense.

2. WLAN functionality. What is Smartphone without capability to use Web and Connectivity for SMART purposes, like, VoIP with Fring ! Calling for free to your friends is kickass. So you are smart person – you use communication functionality for free.

3. Built-in / Pre-installed / Office platform. I have not tested all available Smartphone Office solutions, but still it is Must-Have for Smartphone Class Devices to have ( free ) built-in Office solution.

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Now we move to the most interesting part – the voyage with making SE P1i to the max.

We will need to visit these great sites:

1. http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/752052
2. http://www.aioboards.com/f78/index-uiq3-mods-14634/
3. http://sites.google.com/site/101swmail010/uiq3mods
4. http://www.agathosyne.de/forum/viewforum.php?f=8

Other interesting posts on various Internet resources:

1. http://www.hand-interactive.com/resources/setting-up-unlocked-phone.htm
2. Free VoIP ( Voice-over-IP ) Client for UIQ3 GUI based smartphones!

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* CapsSwitch 1.1.27.
Get it here: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/916525 or http://www.agathosyne.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5
Usage: Disables Symbian 9.1 application capabilities and accessing to Symbian OS files.
Notes: Intended to be used with SIS Signing Hack on http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/916525 or http://www.agathosyne.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8

* X-Plore 1.50 Free Edition
Get it here: http://www.imserba.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147417
Usage: Enables to do further phone customizations by accessing hiddend / protected Sybioan OS ( System ) files.
Notes: Intended to be used with CapsSwitch 1.1.27 Capabilities turned OFF.

* SE G900i QuickOffice, PDF+ and (Sticky) Notes back-ported applications.
Get it here: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/916525 or http://www.aioboards.com/f78/index-uiq3-mods-14634/
Usage: Upgrades pre-installed applications to latest available by UIQ3 GUI.
Notes: Requires CapsSwitch 1.1.27 and SIS Signing Hack.

* SE G900i ported Torch function.
Get it here: http://www.aioboards.com/f78/g900-torch-uiq3-phones-1019/
Usage: Previously known as “Light” in Menu of SE K550i, this enables to control LED flashlights.
Notes: Requires CapsSwitch 1.1.27.

* SE W960i ported Walkman 3.0 Music Player.
Get it here: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/916525 or http://www.aioboards.com/f78/index-uiq3-mods-14634/
Usage: Improves your musical experience with more tweaked and graphically enhanced Music Player and Manager.
Notes: Requires CapsSwitch 1.1.27 and X-Plore File Manager installed ( See Important Note #3 below ).

* Flash Plugin for UIQ3 phone Web browsers ( Opera products ).
Get it here: http://www.agathosyne.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3
Usage: Enables to view SWF files in Web, also has ability to view from Phones Storage by specifieng full path to file(s).
Notes: Requires CapsSwitch 1.1.27 and SIS Signing Hack.

* Sound Volume Increasing Mods.
Get it here:
** http://www.agathosyne.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30
** http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/916525
** http://www.aioboards.com/f78/index-uiq3-mods-14634/

The Archive containing all mentioned files: COMING SOON

If readers will request, I will extensively update article with Quotes about must-have patches and software for your SE P1i, but currently I will not do it as I have some coding to do for my own project – SEDev Patch Studio 1.2 RC4.

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So, here is important notes that might not be told within these two great links above:

1. If You have Hong Kong / Singapore CDA, change it to Generic World 1 or Generic World 2 in the first place!
2. If you do not change your CDA to Generic World 1 or Generic World 2, you will not not be able to manually download and isntall Language Packs for SE P1i ! Language Packs are used for:

3. Use X-Plore (
Free Edition ) v1.50 File Manager instead of Swiss Manager. Swiss Manager in AIOBorads forum has expired SIS certificate!
4. BE EXTREMLY CAREFUL when editing files within X-Plore File Manager.
Do original file backups in Memory Card if possible!

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The Result:

1. What We have achieved here is that we have Office Suite ( Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF ), that is very recent, so you will be available to do stuff that previously was advantage in Nokia N series phones ;
2. You got Walkman features within your non-Walkman Smartphone, still keeping all other goodies from original SE P1i;
3. You save some noticeable amount of money and still do all you want even if we compare it with those monster-phones having 512MB RAM, 1Ghz CPU, 3D HW Acceleration, All various types of WiFi. When I compared my P1i with Nokia N8 through http://www.GSMArena.com , I understood that for me, even as business people, I still WOULD NOT use even half of all those functionalities included in that “thing” called Nokia N8 …

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Remarks.

- I am practical guy. No intentions to discredit Nokia N8. If you want it and find it useful – go for it. It looks OK and should perform OK, too ( though rumours I get from my friend working in distributor shop also confirms that people are not so pleased with Nokia N8 ).

- I am not SE fan-boy. I find most of their products more useful for me, so I like them. But I DO NOT wear their logo in every part of my clothes, do not make tatoos with signs “I have sex with my SE phone” and so on…

- I like UIQ v3 by its ideology. That’s no fanatic attitude here, too.

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Some wishes that could be done to push it even further:

1. Light controlling functions for LED Flash like SE K550i has.
2. feature to launch “Capture” functionality in Business Card Scanner when “Camer” button is clicked on phones side.
3. PlayNow is not available anymore. Is there somebody willing to hack it?

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Update: Custom Firmwares for P1i by GytisP1i !

/ thanks for reading, HX /

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1. Customize Your Phone
2. SEDev Patch Studio
3. GDFS Backup
4. Flash S500 to W580
5. Creating Walkman 2 Skins Easily