As a background, I never owned a pda-phone combo before, I always used standalone PDA's and my last one was a TX. My requirements was simple, I wanted to be able to surf the internet anywhere in my house without having to turn on my laptop. Hence, I needed a PDA with wifi, I could careless about 3G, GPRS, EDGE, etc. I also wanted a smartphone that will not break the bank, my budget was around $300 only (brand new or used). After much scouting, I was able to find a brand new (with 1 year warranty) SE P990i for $300. I'm surprised how much it was now because I still saw some shops offering it at $450 above. After using it for a little less than 2 weeks, I thought I'd share my experience with it and maybe encourage a few of you to buy it too. Again, I never owned a treo so I'm comparing it on my TX.
Hardware
The P990i is solidly built, it feels firm and sturdy. I am a little bit worried about the flip and how many "flips" it was designed to do. In any case, with utmost care, it should last a very long time. My TX was also quite sturdy, but there were always issues with the power button (just read the other forums). Otherwise, I think they are both built quite well. The size of the P990i is a bit thick, however, it is thinner than my TX (smaller screen). However, it seems to be easier to hold because you can wrap your whole hand around the sides. Unlike the thick TX, which I found to be a little bit difficult to hold.
Advantage P990i
Softwares
I'll start with the PIM. Hands down, Palm OS wins! It's a pain to navigate through the calendar, task and notes of P990i. There are no categories and it takes several taps to do what one or two taps in Palm. One particular issue is the task software of P990i, there are no repeating tasks and you cannot check it off without "editing" the item. Games Again, I can only find a handful of good games for the P990i whereas Palm will have thousands of games. However, because the P990i has a dedicated graphics chip (I read it in a review somewhere), the 3D games are awesome (just take a look at the built-in vijay singh golf, amazing!) But then again, the lack of games are disappointing. Other Business Applications I use excel on my TX a lot and I was happy to find that P990i has its own version of docstogo and quickoffice (built-in). I use quickoffice now because it is built in to my P990i. There is mobipocket reader and the newly released iSilo UIQ3 version for you to read ebooks. Finally, although Palm has more applications, the essentials are there too for the P990i.
Advantage slight edge to TX
Connectivity
What can I say, wifi, bluetooth, USB transfer, IR and a phone, for 16k pesos only. Try to find a better bargain!. Plus, it just works, I haven't had any crashes, hang-ups or anything. Opera mini for the P990i also works so much better than on my TX. The messaging application is also much better (though no threaded SMS). Even a treo (no wifi) cannot compete with the P990i
Advantage BIG BIG edge to P990i
Finally, some last words, the only advantage that I see from Palm is the huge amount of software options. However, if you only use the essentials, the P990i will work for you (like it does for me). Also, SE is slowly flooding the market with UIQ3 phones and I think developers will soon follow and start developing more apps and games for the UIQ3 OS. In the end, I think we will see more and more new softwares for the P990i.
There you go, I am in love with my P990i and I think, only a wifi enabled Palm OS treo (not a wifi card solution but a built in wifi) will ever sway me back to my beloved Palm OS. Even then, I'm still wary of all the issue with Palm's implementation of NVFS, my TX used to crash every day and sometimes, it won't boot up and I have to hard reset. Until Palm fixes that, I'm sticking with my P990i.