GmailFS on Symbian? Questions about the Sony P1i

[okalyddude]

Hi, I'm strongly considering getting a Sony P1i smartphone, as I was drawn to its stability and functionality over the Nokia n95 and n60 series, even though a few have better cameras.

I'm going to be using it heavily for music and internet, using only wifi to access this (i'll get it unlocked and buy sim cards for travel)

I'm going to host a large amount of files (music and videos) from a host server my friend is willing to host for us. I'll be half-way around the world, though, and fear that with limited WiFi connectivity time, I won't want to have to sit and cache up all the files I want. I'll have a 4gb card (they do support these yes? will they support bigger when bigger is out) So what I'll do is load up the music and videos I want then swap them out at a wifi hotspot for the new stuff I want.

A few questions about the general usage I'm going for:

1-reccomendations - Anyone using this device for music, photos, etc, in this fashion? Is the sound quality good etc. I'm probably gonna buy it anyway, but opinions are good.

2-streaming vs caching. If I use an orb style streaming program, I can access it streaming from wifi, and that might be fine for music at the moment, but for loading up all the media i want to swap, might be too slow. Are there any possibilities such as GmailFS to cache up a gig or two of media at a time to a server in order to access it using Symbian, possibly swap media out etc. (for free, i know i can pay for a server in Europe or closer to where I'm going to be)

Also - short caching - When loading up bigger files for streaming, will it simply be able to to short cache the song / video up to where it needs to be then stream?



3-GPS - this device comes gps enabled - does that mean that I'll have access to the GPS functionality without a data plan, simply using the triangulation of my signals? Same with maps, will I be able to have a map program that is on my computer rather than simply using the internet?

4-Games etc - Nes emulator, snes emulator, what exactly is this thing capable of?

5-Hacking / programming - how easy is it to program, and how much is this expected to expand dramatically over the years? I'm looking for a device I can expect to hold on to for years and years as basically an mp3 player, camera, laptop, and phone that I'll be content with the abilities of.

6- Flash - It comes loaded with flash? Does this mean tv-links.co.uk will work on this site? If so I'm sold!

Thanks in advance!

[Anotherguest]

Checkout www.my-symbian.com or www.allaboutsymbian.com for device recommendation. For playing ScummVM the P1i is better! (more memory free and touch screen)

[Noelemahc]

4-Games etc - Nes emulator, snes emulator, what exactly is this thing capable of?

5-Hacking / programming - how easy is it to program, and how much is this expected to expand dramatically over the years? I'm looking for a device I can expect to hold on to for years and years as basically an mp3 player, camera, laptop, and phone that I'll be content with the abilities of.

Assuming that nothing changes in the foreseeable future, the P1i will posess the skeleton-level software base the previous UIQ3 phones have to suffer with (I have a W950i myself, and the freeware area is insanely weak, while the shareware stuff somehow tends to gravitate into the wrong direction) and there will be no major expansions to this base, unless another gifted programmer (like AnotherGuest here, or a few other guys across the planet) buys the thing and decides to work on it.

This all means a nigh-flawless Sega Genesis/MegaDrive emulator, NO emulation of the SNES whatsoever, several (crappy) JAVA-based NES emus (all soundless), a ported-from-non-UIQ-phones-and-therefore-buggy-but-still-the-only-there-is GBA emulator (nonetheless, seeing how fast my W950i runs it (90-95% all the time), I suppose it will behave even better on the P1i; if you're patient enough, you'll be able to get GB/GBC and NES emulation via that - WITH SOUND, hurrah!) and ScummVM. Oh, wait, there's also a Sinclair Z80 emulator, IIRC, but I never was a fan of that particular platform.

Then there's also support for the mainstream audio formats (don't expect fancyful stuff like DOS RAW or S3M), support for most video formats (there are third-party programs for AVI/MPEG4 playback, plus quite a few progs that can put stuff into the 3GP format it natively supports and which is smaller in filesize), etc., etc.

I'll have a 4gb card (they do support these yes? will they support bigger when bigger is out)

It SHOULD support all existing memory cards (remember, it's the internals of the card that affect the size, the interface the phone sees is always the same) as well as the new ones, so I think your getting a 4GB one will be more of a price question rather than compatibility.

The rest I won't be able to tell you about, seeing as I've got a previous-generation phone and since the P1i is still too new and unstudied.