Mobile Web browsing via WLAN: Sony Ericsson G900 shows the way

First, the basics. The new Sony Ericsson G900 is a smartphone with a 2.4-inch LCD screen, five-megapixel camera, a phone memory of up to 160MB fitted with a Microstick Micro (M2) support up to 4GB.

This camera phone weighs about 99 grams and measures approximately 106 x 49 x 13 mm. It has a sound and video recorder, media player, FM radio, Bluetooth, USB support and PC synchronization feature.

It also features 3D games, video calling and streaming, TrackID, instant messaging, e-mail, RSS feeds and an Opera Web browser. It runs on Symbian OS.

The G900 is big on imaging and music as it incorporated the best of Sony Ericsson’s trademark brands Cyber-shot and Walkman. Its five-megapixel camera has 16x digital zoom, image stabilizer, red eye reduction, and photofix feature and supports picture blogging.

On the other hand, its media player features the MegaBass speakers, and TrackID, two things that always differentiate the music playback experience on a Sony Ericsson phone.

It is, however, in the area of Web browsing and connectivity that the G900 differentiates itself from the other Sony Ericsson devices already in the market.

Mobile Internet connectivity has been around for some time but most phone users, except for those whose work really requires them to connect to the Internet as a matter of daily survival, have skipped this feature altogether for several reasons.

First, it is not that easy to configure. Even with detailed instructions on the manual, it is always a struggle to set up and there is always the laptop or the netbook as alternative devices for Web browsing.

Second, once you connect your mobile to the Internet, data transfer rates apply and even on promo and greatly marked down rates, the bill is still running every time it runs.

Third, even on so-called 3G speed, it is never fast enough to approximate broadband speed that most users are now accustomed to.

Sony Ericsson has found a way to circumvent this Internet connectivity limitation by enabling the G900 to connect to the Internet via wireless local-area network (WLAN).

WLAN, according to Webopedia, is simply “a type of local area network that uses high-frequency radio waves rather than wires to communicate between nodes.”

In a home network for example, devices such as laptops, netbooks, desktops, PDAs, printers and devices owned by all members of the family are connected to each other and to a broadband connection without wires. This means that one can browse the Web using any device enrolled in the network in the kitchen, bedroom, living room or the garden, or anywhere within the range of a Wi-Fi signal.

This works the same way for office or public WLANs. In an office, computers and devices used by employees can connect wirelessly to the Internet, provided they are enrolled in this service and authorized to use it during office hours.

In public places, most cafés are now Wi-Fi hot spots though not all are offering the service for free. The WLAN function of the G900 enables it to access the Internet whenever it is in the range of a WLAN network.

One advantage of this is that it uses the resources of the broadband connection — which means that it runs on full broadband speed — and it is free. This, to a large extent, has eliminated the major limitations of mobile Web browsing as far as speed and rates are concerned.

On the G900, what was it like to browse the Web on broadband speed?

Fun at Dchoc House café

One of the games available on the G900 is Sudoku, courtesy of the Dchoc House café, a website that brings the café concept to mobile devices. In this online community of mobile gamers, one can play Sudoku alone or choose to meet, talk to, play and compete with friends.

As in most online communities, one is required to create a character to represent the player called a “Café Toon,” join an existing café or create another café and invite friends to come over and play online.

If the G900 is not connected to the Internet, one can still play Sudoku and negotiate its four difficulty levels — easy, hard, very hard, evil. Every time one finishes a game, he is rewarded with accessories for the character.

This reviewer, for example, is Katherine11 with 613 points to her name. She was wearing a trucker cap, a baby blouse, a long skirt and suede boots. On the first game — an easy one — she earned enough points to win a cardigan.

Player Katherine11 was looking at the rewards list with envy — it would be nice to have a blonde bob cut hairstyle for a change, to wear a guerrilla cap and sport a tank top with matching cargo shorts and long boots. But the way to a change in hairstyle and wardrobe requires points — lots of it — and that means a night or a whole day of gaming.

In another game — another easy one — Katherine11 scored 130 points, but just enough for a switch to that dream blonde bob cut hairstyle and a pair of beaded sandals. Still a long way to the tank top and suede boots but that is the seduction of games. One gets hooked and proceeds.

The advantage of going online is that the character can enter existing cafés and “talk” to other players. By “talk” it means engaging another café toon character in a question and answer game.

“Do you dream a lot? Do I own a game console? Have I tried bungee jumping? Do I have kids?” Answer three questions right and your “new friend” turns you over to another gamer.

“You got three answers right, I don’t have any more questions for us to play with, why don’t you try talking to someone else?” Answer 30 questions right and you earn 30 points, enough to win an “ambassador of friendship” trophy.

Once you join a café, all the points you earn playing Sudoku will be added up to the café’s overall points. The more players, the higher the score for the café. The best café so far in the house has already raked in 6.7 million points.

Playing on Marc19’s cafe, player Katherine11 is again eyeing the scoreboard with envy. With one easy Sudoku puzzle solved earning only over a hundred points, one couldn’t be a Sudoku champion. The 500,000-point requirement is way too stiff. But one can always be an “ambassador of friendship” by just talking to all the nice guys around — yes, even those guys sporting midnight blazers, bermuda shorts and polar beanie caps.

This, of course, was made possible by a high-speed WLAN connection. A slower Internet connectivity on regular data transfer rates interrupts the gaming and café experience by slowdowns.

Blogs, browsers, bigger screen

Like most Sony Ericsson phones, the five-megapixel camera with video recording capability of the G900 is very handy in taking snapshots of everyday oddities. It is however more fun to be able to send it directly to a mobile blog without having to download the picture in a laptop, connect to the Internet and finally to the blogsite. By cutting down on sending time drastically, a blog is easier to maintain, as it need not wait for tomorrow or the next available free time to update its content.

One can also view the blog entry right away. Thanks to the Opera browser that allows tab browsing on a diminutive screen phone. This means that one can run two or three websites side by side without compromising speed. So a blogsite, an instant messenger, a news site be running simultaneously. One can view the blog, while the RSS feed of a news site is being updated and the IM idle.

To solve the problem of a tiny screen — although the G900 already has a 2.4-inch LCD screen which is bigger than most standard phones — users can surf the Web on landscape view. This gives users a bigger view of the website and much more room for navigation.