After two and a half years in Japan I am retiring my “sweets” AU phone and switching to a new P906i phone on the DoCoMo network. I am switching networks because my wife has been on DoCoMo for years and wanted me to switch so we could be on family plan where calls are free between family members. That is great for us, but also means I can talk to my wife’s immediate family for free, which means I have no good excuse not to talk to them – and talking to them in Japanese is a bit stressful.

Anyway, a week ago I decided to take the plunge and switch from AU to NTT. It took most of my Saturday afternoon last week, where I went to the AU shop, told them I want to move to NTT then picked up the number portability forms and went to the NTT shop. Canceling service was easy, they didn’t try any of the retention tactics that you get back in America. So that was nice.

When I first got my phone three years ago I just got the cheapest phone they had – a one yen deal with the basics (GPS was the most advanced feature it had.) For my new phone I wanted more features. The main thing I wanted was a GSM capable phone with the capability to work in America, Bluetooth, and the Electronic Wallet feature so I can put my commuter pass on the phone. That really limited selection down but there were one or two handsets that fit that criteria. I sprung for the 906i, a kind of bulky flip-open model with a beautiful screen and all those features. Actually I kind of want an iPhone but the software for those is still pretty bad (Japanese email is still really bad) and it doesn’t support the Electronic Wallet feature either (or 1-seg digital TV but I don’t really care about that.) Also, while Risa wants an iPhone, she isn’t willing to leave NTT for one.

The new phone has great hardware but the interface is atrocious. It is awful. I thought my AU phone was bad, but this one is worse. In my old phone to see my own profile I just pressed up. That was really convenient because I put my home phone number there, which I don’t have memorized. To see my profile on my new phone I need to press the menu button, then press 0, but that isn’t shown as an option. I actually had to read the manual to figure that out. Worse, my profile does not show my home phone number. I have to hit the “edit” command, and then my “extra” information pops up.

This phone has three types of email. Normal email, R messages and F messages. I do know the difference between these (I think F are Free messages from NTT) or even care really. Why the added complexity?

After almost every command, the phone requires acknowledgment. If you take a picture it throws up a box “I took a picture” and you have to press Ok. After sending an email “I sent an email”. I know! That is what I asked you to do! Don’t force me to click stuff unless there is a problem!

One of the main features I was interested in is bluetooth. It looks like the phone can only use BT for headphones though. I wanted to send files with BT, particularly pictures. I can use it to set up internet access though, which sounds useful.

The phone has at least three ways to wirelessly transfer data, none of which work for getting data into my Mac. It has a standard IR Port, the aforementioned Bluetooth, and also some mechanism used for RFID data transfer that can be used with some phones to transfer pictures or address book information. So far they are all useless to me.

The preference settings for the phone are insane. There are about 20 menus for main settings, each with 10 more settings, many of which have another menu of 10 or so. They provide a search function to find the setting you want. I have only scratched the surface there.

Typing in English is not possible. Well it is but there is no completion mechanism for English. My AU phone at least you provide you completions for the words you used before, but not this phone. There might be a setting for that, but it is just easier to write in Japanese.

You can set the phone to use English menus, but I don’t recommend it. The menus are more confusing in English than Japanese, and worse it defaults to the useless English input method in that mode, so I went back to Japanese pretty quickly.

The phone isn’t all bad though – it has a beautiful screen and the GPS navigation, a different program than my previous phone, is really nice. I think the Electronic Wallet will be really nice once I set it up, but I wasn’t able to transfer over my commuter pass on initial setup so I will have to see the JR People about that.

The camera is stupid crazy. It is 5MP which is just insane because the sensor is way too small for that. My old Cannon at 4MP takes much nicer pictures. I have reduced the size so maybe it will take nice 2MP pictures. A few of the pictures on my Flickr stream are from this phone now, and they seem pretty good.

I tried the 1-seg digital tuner and it works. That is probably the last time I will use that.

It is supposed to have nice games and stuff available for purchase, but I don’t think I will even bother. The web browser is also supposed to be nice so I think I will try to set up Mixi on it, but I do not anticipate using the web browser a lot: I just am not often in situations where I need to access the web and I don’t have a computer nearby.

Overall I like the phone a lot, but think the software and UI are just awful. It will work fine for what I need but falls very short of my expectations from looking at the specs. I could have gotten away with a $50 instead of this $400 monster, but at least the cost is broken out over the 2-year contract without any interest.