Last night I watched the movie "Vantage Point" on DVD. It's utterly horrible and not worth your time. Seriously. My brain kept itself occupied during the gimmicky, redundant plot and cheesy acting and directing by noticing the use of several Sony Ericsson cell phones during the course of the story.
First off, one of the bad guys (actually, it was a bad girl) used an SE w810 to show some video footage of a hostage in order to manipulate someone into doing something evil. I'll leave it at that, plot-wise, but I was (as always) struck at how video on the phone looked absolutely nothing like video actually looks when you watch it on a phone - or any other handheld, for that matter. The video footage was clearly superimposed onto the w810's display via post-production editing techniques. I know, I know, it's a movie so who cares? I can't help myself. I was also struck by how cool the w810 still looks - I love that black and orange color scheme. I myself had a w800i a few years ago, and at the time it was one of the coolest, most advanced feature phones around.
Next up the Head Bad Guy wields a P990 to orchestrate basically the entirety of his evil plot. The P990 fires remote-controlled guns, detonates remote-controlled bombs, and (if memory serves - I'm trying to block the entire movie out) steals the Secret Service's two-way radio frequency. Again, the P990's UI looks absolutely nothing like any P990 I've ever seen (I owned one for a short time a few years back). That's to be expected. The thing that got me? There's no way a P990 could have pulled that stuff off.
That phone, as capable as it was, was notoriously slow. If anyone had actually tried to command a nefarious plot with that thing, they would have wound up in custody faster than you can say "UI lag." Triggering time-sensitive events with a P990? Not a good idea, no matter how customized and souped-up your personal handset may be. You'd be much better off running your nefarious ops with an HTC Windows Mobile device or Apple iPhone. And the next time you're looking to rent a movie? You'd be much better off staying away from Vantage Point, whether you care about the role of cell phones in your films or not.
