Sony Ericsson K800i Silver Reviews

The Sony Ericsson K800i, although released some time ago, still has its way of attracting users. Fortunately this is not through captivating looks alone. It could even be said that the K800i is downright ugly, but that is being particularly harsh. It certainly has a utilitarian style that is hard to fall in love with but it does have its own charms.

 

The front panel of the K800i (black version) has a glossy black finish that looks like brushed metal. Above the display on the upper part of the handset are two, small silver buttons that look almost ornamental. In fact they are soft keys used to provide a short cut to some photo browser functions. The left soft key takes you to the image you have captured most recently and the right hand soft key takes to the main photo browser page. The display dominates the front of the phone and thankfully it has the skills to justify this. It is a QVGA, TFT display that is surrounded by a mirror frame and it manages to kick out a decent picture even in direct sunlight. The menus appear to be colourful and bright photos are displayed in a good resolution.

The central joystick makes a return and although it is great at first it’s fair to say that over time it becomes harder and harder to navigate through menus. It is better than the joysticks present on previous models but not by much. Next to the joystick in the centre of the handset are four keys that fulfil various functions. The top left key is a confirmation key and the top right key has various context sensitive functions. The other keys provide a ‘back’ button and a cancel button. In addition to these you have the standard call and call end keys. The keypad itself has a decent backlight but is slightly fiddly to use due to its small buttons and odd sloping effect. You do get used to it but it does seem like a backwards step in design.

The central feature of the handset that will interest most users is the camera and thankfully it manages to live up to most expectations. Although it obviously can’t match the five megapixel handsets for raw power it is certainly still the best in its class. The addition of a Xenon flash means you can still capture images in troublesome lighting conditions. The onboard software is also incredibly easy to use with an almost dizzying array of effects and functions. Alongside standard digital camera mainstays such as red eye reduction and white balance the K800i has a function called ‘BestPic’. Essentially ‘BestPic’ takes the same shot several times so you can pick the best image out of eight shots. It’s a useful feature and something of a novelty.

The Sony Ericsson K800i media player is also worthy of mention. It is essentially the same player as you find in the Walkman handsets, albeit without the ‘MegaBass’ equalizer settings. Thanks to 3G compatibility you can also download music over the air should you get bored of your own tracks. The K800i also has upgradable memory thanks to the M2 memory card slot. This is useful as the K800i only 64MB of internal memory, which won’t hold a great deal of music or photos

Make	Sony Ericsson		GPRS
Model	K800i Silver		3G
Air Interface	GSM		HSDPA
Coverage (Band)	Tri		Wi-Fi
Handset Type	Standard		Bluetooth
Dimensions	47 x 105 x 22 mm		IrDA
Weight	115 g		USB
Talk time	Up to 7 hours		GPS
Standby time	Up to 350 hours		Push e-mail
Camera3.2MP			Predictive Text
Camera FlashXenon			MMS
Video Cameraas QCIF			E-mail
Audio PlayerMP4, AAC, MP3			Memory CardM2
FM Radio			Java
RingtonesPolyphonic, MP3			BrowserHTML, WAP 2.0/XHTML
Headphone Jack			Organiser
GamesDownloadable			Touchscreen
Internal Memory			Vibrate
Video Calling