Sony Ericsson K800i Review

I received this phone as a gift after my original phone the Nokie 6280 broke due to an overexposure to water vapour.

My first impressions of the cell phone were that it was more of a 'camera' then an actual phone. I still stand by this. Unbeknownst to me it was jam packed with features.

Design

Sony Ericsson's K800i is a sophisticated looking, but somewhat bulky, candy-bar shaped mobile phone. Its velvety matte black case isn't prone to smudges or scratches but we did find the large 2-inch screen prone to fingerprints. The general weight is approximately 115g which is a tad above the average of 95g.
The TFT display is sharp and bright with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels (QVGA).
The K800i possess' 5 way directional joystick control and has to sleek buttons at the top of the phone that control the cycling of pictures and bring up all your recent pictures in a slideshow form when pressed. With 3.2 megapixel cyber shot camera, this was the highest resolution bearing camera phone of 2006 in Australia.

Features

While the flagship of its features are it's 3.2 megapixel camera with an xenon flash it also includes a plethora of camera options ranging from the best pic (which takes 9 consecutive photos) to the ability to upload an image directly to blogger.com without the aid of a pc.

- The K800i has an excellent Web browser installed, Access NetFront, which resizes pages to fit the smaller format of the screen.

- Business features include an e-mail client and multitasking -- you can browse the Web while speaking to someone.

- Stereo Bluetooth allows you to stream music wirelessly to any device that supports A2DP.

Performance

- Transfers to a Bluetooth equipped laptop averaged about 55KB/s. With photos generally between 500KB and 1MB, each one takes around 15 seconds to transfer.

- The menu system was a bit too sluggish at times.

I found that if you do not lock the phone, buttons are prone to being pressed while in your pocket. There have been numerous times where I would go to check the time, and see 10 messages on my screen all saying different things.

PROS

* 3.2-megapixel camera with proper flash
* Large, sharp 262K colour display
* Integrated RSS reader and Web browser
* Image stabilisation to assist shooting
* Wide array of easy-to-use multimedia features
* 64MB internal memory stores around 100 photos

CONS

* Menu navigation can be sluggish
* Overexposed photos in bright conditions
* Bulkier than previous model
* Photo blogging with Blogger.com only
* No bundled memory card

OVERALL

A superb phone with plenty of features and a user friendly design. Minor issues with the bulk however if you don't care for that sort of thing, this phone is for you. With a brilliant 3.2 megapixel camera with professional flash, the cyber shot makes taking pictures a breeze.

My rating: 8/10
Cnet rating: 7.2/10