Sony Ericsson K770i

release date: October 2007

colours:

truffle brown

sandy beige

ultra violet

henna bronze

soft black

Review
Features
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RATING

Pros

3.2 megapixel camera
Lots of features
Thin and stylish
Battery life

Cons

Small phone memory
No Xenon flash
Low res. video capture

SUMMARY

Mid-range 3.2 megapixel candybar camera phone. Thin, stylish and lots of features. Good choice for those not wanting to splash out on a top-of-the-range camera phone.

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Review

The Sony Ericsson K770i Cyber-Shot phone is thin, stylish 3G bar phone with 3.2 MP camera. Available in 3 funky colours - truffle brown, sandy beige, ultra violet, the K770i is an excellent choice for those looking for a slim full-featured camera phone at a cheaper price than the top-end camera phones.

Design

The K770i is thin (just 14.5 mm) and it weighs 95 g - reasonably light. It fits snugly into the hand. There's a good quality 1.9-inch screen. Not as large as the 2.2-inch K850i screen or the 2.0-inch K810i screen.

Keypad: The keys are nice and wide and easy to press. There's vertical spacing between the keys, and a small horizontal space between the key columns. The 1st and 3rd key columns have camera shortcut icons - these light up blue when in camera mode. Looks good. The keys have white backlighting - a little uneven, but good enough.

Navigation keys: Above the good keypad is the navigation key, selection keys, activity key, Internet key, back and cancel keys. They're are a decent-enough size and easy-to-use.

Back cover: Slide the battery cover clasp at the top of the K770i to remove the battery cover. The whole of the back cover is removed. Underneath the back cover is the battery, SIM card slot and M2 memory card slot.

M2 memory card slot: Sits below the battery and is hot-swappable - no need to remove the battery to change memory cards. The K770i supports up to 2 GB M2 cards - not a massive amount, but likely good enough for most people. A 256 MB should be in the box when you buy the K770i.

Back of the K770i: There's the 3.2 MP camera, horizontal-sliding lens cover, mirror and the loudspeaker. The camera and photo light are recessed into the K770i's body. The lens cover is flush with the back surface. The lens cover is stiff enough to not open up easily in a bag or pocket.

The bottom of the K770i features the wrist strap eyelet and microphone. The on / off button is on the top, and the right-side of the phone features the volume keys and a dedicated camera key. All keys are easy to press. The connector is on the left side of the phone. Connect the charger, handsfree and USB cable.

Features

3.2 Megapixel Camera

The K770i has the same camera interface as many of the other K-series phones. Slide the lens cover open to activate camera mode. Blue LEDs light up on the back of the phone when switching to camera mode (the 2 lines mid-way up the back of the phone). Nice effect.

Options include: Panorama, night mode, self-timer, auto focus, macro mode, frames, exposure compensation, 3x digital zoom, photo light, image quality, image size, effects, white balance, bursts, scenes, shutter sounds.

K770i Camera

As with other Cyber-Shot phones, keypad camera shortcuts can be used. Camera icons on the left and right keypad columns light-up.

LED light: The K770i has a photo light. Use it as a torch or as a flash. It's not as good as a more power-hungry Xenon flash, which you find on the K850i. Shots in low-light won't look great.

Image quality: The K770i optics aren't as good as more expensive K-series phones - the K770i is a lot cheaper than the K850i. Image quality isn't on-par with the top-end camera phones - photos seem a little dark, but most people should be happy enough with the image quality.

Photo tips: Take photos in good light and keep your hands steady when taking the photo.

Mobiles are photo-capable, not photo-dedicated devices - we'll repeat the the frequently-given advice - buy a dedicated digital camera if you want super quality.

3.2 megapixels gives you prints 2048 x 1536 pixels. Print decent-quality pictures up to A4 size (297 mm x 210 mm).

K770i Camera

Browse photos and videos in the camera album - view files in list view, timeline view, 3 x 3 thumbnails or 3 x 5 thumbnails view.

Video call camera: There's a front-facing VGA camera for video calling.

Video capture: Capture video at just QCIF resolution - 176 x 144, or 128 x 96. Not very good.

Music Player

Walkman Player 1 software. All the usual viewing options - artists, genres, tracks, playlists. The included earphones are fine. Speaker volume is loud enough (subjective opinion). Buy an adapter and you can plug in your own earphones.

The K770i has TrackID (identify music) and PlayNow (download media online) services.

Web browsing

1.9-inch screen - never great for browsing. You could buy a PDA or a mobile phone with a large screen if you want to regularly browse the Web on your phone.

The NetFront Web browser is OK. History, bookmarks, landscape mode, page up/down, forward/back, zoom and RSS reader. There's no QWERTY - entering URLs is slow. 3G download speeds are good. 3G lets you talk on the phone at the same time as you use the Web. Nice.

Other Features

FM radio with RDS: Simple stuff. Insert the handsfree. Radio Data Systems (RDS) is a sub-frequency of FM radio. RDS allows text to be displayed. Song and artist names, time, travel bulletins, programme outline and other stuff. Works well.

Games: FotoQuestFishing and Solitaire 4 Pack. Network-branded phones could have additional or other K770i games.

Battery Life: Sony Ericsson state 10 hours 2G talk time - that's quite impressive. We didn't use the phone for 10 hours of talking, so we can't comment on its accuracy. 3G talk time is a lot less - 2 hours 35 minutes.

VideoDJ, MusicDJ, FaceWarp, Themes (change the themes), ringtones, video player (QVGA, 30 fps playback), Blueooth 2.0 (lots of profiles, including A2DP - listen to music using bluetooth headset), USB mass storage, PIM tools (alarm, calendar, timer, stopwatch, calculator, code memo), voice recording and voice dialling, T9 predictive text, SMS, MMS and Email.

Summary

The Sony Ericsson K770i is an excellent mid-range phone. On release, it's available at approx. £210 SIM-free, £100+ cheaper than a SIM-free K850i. The K770i is also available for free on contract.

The K770i is very suitable for those not wanting to spend an extra £100 on a top-end camera phone. It could be a better choice to buy the K770i and spend £100 on a dedicated digital camera (or a gigantic tub of ice cream).

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Features / Specifications

* confirm features at manufacturer's Web site.

Release Date

October 2007

Size

105.0 x 47.0 x 14.0 mm
4.1 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches

Weight

95 g
3.4 oz

Colours

truffle brown

sandy beige

ultra violet

henna bronze

soft black

Screen

1.9-inch TFT
240x320 pixels
262144 colours

Memory

16 MB phone memory
m2 memory card (2 GB max)

Networks

Tri-band (GSM 900, 1800 and 1900 Mhz)
3G (UMTS 2100 Mhz)

Battery Life

Talk time: 10 hours
Standby time: 400 hours
3G talk time: 3.5 hours

In The Box

Sony Ericsson K770i, battery, charger, earphones, 256 MB memory card, USB cable, user guide.

Connectivity

Bluetooth 2.0
USB 2.0
Video calling

Camera

3.2 MP Camera
features: Panorama, night mode, self-timer, auto focus, macro mode, frames, exposure compensation, 3x digital zoom, photo light, image quality, image size, effects, white balance, bursts, scenes, shutter sounds
QCIF video resolution
15 FPS video capture
0.3 MP front camera