release date: October 2007

CONTENTS

1. Review
2. Features
3. Prices
4. Similar Phones
5. Useful Links
6. Sony Ericsson Phones

RATING

SUMMARY

Top-notch 5 MP Cybershot camera phone with 3G, HSDPA, 4 GB memory card support. The K850i has a unique keypad design.

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Review

The Sony Ericsson K850i is successor to the Sony Ericsson K810i Cyber-shot camera phone. The K850i looks a little bulky, bit it is in fact 4 mm shorter than the Sony Ericsson K810i, with identical width and depth measurements as the K810i.

Design

The K850i has several unique design features. First up - the K850i keypad. The 4-way navigation key (rectangular) surrounds the 2 and 5 keys. A little cramped / fiddly perhaps. The keypad does look groovy when illuminated.

3 touch-sensitive keys are at the bottom of the screen - the 3 marks indicate their positions. As with a lot of other touch-sensitive devices, the touch-sensitive keys don't always act as you would like them to. The touch-sensitive keys are responsive.

We've seen friends do this - tap a touch-sensitive key, then press it again to make another selection - and nothing happens. The problem - the finger is still resting on the key. Remove pressure, then press again.

The 4 keys above the number keypad are a little cramped together - just as it was for the K810i. Sony Ericsson have increased the K850i screen size to 2.2-inches - yet the K850i's height is 4 mm shorter than the K810's.

The number keys are small and well-spaced. There's no danger of pressing the wrong number. Using the keypad was fine. Texting was fine too - speed improves with practice.

The keys above the keypad to the left and right - call, end call, activity menu and clear key - are all a little small.

Nifty battery cover: Just like a digital camera - flip open the bottom of the K850i to get to the battery compartment. Slide in a SIM card, the battery and a memory card. The K850i supports both microSD and Memory Stick Micro (M2) memory cards - one hot-swappable slot. Good.

Grubby-tastic: The K850i quickly gets grubby-looking. The shiny plastic shows fingerprints, grime and smudges quite brilliantly. In between the number keypad is another fingerprint-laden zone. There's little point cleaning the K850i - it'll get grubby-looking mighty quick soon after.

K850i - Look's like a camera: Yes, the K850i camera phone looks like a camera when looking at the back of it.

Features

5 MP camera: Onto the K850i's key feature - the 5 megapixel camera. Features include: autofocus, Xenon flash, LED photo light, self-timer, shoot mode, scenes, macro mode, picture size, Photo fix, ISO setting, metering mode, picture quality, AF light, QVGA 30 fps video capture, BestPic (9 shots in quick succession), 16x digital zoom and white balance. The Sony K850i has image and video stabilizers. 5 MP gives you 2592 x 1944 pixels.

The right side of the K850i features all the hardware keys for camera control. Zoom button (16x digital zoom) - there's no optical zoom on the Sony Ericsson K850i.

There's a camera mode switch (just like you find on dedicated digital cameras) - switch between camera, video capture and' view' modes. To the right of that is the camera button and a camera on/off button.

Automatic lens cover: Turn the camera on, and the lens cover opens automatically. Bizarrely, a layer of clear plastic sits in front of the lens cover - a cover for the lens cover. This can add an unnecessary step to your photo-shooting - checking and/or cleaning the clear plastic to remove fingerprints and smudges.

K850i camera image quality: How does the K850i camera compare with other high-end camera phones such as the Nokia N95 camera, the Sony Ericsson K810i, Samsung G600, Samsung G800, LG Viewty and others?

Nokia N95 vs K850i vs K810i camera: The K810i and K850i have similar image quality. There's very little to choose between them. The Nokia N95 image processor does seem to produce deeper colours. The K850i's colours are perhaps more realistic.

Both N95 and K810i photos look good. Nokia N95 better than K850i camera? Some photos look better on the Nokia N95, others look better on the K850i. Which is best? Depends on the light conditions, and how you want the end photo to look.

Neither of them match up to a decent dedicated digital camera. Toss a coin - both are fine. The K850i probably wins overall - Xenon flash and an LED light (used to assist in getting auto-focus). The camera hardware keys on the right side of the phone are also a bonus.

Tweak the settings: Modify the camera settings to get different results. Use the scenes, change the ISO settings (100, 200 or 400), change metering mode, use the flash. The images are good quality for a camera phone.

Taking photos: Hold the camera horizontally. Be sure you don't cover the Xenon flash and LED light with your fingers when taking a photo. Hold the K850i at the sides (like a point-and-shoot camera) when taking photos.

Low-light camera performance: Good. Xenon flash can give good results in low light. The LED light is used to help assist getting auto focus.

Camera interface: Good. Nice and simple. The top (right) side of keys light up highlighting camera shortcuts.

Video capture: OK. 320 x 240 (QVGA) video capture at 30 frames per second (fps).

Audio Quality

Call Quality: Fine. Loud enough and clear.

Speaker quality: Fine. Loud enough.

Stereo earphones: OK. There's no 3.5 mm jack (boo ... hiss). You'll need a Sony Ericsson 3.5 mm audio jack adapter to plug in your own headphones - these are very cheap.

Fast Internet Access

The K850i has EDGE, 3G and HSDPA (3.5G) - Web pages download pretty quickly over 3G and HSDPA.

NetFront Web browser: Internet browsing is OK for a 2.2-inch screen. Browsing the Web on a small screen with no touchscreen is never going to be great - having to scroll through the links is slow. Supports WAP and HTML pages.

Compared to the Apple iPhone, Web browsing usability is far behind. URL entry is slow in comparison because there's no QWERTY keyboard.

Messaging

SMS, MMS and Push Email. The K850i has T9 predictive text - text entry can be quite fast, with practice. 'Push Email' - email messages are sent directly to your phone as soon as they arrive.

Media players

All decent. Media player - music and video, FM radio with RDS - connect the handsfree to the K850i. Bluetooth stero headset support (A2DP), trackID and PlayNow services and Mega Bass.

Other features:

The K850i has an accelerometer - just like the Apple iPhone and other Sony Ericsson phones such as the W580i. Switch from portrait to landscape mode by rotating the phone.

Video calling: There's a front-facing VGA (640 x 480) camera for video calling. We didn't test this out, but it should work fine.

Games: Marble Madness 3D (tilt the phone to make the marble move) and Tennis Multiplay. The games you get can vary between mobile networks.

Battery life: Pretty good. Sony Ericsson state 9 hours talk time and 400 hours standby time.

Summary

The Sony Ericsson K850i is available for FREE on pay-monthly contract. Available with cash back, half-price line rental deals and free gifts (Nintendo Wii, PS3, iPod Touch).

At launch, K850i SIM-free price - £320. Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) price: approx. £300.

Sony Ericsson Phones

  =   coming soon

• c702
• c902
• c905  
• k530i
• k610i
• k750i
• k770i
• k810i
• k850i
• m600i
• p1i
• s500i
• t280i
• t303  
• t650i
• v640i
• w200i
• w350i
• w580i
• w660i
• w850i
• w880i
• w890i
• w910i
• w950i
• w960i
• w980  
• xperia x1  

Prices

Prices coming soon.

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TAGS: 3g, hsdpa, 5.0 MP camera, bar phones

Useful Links

Official Site:	Sony Ericsson K850i
Try The Phone:	Try the K850i
YouTube Videos:	Sony Ericsson K850i Videos
Images:	Sony Ericsson K850i Images

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