Expect to read lots of baby/toddler/children orientated reviews! lol
Expect to read lots of baby/toddler/children orientated reviews! lol
Member since:10.01.2005
Reviews:13
Members who trust:4
He he he he......... I can't believe I'm attempting to write a review on a mobile phone and keep my ciao cred!
Listen....I'm not too clued up on all the little extra's today's technology has to offer...when I purchase a mobile phone (or anything else) my choice is normally swayed by looks alone!
My hubby and I have been with the Virgin mobile PAYG network for a few years now and wanted to upgrade our 'shabby' old phones for something a little shineyer!
We popped on down to the store and to be honest there was'nt really a great choice and the K500i looked liked the better phone. I believe we paid about £140 each about a year ago.
In the box we got a nice looking hands free kit,the charger,battery,manuals etc etc.....we did'nt have new sims as we already use Virgin....instead we got £10 off the marked price.
So silly me......I buy a phone I know nothing yet about but the fact that it "looks nice"!
~~~SO HOW DOES IT "LOOK NICE"?~~~
Unlike the picture supplied here on ciao for the K500i our mobs are all silver (not blue).I dont think I have ever seen a blue one before now and was quite confused as to weather or not I was writing in the correct topic.....kinda threw me...lol.
Anyway....silver....it has a high shine silver surround to the large 4cmx3cm colour screen (I'm sure there is a more tech lingo for this but I just used my girls 'bratz' ruler!) and the rest is of a more plastic
looking grephite silver/grey with dark grey sides and the same graphite silver/grey to the back.
The camera lens is situated at the back of the phone in £2 coin sized circle with a small silver 'mirror' and has a slideable cover to cover the lens up to protect from damage...for your info it has the words --VGA 4.1mm 1:2.8---???? (may make sense to you!)
Also located on the back is the large speaker and the words 'sony ericsson' indented with that green/grey sony ericsson logo thingy sticking out!
Along the left side you have the quick camera key and the volume control buttons.
~~~SO FOR THE SHORTLIST OF FEATURES~~~
Built in camera Fast 3-D gaming Media player Picture messaging
21 ringtones Create your own Polyphonic ringtones Downloadable ones
3 games~~tennis~~darts~~~fighters (we also got a splinter cell demo wth ours) Downloadable games
Predictive texting (dont they all??!!) Multimedia Messaging service (MMS) Silent vibrate colour screen Animated screensavers WAP GPRS ready Clock & Alarm Calender Calculator Built in modem Infrared port
Standby time up to 300 hours Talk time up to 420 mins Recharge time up to 90 mins Battery type 700 Li-Polymer Weight 80g Band Triband Up to 710 phonebook capacity (that includes 200 in Virgin sim)
~~~MY PERSONAL VIEW FROM USAGE~~~~
I find the camera easy to use and it has an erray of little extras that you can use to personalise your shots~~~ EFFECTS~~~black & white~~negative~~sepia~~solarize
FRAMES~~~angel~~baby~~behind bars~~bunny~~double heart~~extra~~hiphop~~hippie~~monkey~~superhero~~tv star~~wanted~~amber~~brass~~brushed alu~~bubble~~camo~~jelly~~mediterranean~~soccer~~wriggle plant~~ I really enjoy these and use them alot..the sepia effect goes really well with the behind bars frame!
There is also a nightmode option which I have never used and a self timer. You can change the picture size~~~Large 640x240 Med 320x240 Small 160x120 Extended Picture quality Normal Fine Picture quality is'nt too bad for a mobile phone camera and look alot better once you have put them to PC.
The video camera is used by us quite often too as we have 3 littlins and I often whip it out when they do something cute!
You have the same effect options but not the frames,you can change the size and the length of video clips....I did'nt realise you can change the length until a short time ago...whenever I took a film it would only be 9 seconds long,I discovered the 'length option' was either limited or unlimited.......limited is 9 seconds so you are able to send the clip to another mobile...unlimited is for your own keeping!
Again picture quality is'nt great but you can see clearly whats going on if you stay within a close range.
The menu screen is nicely set out,you use the analogue stick to move around and the icon you are on is magnified to look bigger.
You can choose to have a 'themed' wallpaper.There are 4 options~~~Floom Floraflow Metalix Spinler I have the 'Floom' option which has made my screens all have an orangegy/peach bubbles effects with a spinning orange flower on the main screen.
Hubby uses the 'Floraflow' option and he has a blue effect with spinning circles on his main screen.
The animated screensavers are cool.....I have a littel DJ bobbing up and down to her stereo and hubby has a jumping spider! You can download more of these online but beware of certain places that claim they are totally free...watch out for the text messages that they kindly send you that you have to pay for!
Phone usage is easy and simple with no complexity,I text/call about 3-5 times a day and find I only do 1 big charge a week!
The settings menu has a 'down' list as do all the other menus but it also has an 'along' list that you push the analogue stick right to move along.(just though to mention this as I did'nt get it straight away!)
A cute little thing I have also noted is that the games meny icon is a Playstation controller! Cool!
When the phone is is standby mode it will still show an arrow icon indicating if you have a missed call or text message.
We use the infrared to swap clips/pics at the end of a day and it's easy enough to use once you figure it out!
There are numerous ringtones already in the phone and you have a choice of normal,midi or mp3 ones.We both use the mp3 'coo-coo' one for our alarm clocks!
I'm not sure on the Mp3 side of things with the phone as I have a normal mp3 player,I just use the ones that were already in the phone for my tones/alarm etc.
You can of course compose your own ringtones and download new ones from internet.Again beware of so called free ones!
I have never had a problem with reception even when I'm in the lift going up to BHS cafe!
~~~SO IS THE PHONE A GREAT ALL ROUNDER?~~~~
I personally really like the phone...the menus great,appearance fab etc etc......but......... I am on my second replacement and hubby is on his third!
Hubby has had 3 replacements all for the same reason....the analogue stick! Now you need this key to get to everything in the phone so if it goes your whole phone is useless!It just kind of gets stuck and wont respond to any amount of pushing,prodding thumping at all! He is now waiting for a new Panasonic phone to come as Virgin have agreed to give him an entirely different phone....please note he is a site man and phone is in his pocket with a lot of other bits of bobs and dust so this may be a cause?
With mine the charger/charger port doesnt respond when I plug the charger in...it just would'nt charge!......twice!Perhaps it gets clogged up with bits from bottom of handbag.....see...I'm trying to make excuses for them!
I currently have a good money off scheme through virgin and am upgrading my phone in the next month....I doubt I will get another Sony Ericsson purely because of the charger port...I find it too fiddly and in my case it has messed up twice!
The shiney silver frame around the screen does not stay shiney for long and has rubbed/chipped away on all of both our phones.
~~~~SO IS IT RECOMMENDED?~~~~ MMMMM.......tough one! Like I say above it IS a good phone with too many features to list and when it's in full working order it's a pleasure to own.....we have maybe had too many little problems to buy again from them....perhaps it's just our bad luck.....as long as your provider gives as good a warrenty as Virgin do GO FOR IT!!! Thanks for reading take care Kerry xx
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
A simple review - excellent! I have also reviewed this great phone and I like it too.
craggsy23 14.09.2005 23:47
Sounds a good little phone, it sounds a bit technological for me with camera and video camera but I do use Virgin PAYG who I think are the best company around, Helen
Deru 12.09.2005 18:54
I've had a T610 for a while. No real problems. I do like the look of this K500i though.
Advantages: This phone has great quality pictures and quite a good video quality for its price Disadvantages: The joystick may take a while to get used to, and I have yet to find a way to transfer data from the phone to a computer
bawney123 04.12.2005 ·
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Review of Sony Ericsson K500i
Sep 10th, 2005
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