Finally got another review done, bit of a long one though.
Finally got another review done, bit of a long one though.
Member since:01.08.2006
Reviews:5
Members who trust:7
Mmm, where to start, this phone is packed with features. Previously I had a nokia which then broke and was un-usable, I have never had a phone other than a nokia before so I though it was about time to have a change, I looked at the contract phones that were on offer and saw this one. I once had a Sony cybershot digital camera which was a very good camera with lots of functions; I was amazed that they had put on in a phone so I had to get it.
First impressions
It's a bit chunky and I didn't really know how to use it as I have only ever had a nokia, I started browsing through all of the menus and soon found it to be a very good phone. When it tried to put the sim card in it I though I was going to break the back cover like I usually do with new phones but this one just slides right off with no problem. The battery was a bit more tedious to remove; I would say that people with no nails would find it quite a mission. The sim card is very hard to remove and people with no nails probably wouldn't be able to get it out at all, you have to get your nail under it and slide it out at the same time.
I got the phone on a £40 a month contract with 02 so the phone didn't cost me anything, 02 sell it for £250
pay as you go, other places such as eBay vary between £125 - £240.
Box contents
In the box I got some manuals which to be honest I still haven't read through, a USB cable which is easy to use but takes a lifetime to install, a pair of headphones/hands free kit and a mains charger. The mains charger plugs into the bottom of the phone, the same place as the headphones, but you can still have the headphones plugged in at the same time as the charger plug has a second socket in it so you can plug in the headphones, I though this was a genius idea. But there was no car charger in the box which I was disappointed at, not because I need one but it's got everything else so why not give a car charger as well?
The Camera
The best phone camera I have ever seen, to get to the camera you can either just slide open the cover, press the camera button on the side or get to it through the menu's, once in the camera you can have a choice of 3 Mega Pixel, 2MP, 1MP and VGA quality photo's. To take a photo you press either the side camera button or the middle button on the front, you have to hold the button for a while, you get a red light for some reason and then the picture is taken. The flash is excellent and has 3 modes, off, auto and red-eye reduction.
The camera menu has 15 options, the main ones being shoot mode, scenes, focus, flash, timer, effects and picture quality. As with most phone camera's there is a selection of frames you can use when taking the picture, these are great fun when you get bored. There is an option to take a panoramic photo, with this you can take 3 horizontal photos and they automatically merge together to make one long photo, great if you need to take a picture of something that is too long to fit in one picture. There is a best pic mode, this takes multiple pictures is a short period of time and you can pic the best one, or you can save them all and put them on your computer and make some good looking animated Gif's. The zoom is good, up to about 70% zoom, after that it goes all blocky and horrible looking.
The Video camera has two quality options, high quality, and message quality. You can't notice a large difference between them but both are slightly blocky around edges of things. The video does have a night mode but it's not superb.
Photo DJ
This is a really cool feature for a phone camera, you can reduce red-eye, add effects and objects, lighten pictures, add text create slide shows and all sorts of fun/useful things.
Video DJ
I haven't yet played around with this much but you can add video files together, add a soundtrack, pictures, text you can do a lot of things with your videos, the phone even comes with some soundtracks on them like silent movie music, and many other different themed music, I can imagine this feature to be fun to use and will probably at some point get round to trying it out properly.
Music DJ
Now this is fun. You can make up your own music using different samples that are provided, it takes some time but you can produce some good sounding music. I usually use this feature when I am on the train and have nothing to do and time to waste (using earphones of course). The samples are quite limited though, once you have made a few tunes you get a bit bored of the same sounds all the time, I will have to investigate into a way of getting more samples.
Face Warp
I love this application, it is so much fun. You take a picture of someone's face and it has loads of preset warps that screw around with the face, can have some really funny outcomes on some faces and keeps you laughing for ages, it also looks very realistic if you get a decent picture. I have tried it on a cat as well and I found that very amusing.
HP Photo print
This feature I have not tried at all as I do not have Bluetooth on my computer or printer, but it seems a very handy tool, you send the pictures straight from your phone to your printer with no use of cables or messing around. This was introduced to digital cameras and I think it is a great idea to integrate it into a phone.
Photo Mate
This is an application that teaches you how to take good photo's, you can download the content for this and learn how to take all different sorts of pictures in different situations. I do not use this feature because im not too worried about getting my pictures that perfect.
Other features
The phone has all of the other features that nearly all phones have nowadays. The voice recorder is clear and easy to use, a calendar, alarms, etc.
Games
The phone comes with 3 games as standard; these are Photo Quest Fishing, Tennis and Mini Golf. The Fishing game is a bit strange you just have to take pictures of fish and get as many points as you can to unlock new fishing areas; I find it very boring and pointless. The tennis is a very good game and can be played over Bluetooth, there is a tournament, multiplay and practice mode, the tournaments I found very challenging but maybe I am just not very good at it, you can complete the tournaments to level-up your character. The golf is great fun, has 3 different sets of levels each more challenging than the last, this is also a Bluetooth multiplayer game, turns my long boring college bus journey into quite a bit of fun.
Video Calling
The video calling camera is quite good quality but when video calling someone I can hardly hear what they are saying because it is very quiet. You also have the option to share photos whilst in a video call.
Music Player
The music player is well organized and reasonably easy to use, but again the volume is not as loud as I expected, but is good quality sound, especially through the headphones. It has an equalizer so you can perfect the sound quality for different genres of music.
Web Access
Web access is easy, there is a button on the front which starts the internet, but this could be awkward as I am always accidentally pressing the button when I don't have key lock on, luckily I am on contract so it doesn't cost me loads when I do this.
Memory cards
This phone uses a memory card which is similar to a Micro SD, but typical to Sony they have made their own unique one for it called an M2 which costs a lot. I brought a 1GB card from an 02 Store and it set me back a whopping £60, they are available on eBay for around £40 but I am impatient so got one from a shop. The one I purchased came with an adapter so you can use it as a Sony Memory Stick. They are easy to put into the phone just flip a cover on the side and they just click in and out.
Battery
The battery dies quite quickly when using the camera a lot, it will die in just under a day, when listening to constant music the battery will last a day, when not doing anything but calling and texting it lasts almost 2 days. This is ok for me as I never really need it to last more than a day.
Bad points
I have occasionally known it to randomly turn off but then suddenly come back on again and not ask for my pin number or anything. Also I found that sometimes it gets stuck on emergency calls only, turning the phone off and on again seems to fix this problem. Once or twice I have had the golf game freeze on me which is really annoying when I am doing well. The screen gets dirty very easy; I am forever wiping it to get rid of greasy marks or dust.
Conclusion
I do not regret getting this phone, it is by far the best phone I have owned so far I strongly recommend to anyone thinking of getting it to go for it, and you will not be disappointed.
Thank you for taking the time to read my review, I hope you found it useful. Matt
Pictures of Sony Ericsson K800i Cyber-shot
The Sony Ericsson K800i
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Sony Ericsson K800i - 3G - with Camera (3 Mega Pixel), MP3 Player, Bluetooth&FM Radio 2G more
Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 3G Network UMTS 2100 Dimensions 105 x 47 x 22 mm Weight 115 g Display Type TFT, 256K colors Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2.0 inch, 30x40 mm Wallpapers&screensavers Polyphonic Ringtones(72 channels), MP3, Customisation Composer and Download Vibrate Alert Memory Phonebook of 1000 x 20 fields and Photo call Call records 30 received, dialed and missed calls Memory Stick Micro (M2) card slot 64 MB internal memory GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps HSCSD 3G ,384 kbps Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP Infrared port USB, v2.0 Features Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging WAP 2.0/xHTML browser, HTML(NetFront) Games + downloadable Camera 3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, autofocus, video(QCIF), xenon flash; secondary video call VGA camera Java MIDP 2.0 RDS FM radio MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player T9 predictive text Image viewer Picture editor Picture blogging Organiser Built-in handsfree Voice memo/dial Standard battery, Li-Po 900 mAh (BST-33) Stand-by Up to 350 h Talk time Up to 7 h NOTE: English manual is downloadable from the Sony website as none is supplied
Advantages: Great Camera, Chic Look, Pleny of functions, Sturdy built, The ultimate phone Disadvantages: Fiddly to use, small buttons, screen gets dirty, Not supplied Memory Stick M2
Oct 24th, 2006
exceptional by (11%):
very helpful by (81%):
helpful by (7%):
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