Having used Nokia phones since I first joined the mobile phone world, I found that with each subsequent phone, I was becoming less and less impressed with Nokias. Yes, they were robust, but I found the software was just getting sluggish and I was under-whelmed by the battery life of my last phone, the Nokia 6230i.

Weighing up the pros and cons of the other phones on the market and taking into consideration my own preferences (e.g. monoblock phones rather than slide phones or clam shell phones), I eventually plumped for Sony Ericsson's K800i.

Once the phone had charged (which only took a few hours), I set about connecting to the PC. The installation was extremely easy and the software was soon installed. My initial favourable impression of the phone package diminished a little here. I've always found that Sony's PC software is always easy on the eye, but fairly hard to use (or at least, it doesn't do what you'd like). For the K800i, this was no different. It's easy to set up your phone using the software, but beyond that, it offered little useful functionality whatsoever. I ended up using a free, third-party piece of software called MyPhoneExplorer for day to day use (e.g. phone management, sending SMSs from your PC etc.), which is simply magnificent. The ability of my PC to recognise the phone was also a lot better than I'd previously experienced with a Nokia.

Most of the little pieces of software on the phone that I've used so far are easy to use and intuitive. Adding notes to the Calendar, for example, is a simple process. It's also possible to highlight a phone number within a text message and use it to make a call. Contact management on the K800i is excellent, allowing you to enter lots more data than just the phone number of a contact (and you can synchronise from programs such as Microsoft Outlook). This kind of feature is available on most modern phones, but on the K800i, it seemed a little more user friendly than the Nokia. Entering a contact's birthday, for example, prompted a question about whether I'd like the event added to the calendar. However, to take advantage of this, you have to store your contacts on the phone rather than the SIM card, which has obvious disadvantages.

The camera on the phone, so far, is excellent with a huge range of extra features to help you make your photography fun. The flash is bright and the red eye reduction tends to work most of the time. Picture quality is superb (2048 by 1536 resolution) and while it doesn't quite match my Sony DSC-T1, is still exceptional for a camera that's an add-on to a phone. I've taken quite a few snaps of friends and family and during various nights out and the only pictures that have disappointed me are those spoiled by "user error".

This is also apparent when you connect to the Sony Ericsson website. From here, it's possible to download a tool that lets you keep your phone up to date with firmware upgrades when they become available (mine's currently on R1KG001). Firmware upgrades can offer improvements to the phone's usage such as extended battery life, bug fixes to the software etc. so this feature can be invaluable.

The downside is that I am now extremely wary about the durability of the phone in normal day-to-day use. The durability issue and Sony Ericsson's response to my concern is a huge negative point for me and potentially wipes out all the other positive stuff that the K800i has going for it. I'm in two minds about the K800i. On one hand, I think it's great. The software and usability are amongst the best I've seen in a mobile phone, but the durability issue is a huge cause for concern. This leaves me hard pushed to recommend the K800i outright and I feel that I have to include a huge warning.