SONY ERICSSON K850i
After the fast selling and extremely popular K800i and K810i mobile phones Sony Ericsson had a tough job improving on them. To improve on the older models they basically took there great design and system layout of the previous versions, slapped a 5 mega pixel camera and a media center and a few more extras and you get the New K850i mobile phone. However with a pay as you go price of around £300, is the phone worth it?
THE PHONE
One of the requirements for a mobile phone to have is the ability to be able to phone people! Surprise! many people forget that no matter how many features a mobile phone has, the most important feature is that it can phone people without a problem and that the reception and voice quality is good. If not, then you might as well have just bought a digital camera or mp3 player!
The sound is very clear and the talk time on the phone is great. I use the phone quite a lot and I have never had it run out of battery on me as I charge it every night. A good point to raise now is the fact that the battery only takes 2 and a half hours to fully charge from flat. This is incredibly fast and so I only really ever have my phone on charge for about an hour to half hour most of the time. The phone has great reception and an easy to use contacts list. The phone also uses smart dial so as you can find people in your contacts even faster simply by typing the beginning of the persons number and selecting them from the list that follows.
VIDEO CALLS
I like this option! If the person you are wanting to phone also has a video call option you can see each other while talking during the phone call! very clever application but will not work unless the recipitant has the video call option.
CAMERA
One
of the most important selling points of the mobile phone is the camera. The camera is a 5 mega pixel type which has auto focus, flash and light options. 5 Mega pixel cameras can be found in a few digital cameras so this phone is a sort of rival to the digital camera world. However the picture quality can be blurry and Ive found that the slightest hand movement will cause blur in the picture. Even with the image stabilizer on. The camera is quick to access through a little button on the side of the phone. Next to this tiny button is a switch which allows quick switching between video and picture capture and also a third option which allows you to go to the gallery quickly.
The camera has various options such as:
A light - record videos in the dark using the light feature. The light is actually very bright and I have recorded good quality videos by combining the light and the night mode options.
Night Mode - To allow you to still take pictures or video in areas where light conditions are poor. This is a great little option but does tend to cause slight distortion in videos and picture quality.
Self - Timer - The self timer is obviously what it says it does! :) Set the timer and get everybody in position so no one is left out of the picture or video.
Effects - effects such as black and white, sepia, negative and solarize allow you to alter the colors of the video or picture. Great fun!
Stabilizer - To get rid of slight hand movements during pictures and video capture.
Picture options such as:
Flash - To take pictures in the dark or low light conditions. The flash works fine 9 times out of ten but if you are not close enough to the object or person you wish to take a picture of then the flash is useless. The flash also features a red eye reduction mode.
Image size - If you find that the pictures of a 5 mega pixel camera are running down your memory to fast or for any other reason you can adjust the mega pixel size between VGA quality, 1 mega pixel, 3 mega pixels and 5 mega pixels.
Best Pic / Panorama mode - You can use best pic to capture up to 9 quick shots in rapid succession to allow you to pick the best one of the moment and a panorama option to take three landscape pictures when the camera screen is not big enough. Panorama can be tricky to use at first but is a really good addition.
VIDEO CAPTURE
The video capture quality of the phone is OK. Not much difference from the K800i but it is still noticeable. I think they could have done better as the Nokia N95 has a 5 mega pixel camera but the video recording quality is almost DVD quality! That said, the K850i does not do too badly on the video capture section and though it may lose to the Nokia N95 in video capture it makes up for it in other areas.
MEDIA CENTER
With a quick press of a button you can bring up the media center. This is like the gallery but is a simple layout of ALL the media on your phone.
PHOTO - The photo option is a the top of the media center. This organizes your pictures into your latest photos, your camera albums, your tagged pictures and other pictures.
Latest Photo - This option shows all of the most recent photos you have taken or edited. Although this is a good option I have brought over images from my previous phones and for some reason this option has pictures which were taken over a year ago in there. possibly because of there format or date format, I don't know but it can be confusing for me and means I may take longer looking for images.
Camera album - Now this is my favorite option to use to ind my pictures. This option arranges you photos into sub folders of months that the pictures were taken. easy to use and find your images.
Photo tags - This option lets you arrange you photos into groups or Tags. For example is you had 5 photos of your family at a party you could tag them "family party" and they will appear in the tags option as a group. Using this you can arrange your photos into your own groups. However I have found that I can only tag pictures I have taken using the K850i. I am not allowed to tag photos from my previous phones.
Pictures - This option sorts your photos from images like backgrounds etc. for some reason some of my older photos from previous phones are kept here too so there is confusion in finding pictures using this option.
Next on the media center option is
MUSIC
Here your music is arranged into artists, albums, tracks, play lists and audio books. There is also the option to use a pod cast to listen to music. Using the play list option you can sort your music into different play lists so as to keep your favorite music easy to get to. This is a very simple option to use and is of great use.
VIDEOS
In this option you videos are all arranged into one "Videos" folder. Inside the folder all of your videos are listed in either name or date order. There is also the option for using pod casts and also uploading your videos to the "lookatme" site where you can sell your funniest videos.
A cool feature of the K850i is that if you hold the phone upright the picture, video or your music player will show as up right but long wise. If you rotate your phone 90 degrees and hold it so that your screen is in a landscape view, the motion sensor inside the camera will rotate the picture, video or you mp3 player to a landscape view as well!
Although the media center is a great new addition to the phone there can be problems, such as finding your images and arranging them. However you can still use the original file manager from the K800i and K810i to organise your photos, videos and music into folders.
OTHER FEATURES
This phone also features:
Alarm - to get you up or to remind you or something!
Calendar - To keep track of your life on those busy weeks! you can set birthdays, meeting reminders etc as usual.
Notes - To keep notes on important things
Tasks - Write your own to do lists!
Timer - Set a countdown timer
Stop watch - ...it's a stop watch.
Calculator - For help with equations
Code memory application - keeps all your passwords, usernames and other codes personal so you only have to remember the code for the code memory aplication!
Radio - Requires the headset to be plugged in but is a great little application if you are bored with your own Mp3's and wish to listen to your favorite stations.
Music DJ - Create your own ring tones using a preset few sounds. OK application but I never use it.
Photo DJ - Edit your photos by adding clip art to a photo or changing the color. Very useful application and great fun too!
Video DJ - Edit your videos together or shorten a video! also a very useful item. Easy to use and can be hours of fun!
TRACK ID - You know you always hear that song on the radio but you can remember who sung it or which album it was from or even the name of the song!? well just use the track ID option. When you hear that song again, select the Track ID option and hold your phone to the music. The track ID will then find the name of the song the artist and the album and tell you! very clever application but as it has to connect to the internet to find the information I dot use it that much because of the possible cost.
SOUND recorder- this lets you record little memos or other sounds. The sound quality is OK but will not be as clear as mp3. You can also use this option to record your phone calls.
CONNECTIVITY
The phonehas blue tooth and can connect to the mobile internet. Unless you have a bolt on package or something else I would suggest that you do NOT use the WAP or mobile internet as it is VERY expensive. The bluetooth works very well as with all sony ericssons and you can also remote control your desktop and media on your pc if your PC has a bluetooth connection.
Connecting the phone to the PC through USB is easy and you can use the phone as a mass storage device to make things even simpler. Using the mass storage option you can simply just drag and drop files to your phone.
MEMORY
The K800i Had 70MB of memory built into the phone and so I thought that Sony Ericcson may have improved on this. However this is not the case and in fact they have reduced the K850i to only 40MB! Since the 5 mega pixel camera takes up so much memory on video and images this does not make sense to me but then you can upgrade the memory using an M2 memory card up to 8GB which will be more than enough for most people.
WHAT ELSE!?
On the screen are three touch screen buttons which make for easier and quicker access to files and folders but will cause you to leave finger prints in the screen which is annoying. The directional buttons are actually built into the rest of the keypad now to make the phone more compact but the closeness of buttons can be a problem for people with bigger fingers.
The phone is rather light and compact although it is slightly thicker than most phones this does not cause much of a problem.
SHOULD I BUY!?
One problem I have with the phone is that the case for the phone is made from a plastic that is easy to scratch and put digs in so I am very cautious with the phone as it is so expensive. The plastic also leaves fingerprints and smudges all over the phone and so you will be forever cleaning it. Problems with the media software and you images is not so bad when compared to how cool the rest of the phone is.
To be honest apart from the camera the K850i not much different from the k800i and so does not really warrant the amount of money it asks for. However if you are able to get the phone for free on contract, as I did, you will not be disappointed and it is a good choice. 
by (11%):
by (6%):
26.01.2008 10:42
Congrats on the diamond :o)
17.01.2008 16:58
Congrats on your diamond, well deserved! :) Always stick to Nokia models myself. x
04.01.2008 20:01
Congratulations on your Diamond. l had a k700i before it was stolen last October ~ l never ran out of memory ~ it was the closest thing l had to an mp3 player ~~~~ l miss it . . . ~ ! ♥♥ ! ~ ........................................................... ~ jes ~ ! ♥♥ !