THE DIARY OF A GEEK IN OXFORDSHIRE


Solving the World's problems with common sense and a flamethrower.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Sony Ericsson K850i - New Shiny! Toy!

So the newest Shiny Toy arrived at Dungeekin Towers today.


It's a Sony Ericsson K850i - the 'Cybershot'-branded camera phone, replacing the basic and buggy Nokia 6300 I had been using.

The SE is my latest attempt to get a phone that does just what I want it to, and does it well. I originally went for a Nokia N95, which was a brilliantly featured phone yet too bulky and over-specced for my needs. I didn't need wi-fi, I don't need GPS. So that went onto eBay and was replaced by a Nokia 6300 - which had a great UI, and was light and easy to use. But the 2MP camera was shoddy and the 2GB Micro-SD card I bought for it wouldn't work. Neither would any other card.

This time, I put together a list of my wants before ordering a phone. It was surprisingly short, really. Phone calls, SMS messages, MMS messaging and a good camera - which leads me to the K850i.

With Cybershot internals, the K850i is, essentially, a camera with a phone attached rather than a phone with a camera attached. It feels less bulky to the hand than the N95, the screen's large and bright, and a few test pictures so far show excellent picture quality and, most importantly, a fast shutter reaction time.

I'm initially less impressed with the keypad, and I do worry about the super-shiny surface which shows fingerprints if you so much as look at the phone, but they're small niggles. I'm sure I'll get used to the keys quickly enough.

The K850i also accepted, formatted and is using my 2GB card, and did so without fuss or hassle, which is a major plus.

So now it's time for a few weeks of using the phone, and I'll post a fuller, more detailed review once I've lived with it for a while.

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