Sony Ericsson K800i

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Sony Ericsson K800i

Overview of the Sony Ericsson K800i

The Sony Ericsson K800i is the successor to the popular K750i, and is the first 3G phone in Sony Ericsson's Cyber-Shot™ range of camera phones. In addition to being the first 3G Cyber-Shot, the K800i is also the first camera phone to break through the 3 megapixel barrier, with a resolution of 3.2 megapixels (2048 x 1536 pixels). This makes it the highest resolution available in any camera phone at the time of launch (Summer 2006).

Like the K750i before it, the K800i comes with autofocus. The autofocus is activated by half-pressing the camera button and is fast enough in normal use. Results are fine for most subjects, with only fast moving objects posing a problem. The camera has a powerful xenon flash and a 16x digital zoom. Most camera phones have a much weaker LED flash, that cannot light a scene like a real photographic flash.

Sony have introduced a new feature with the K800i - BestPic™. With BestPic you can take 9 shots in rapid succession, just by pressing the camera button once. You can then review the images and keep the best. This might be a useful feature when filming fast moving subjects. There's also a handy image stabilisation function that's designed to reduce camera shake during still and video photography. A red-eye reduction feature helps to minimise red-eye effects during flash photography by emitting short bursts from the flash before the picture is taken.

There's also a video recording capability with the K800i, and in fact, since this is a 3G phone, you can use the camera to make video calls. This will work only when calling someone on another 3G phone of course. Sony Ericsson's VideoDJ™ application enables you to edit videos directly on the phone. The resolution of the video camera is just 176 x 144 - the same as the K750i. Videos include sound, but are of low resolution compared with videos recorded on a dedicated digital camera.

The K800i is quite large for a mobile phone, although not huge for a 3G phone. In any case, the added size and weight help when taking pictures, as camera shake is reduced. The appearance of the phone is very conventional, although the rear side is styled to make it look more like a Cyber-Shot camera. The keys are small, but functional. The phone seems solid and well constructed, with a sliding cover to protect the lens. The screen is large (2.0 inches) and of very high resolution - 240 x 320 pixels with 262,144 colours. Again, this is a significant step up from the K750i.

Whilst the K800i is marketed primarily as a camera phone, it also has a full range of other features. These include a high quality music player that uses Sony's Walkman™ expertise to deliver a high-quality easy-to-use music experience. Stereo output to a normal or wireless headset via Bluetooth is supported. Other features include an FM radio, email, a web browser and Java games.

The internal memory of 64 Mbytes is generous by phone standards, but won't get you very far if you intend to use the multimedia features of the device. Fortunately, the K800i supports the ultra-small Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) format, so you add up to 1 Gbyte of memory to store images, videos and MP3 tracks.

In our opinion the K800i is the best camera phone released so far. The K800i is a definite improvement over the K750i, with an enhanced camera, 3G functionality and a superior LCD display. Only Nokia's N-Series phones come close.

Features of the Sony Ericsson K800i:

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