Sony Ericsson K850i review – High-end camera phone

K850i Cyber-Shot camera phone is Sony Ericsson’s flagship camera device, it was announced about six months ago and it hit the stores in Q4/2007. The K850i was a long waited handset because other manufactures already had their 5 megapixel camera phones out. The K850i is the successor of the K800i and it features 5 megapixel Cyber-Shot camera with autofocus and Xenon flash. Even that the camera is the feature why most people will buy this phone, the K850i has a lot more to offer than just a 5 megapixel camera.

Sony Ericsson K850i official images

Key features:

- 5 megapixel autofocus camera with Xeon flash
- HSDPA
- UMTS
- EDGE
- 2.2” 262K colors display
- Memory card slot with M2 and MicroSD support
- Bluetooth
- FM Radio with RDS
- New media player

Read the list above and you see that the K850i has a lot to offer. Although, it’s not a perfect device, there’s something very important missing and that is WiFi. The lack of WiFi is definitely a big problem, especially if you have ever used a phone with WiFi. These days many places have free WiFi spots, such as libraries, coffee bars and schools. That’s why it’s a bit weird that they have dropped out this feature. I guess Sony Ericsson thought that only smartphones should have WiFi but then again, the K850i a high-end device and it should have all the latest features.

Some of you might also say that this phone should have build-in GPS. Nokia N95 has it and it’s a 5 megapixel handset. GPS would be a great thing to have but I wouldn’t leave this phone to the store just because there’s no GPS.

Sony Ericsson K850i / K850i vs P1i / Keypad

Design and build quality

The form of this phone doesn’t offer anything new. It’s just an ordinary candybar handset. The K850i (106x47x18 mm) is pretty much the same sized as the K800i (102x48x17 mm) and it weights 118 grams. The phone feels pretty nice on hand, maybe a bit thick, especially after using the W880i but like you see, it’s a bit thinner than the K800i.

The screen covers about half of the K850i front side. It has large 2.2” screen, which is bigger and brighter than the K800i’s 2.0” screen. The screen has nice mirror-finish and it gives you the feeling that the screen is bigger than it actually is, when all the lights are off. After turning lights on, you realize the screen is “only” 2.2”. Above of the screen there’s a speaker and a VGA camera for video calls. Below the screen K850i has three touch-sensitive soft keys. These touch-sensitive keys were something totally new for me and it took a while to get used to them. After you learn how to use them, they perform just like normal keys.

Sony Ericsson K850i's screen / Sony Ericsson K850i vs P1i / K850i and coin

Then, below these touch-sensitive keys there’s the new D-pad and two dual function buttons: Call/Activity Menu and Clear/End. Call and End button are something that many other Sony Ericsson handsets don’t have.

The new D-pad might be a big confusing at first but after using it awhile you will get used to it. I’m not sure if this new D-pad is good or bad but at least it works just fine and saves some space. If there would be a “normal” D-pad, K850i would be bigger.

At the moment the K850i is available in three colors: Luminous Green, Velvet Blue and Quicksilver black. My review unit is the Velvet blue. Although, I think the Quick Black is the best color variant but there’s nothing wrong with the Velvet Blue.

On the right side of the K850i there are buttons that are mainly used in camera mode. Zooming button is on the top and a bit lower there’s button for changing the shooting mode (photo, video, view), shooting button and camera On/Off button.

The backside of the K850i is very interesting and stylish. It’s completely flat and almost entirely black. One interesting thing is that the back cover cannot be removed. The battery hatch is on the bottom and Sony has used the same solution with their digital cameras. The SIM card and memory card holder can be found behind the same hatch. I think this is a good solution because usually the back cover starts to move after you have removed it too many times. On the back of the K850i there’s a camera lens, Xenon flash, Sony Ericsson logo, Cyber-Shot text and 5.0 megapixels text.

Backside of the K850i / Battery hatch

Unfortunately the K850i picks up easily fingerprints and you just can’t keep the phone clean. I had the same problem with my T610i.

Camera

Like I have already mentioned, the K850i has 5 megapixel Cyber-Shot camera with autofocus, Xenon flash and automatic lens cover. Sony Ericsson K850i offers a lot of new than just 5 megapixels. It has new Cyber-Shot v2.0 interface and you should be quite familiar with it if you have used Sony’s T-series digital cameras. In my opinion, the Cyber-Shot v2.0 interface doesn’t look so different and I knew exactly how to use it because the menu seems to be quite the same as in my W880i. Cyber-Shot v2.0 interface definitely looks nice but I found it a bit laggy, which is a bad thing of course. My W880i has definitely faster camera menu.

We are talking about Cyber-Shot handset, so there are a lot of things you can adjust. The Cyber-Shot v2.0 interface has toolbar with options: Shoot mode, Scenes, Picture size, Focus, Flash, Self-timer, ISO, Metering mode, White balance, Effects, Settings. My W880i has some of these options but for example ISO and Focus options are missing. If you have ever used Cyber-Shot handset, I’m sure you are quite familiar with all these options and you can skip the next paragraph if you want. Althought, the ISO setting should be something totally new.

Shoot mode / Picture size / ISO

Shoot mode has four options: Normal, BestPic, Panorama and Frames. When using the BestPic mode, the phone takes nine pictures and you can choose the best one. Unfortunately flash isn’t available in this mode. The Panorama mode is quite exciting. You can take three overlapping pictures from left to right and the camera merges them together into one wide picture. In the frame menu you can select a frame to decorate your picture. The Scenes menu allows user to choose the best shooting mode for different kinds of shooting conditions. There are eight options: Auto, Twilight landscape, Twilight portrait, Landscape, Portrait, Beach/Snow, Sport and Document. From the picture size menu you can obviously choose the picture size (5 MP, 3 MP, 1 MP, VGA). ISO menu allows users to choose the light sensitivity from four options: Auto, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400. The Settings menu is a new feature and for example the K800i didn’t have it. In the settings menu all the information is displayed in two columns. On the left side is the name of the feature and from the right side you can choose which setting to use. One great thing I found right away from the settings menu is that you can switch off the shutter sound. Nice one! On my W880i the only way to take photos quietly is to turn the phone for silence.

Sample camera photos. Taken in 5 MP mode, reduced to 800x600 resolution.

Media Player

Sony Ericsson K850i offers a totally new media player. With the K850i’s media player you can view photos, watch videos and listen to music. The interface is a combination of black, blue and white and you can view it in portrait or landscape. Thanks to the build-in motion sensor the phone automatically rotates the screen when you change your phone’s position.

Media Player

The music player seems to be pretty much the same as the Walkman 3.0 player. You can add and delete playlists, view your music by artists, albums or you can view all or tracks in one list. There are also own lists for audio books and podcasts. The player supports MP3, AAC, and AAC+, E-AAC +, WAV, WMA, M4A and MIDI file formats. There aren’t many things you can adjust but from the settings menu (in the music player) you can choose the play mode, equalizer and turn stereo widening on or off. Equalizer menu has five options: Normal, Bass, Mega Bass, Voice and Treble boost. You can also put the player to run in the background.

Viewing photos with the photo browser in media center is a very pleasant experience. It consists of Latest Photo, Camera Album, Photo Tags, Photo Feeds, and Pictures. Latest Photos shows all the latest photos. Camera Album is a list for each month of the year. The Pictures menu shows all non-camera photos in 4x3 grid. You can zoom and view your photos in portrait or landscape.

The last application found from Media center is the Video Player. There’s own section for videos and podcast. You can’t really manage your video files, you just have to view them in one big list. Of course, videos can also be watched in portrait or landscape mode.

Radio

Sony Ericsson K850i has FM Radio with RDS support. What this RDS actually is? Well, it means Radio Data System. The RDS system standardizes several types of information transmitted, including time, track/artist info and station identification. RDS has been standard in Europe and Latin America since the early 1990s, but less so in North America (Via Wikipedia). Radio works only if you have plugged in the headset because the antenna is inside the headset.

You can save up to 20 radio channels. You can search channels manually or use Auto save feature, which searches channels and saves all it found.

The user interface

K850i’s user interface doesn’t offer anything fascinating. If you have ever used Sony Ericsson’s handsets before then you know how to use the K850i too. Although, Sony Ericsson K850i is based on the new A200 platform and it makes the user interface a bit different but not much. The biggest change is probably that K850i has the new three sofkey layout. Phones running on A100 have only two softkeys. This was a bit weird at first but you will get used to the new softkey layout pretty soon. Of course, if you are a long-term Sony Ericsson user you probably need some more time to get used with the new system. I’ve been testing out this phone for a week and I just can’t say if this new three sofkey layout is better than the old one.

The main menu has 12 icons: PlayNow, Internet, Entertainment, Cyber-Shot, Messaging, Media, Alarms, Contacts, Radio, Calls, Organizer, Settings. The main menu is very responsive and fast to use.

K850i also features the awesome Active Menu. It consists of four tabs: New events, Running apps, My shortcuts and Internet. The first tab, New events displays all missed calls and unread messages etc. From the Running apps tabs you can check which apps are running. In the My shortcuts tab you can put all your most used apps. Internet tab includes: Internet, Enter address, Search Internet and Bookmarks.

Check out this video to get a better idea of the UI and the design.

Organizer

Sony Ericsson K850i has all the common organizer applications. Under the organizer menu there are eleven apps: Files manager, Applications, Video call, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Synchronization, Timer, Stopwatch, Light, Calculator and Code memo. You probably noticed that Alarms isn’t there anymore. You can find it from main menu. I’m sure you know what all these apps can do, so I’m not going to use much time to go through these applications.

The calendar seems to be pretty much the same as my W880i’s calendar. It’s a bit nicer to view due to the bigger screen (1.8” vs 2.2”). The calendar offers monthly, weekly and daily views. You can also search appointments, choose default view (Month view, Week view, Day view). When you add a birthday to your phonebook, the phone asks if you would like to add it to the calendar.

Calendar

I tried to sync the K850i with Apple’s iSync but it doesn’t support the K850i. So, just like with my W880i, I needed to find a working iSycn plugin and after a few minutes I found this.

Tasks, Notes, Timer, Stopwatch, calculator and Code memo are well-known applications from other Sony Ericsson phones. You should be quite familiar with them.

Like I said, Alarms is now part of the main menu. You can have five alarms and all of them can be customized well. You can for example make the alarm repeat on certain day(s) of week or every day.

Light is a nice application. It allows you to use the build-in flash as a torch. In emergency situation you can choose from the light menu SOS option and the light flashes the SOS Morse code.

Contacts

As I mention in my W880i review all handsets have contacts but many times users don’t pay enough attention to this feature. The K850i has a bit different contacts menu, thanks to the A200 platform and the new three key layout.

The new three key layout makes it easier to manage your contacts. Now you can easily open every contact by pressing the center soft key. In My W880i, I have to first press the left soft key to open the more menu and then choose the open contact option. The K850i doesn’t have more menu any more, it’s now called options. The third softkey (right) is back.

Thanks to the new A200 platform the K850i can hold 1000 contacts and up to 7000 numbers. I guess 7000 numbers should be quite enough for everyone! For example, the W880i can also have 1000 contacts but “only” 2500 numbers.

One new feature I came across is the searching system, which works when the phone is on the standby screen. For example, if you enter 47623 in the standby screen, the phone displays all contacts that have phone number starting with 47623. Very nice feature!

One contact can have much more information that just a name and a phone number. There are five tabs for different kind of information. The first tab is for a name and a phone number. One contact can have seven different phone numbers: Mobile, Mobile (private), Mobile (work), Home, Work, Fax, Other. The second tab is for email and web address. Third one is for Picture, Ringtone and Voice command. The next one is for Title, Company, Street, City, State, Zip code and Country. The last tab goes for Info and Birthday.

All contatcs can be ordered by first or last name. You can also send all your conctacts via text message, picture message, email or Bluetooth.

Entertainment

Sony Ericsson K850i has all the common entertainment applications: TrackID, VideoDJ, PhotoDJ and MusicDJ. You should be quite familiar with these apps if you are a former Sony Ericsson user but if not keep reading.

Entertainment menu / Marble Madness 3D / Marble Madness 3D

TrackID is a quite nice app for recognizing music songs. It’s a free service, only data transmission is charged. The trackID service records a short music clip from the FM radio or an external music source and sends it over the Internet and if everything goes like it should, you will soon receive the song title, artist and album name. PhotoDJ is for editing images. You can add effects, such as Sepia, Black&White, Cartoon and Negative. You can also add texts, adjust the color balance and light balance. It’s pretty nice software but I rather edit all the images on my Mac. VideoDJ is almost like the PhotoDJ but it’s for videos. MusicDj is basically a ringtone maker.

Of course there are some games. My review unit had two games: Marble Madness 3D and Tennis Multiplay.

Sound recording software is also listed under the Entertainment menu.

More applications

The K850i has all the well-known Sony Ericsson applications, such as the RSS reader, email client and file manager. If you want to more about these apps, check out my W880i review.

Battery

Sony Ericsson K850i has the BST-38 930 mAh Li-Pol battery. According to Sony Ericsson the standby time is 400 hours in GSM network and 350 hours when 3G is on and the talk time is 9 hours (3h 30min, 3G). The battery seems to last few days (2-3 days) with average use. It takes about 2.5 hours to charge the phone from empty to full.

Conclusion

Sony Ericsson K850i / Bottom / Camera buttons

There’s no doubt that the K850i is one of the best camera phone available. Its great Cyber-Shot camera can take almost as good photos as my 5MP Sony digicam if shooting conditions are good. Still, I wouldn’t buy this phone to replace my digicam. We aren’t there quite yet. If you are looking for a 5MP camera phone, then the K850i is definitely an option but there are other tempting 5MP phones too: Nokia N95, Samsung G600 and Samsung F700.

31.01.2008. 12:20

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