Gadgets and Gizmos

Sony Ericsson K850i

Sony Ericsson K850i is a 5 mega pixel camera which definitely improves on day, night and indoor photography (with a bit of fiddling with settings). The 3.2 mega pixel K800i was pretty much useless in dark light conditions. A new mobile often means additional features compared to its predecessor and it’s the case for the K850i. This includes three touch sensitive navigation control keys located at the bottom of the screen. However, we soon found ourselves wishing for the normal tactile keypad after the touch keys failed to register our ‘touch’ for the umpteen times.

The K850i also has a BestPic mode, which has appeared before in some of the Cyber shot series. Once activated, consumers are allowed to take a series of nine images at a time and select the best – perfect for moving objects. The handset’s design doesn’t follow up the company’s trademark style, having no rounded edge and thus looking more rectangular and somewhat sharp – this lends it a tubby feel. Both on pictures and in real life the handset has always seemed chunky to me, and at a glance I’ve always considered it to be bigger than the Sony Ericsson K800i.

The Sony Ericsson K850i is a quad band GSM unlocked phone with US 3G, and that’s a big deal: with Sony Ericsson imports, we’ve been lucky to get the US 850MHz band for GSM, let alone US 3G. The phone is sold by online retailers and importers, but currently isn’t offered by a US carrier (there are rumors that AT&T might carry it sometime in the future).

The K850i has triband UMTS/HSDPA 3G that will work anywhere in the world 3G service is available, and GSM/EDGE/GPRS that will work anywhere in the world GSM is available. The phone will work with AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, though the 3G makes it particularly attractive to AT&T customers. Photo quality is excellent overall, with more usable data than the K790i and K800i’s 3MP images and better exposure (no white haze or washed out effect which we sometimes noticed with the K800i). Colors are accurate, if not sometimes understated and we couldn’t find a hint of color cast in outdoor shots.

Indoor shots became overly warm as the camera didn’t compensate well enough for incandescent lighting in auto exposure mode with the flash on (turning off the flash fixed the problem). Indoor evening shots in poor light were pleasing with good blacks, but surprisingly the N95 managed a more exposed shot. The Sony Ericsson has great battery life that beats the N95-3 hands down when both phones are in 3G mode.

The N95 does better in GSM mode, but the K850i still wins hands down. Of course, the N95 does have WiFi and a GPS, but of which can consume a great deal of power, but we’re basing our comparison with those features not used. We’re very impressed with the number of hours SE got out of the 930 MAH Lithium Ion battery in 3G mode (3G uses more power than GSM), and our phone lasted 2 to 3 days with average use including 30 minutes of talk time/day, 2 hours music playback/day, looking up PIM information several times throughout each day, surfing the web over HSDPA for 30 minutes/day and taking 40 photos/day.

Some features of Sony Ericsson K850i Blue

• Bluetooth for Voice
• Bluetooth for Data
• Camera with Zoom
• Video Camera
• Video Downloads
• Colour Screen
• Java Technology
• Music Player
• Polyphonic Tones
• FM Radio
• Internet
• Email
• MMS
• 3G
• 5 mega pixel camera
• Digital Zoom
• Video Messaging
• MP3 Ringtones
• USB
• Wallpapers