OK entry level phone with some design weaknesses (Sony Ericsson K300i)

Member Name: cognition

Product:	Sony Ericsson K300i
Date:	25/11/08 (266 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Has all the basic features most people need: SMS, MMS, WAP

Disadvantages: Joystick will easily fail you

I got the Sony Ericsson K300i brand new about two years ago, and the phone lasted roughly a year. I then paid £50 with the phone locked to O2.

To start with I thought the K300i was an excellent basic mobile phone. You can obviously call and send SMS and MMS messages, while it also supports WAP, has a camera and can record video. My go to features were calling, sending messages, and daily checking of my e-mail through WAP.

The first few months the mobile phone served me well, but then signs of weaknesses in the design became apparent. First it became sluggish in response to the joystick. I would go through my phone list, and would have to wait for the movements on screen to keep up with my tempo. Then the joystick itself started failing. The movements wouldn't register at all. And that's when the phone became useless to me, as no menu selections could be made any more.

The camera and video functions are obviously of low quality and operate at such a low resolution, they are almost useless, although I did use the camera to take some snapshots of important documents while in a rush once, and I was able to read the text when I later transferred the photos to the computer. However, the camera will not suffice for pictures of people if you want to use them for anything else than keeping them on the phone. (VGA 640x480, 0.3mpx).

I did use the phone daily, but I was not a power user: An occasional phone call, as many text messages as the next guy, and a few minutes of WAP every week. Yet the phone, which I bought brand new, failed me in a year's time. Hence I can not recommend the phone. The joystick design is too fragile. I later got a K500i, and the joystick on this phone has a more solid design. I got my K500i second hand, and apart from bad battery life (which Sony Ericsson can not be blamed for) the phone has served me well for a year. Hence, I could say that other slightly more expensive models from Sony Ericsson could be worth looking into, but I would be very wary of getting a K300i based on the poor design of the joystick on this model alone.

Summary: OK entry level phone, but I wouldn't recommend it after my experiences with it.

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