NOT perfect...It's just the little things! (Sony Ericsson K750i)

Member Name: cheesycal

Product:	Sony Ericsson K750i
Date:	06/09/05 (6788 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of features

Disadvantages: the joystick is dire..it's a bit on the chunky side..sometimes quite slow

I got the Sony Ericsson K750i from Vodafone as a free upgrade from my Samsung E710.

Needless to say, I can't really compare the two because they are over a year apart in release dates but all I can say is that I ended up giving away the K750i to my brother and continue to use my Samsung instead.

The thing with the K750i is that there is so much hype around it that it's difficult to get a balanced view. That's why I'm going to talk more about its little faults than its good points. Don't get me wrong, the K750i is one of the best phones out just now but it's not as amazing as they say!

When you look at the K750i from the front, it just looks like your regular sony ericsson phone..They haven't done much to their T610 it seems. It's black but that's about it. (If you get a phone from vodafone now its black and silver, almost identical to the t610). Look at it from the back..and it looks like a camera! But unfortunately, I feel that the back looks a bit tacky and plasticky and the slider that covers the lens of the camera is a bit flimsy. It's also heavier than other phones I've had or played around with. And a bit chunkier.

In all, its looks don't really do it for me. I like my phones to look small and sleek, and when I put them in my pocket, I dont want them to stick out or get in the way. With the K750i, you can definitely feel the phone in your pocket and for some reason it feels heavier than what the manufacturer says. I am too used to the flashy designs that samsung come up with, that I was rather disappointed by the K750i (but I might be being a bit too fussy)

The features of the K750 are numerous: 2MP camera, MMS, email, bluetooth, voice message, video capture, video playback, mp3 player, mp3 ringtones, infra red, GPRS, radio and 3D java games.

The camera is undeniably the best at the moment. But if you are expecting the video to be as good, you will be disappointed: video recording is actually really dire. On the highest quality, the video is very fragmented and blocky, especially if you are trying to capture movement. Likewise, the video playback isn't great because you have to reduce your video files down so much. Even my Samsung E710 outdid the K750i when it came to video! Nevertheless, a phone is a phone and if it captures video it's a bonus!

MMS and SMS texts work fine and can be easily composed. The only thing I would say about MMS and SMS is that the T9 predictive text thing can be annoying to start with. (when you type things, a little menu comes up with all the possible inputs and you use the joystick to scroll) But once you get used to it, you start to appreciate it more and find it really useful.

The mp3 player is quite simple and you shouldnt really expect much from a phone anyway. You get headphones with the handset but they are quite awkward and uncomfortable. unfortunately, you can't replace them with your preferred headphones because of the socket. The headphones also double up as your hands free kit. The radio also works well

The bluetooth and infrared and other features work very well and I have no real complaints about them.

The software on the phone is quite colourful and the menus are ok to navigate around (not easy as samsungs but satisfactory nonetheless). You can download "themes" to change your menu backgrounds and colours and select screensavers for your phone. But the software is very slow and at times takes 2 or 3 seconds to respond to your commands. Sometimes, the software crashes and other times it gets quite jumpy. But dont worry, software updates are available from the sony ericsson website and they should fix these problems soon. I updated mine about a week ago and it doesn't crash as much and it has speeded up a tiny bit.

The joystick that is central to your menu navigation is very poor. It works well initially and then starts to deteriorate rapidly. Within a 2 months, my joystick started to feel flimsy and some movements are not detected.

the phone reception is not as good as my samsung e710 and the sound is a little bit too low. (that may just be my handset and not all). Hopefully these will be resolved by a software update when it is available.

One more thing is that the keypad is a bit difficult to press. The keys don't depress much and so the keys feel really hard. But later, around 3 weeks or so, I found that the keys did really loosen up...perhaps too much but maybe I'm being too pedantic!

Although K750i has numerous features, if you use them the battery will drain very quickly. I was initially very excited about the features but found that the battery drained within a day when I used the camera often.

I'll go into the good points very briefly:
2MP camera (best quality on a phone yet!!)
Abundant features!
Memory stick (expandable but supplied with 64MB)
The phone can be fun but can also be serious
You can download themes, applications and games
Games are good quality and graphics can be very good!

the bad points are the little things that I've mentioned above and only slighly hinder the K750i excellent performance. You may think that this review is very negative but I only want to balance the opinions and show that it does have its faults!

In all I would give this phone 8 out of 10

PS. If you get the K750i from Vodafone or Orange, beware as they modify the sony ericsson software! on Vodafone the icons are simplified and in a red colour scheme (the icons you cannot change) and the access button (the middle button that should lead to bluetooth settings, infra red, shortcuts etc) are replaced with the Vodafone Live! button which gives you access to GPRS. In the Orange K750i, only the icons have changed...again to their own colour (orange) and once again, a little bit uglier than the generic!

Update...Thanks to Jeff Lemon for reminding me of this...T-Mobile have the same phone and it's called the D750i. It's entirely in silver (I think it's nicer than the vodafone) but apparently the branding is rubbish. Thanks mate

Summary: Excellent features unrivalled just now Excellent Camera! But the little things let it down slightly!

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