k800i - A well priced phone, but is it still worth it? (Sony Ericsson K800i)

Member Name: neillya1

Product:	Sony Ericsson K800i
Date:	15/03/09 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Range of features for the cost, simple to navigate, great quality camera pictures

Disadvantages: Keys too small, a bit chunky/thick.

Well I'll start with the bit most people are interested in - the price.

Well, seeing as the recession is upon us, I needed a fairly cheap phone that would meet my demands both at work and at home. This was a fairly small list, which included:

Phone Calls (obviously)
Texts
Multimedia Texts
Email capability
Basic web browsing
A camera, for the times when you wish you had one, but had forgotten it!

Well, I came across this phone on the carphone warehouse website, who had it at the cheapest price I could find - £70 on T-mobile, with £10 credit included. So £60 a phone that suited all my needs - not a bad start! :)

The phone came in a nice little box, nothing special though. Charger cable and PC driver CD were included which was nice, although the Sony PC software is quite frankly terrible. I recommend MyPhoneXplorer instead, it's a free download and works great - just google it :)
A headset which also acts as a radio antenna was included, which was nice - but I can never get a radio signal. No matter though, I didn't need (and wasn't even aware of) it's radio capabilities.

So, after turning the phone on and playing around for a bit I got the hang of it. The phone is VERY easy to navigate, which was a nice bonus, especially for those of you who find technology difficult to work with (Even my partner can use this phone! Just don't tell her I said that....)

The text/phone functions are easy and self explanitory to use. So simple, even my dog could probably use them.

The email function is another matter. It took me AGES to set up, I'm talking 3 hours + here, so if you want email functions, look for a blackberry not this phone, it's not worth it. However, once set up it's not too bad, and fairly reliable.

The internet connection is 3G and is pretty fast. I only use it for news sites on the go, and the odd bit of facebook, and it handles all with ease. No problems here.

The camera is of very good quality (3.2 Megapixel) and the shots it takes look rather decent, even on a large PC screen. Video capability is poor however. 3.2 megapixels is more than enough, these phones with 8 megapixel cameras are ridiculous, the battery is just drained in minutes.....

Which bring me to the next point: Battery life.
Well, I can leave it on for a week without needing to recharge, and that's with about 4-5 hours of use a day. The battery life really is fantastic, and I recommend the phone for this alone!

The one downside is that the keys are a bit small, I have rather large hands and often accidentally press keys I didn't mean to. However, with practice I got used to key size, and it's not so bad. Bigger keys would still be nice though.

The styling is a bit marmite to be fair - love it or hate it.
Flip phones seem to be all the range these days but I really don't like them, I prefer the old fashioned "brick" style phone.
Yes, the phone is quite thick (about 3-4cm at the thickest part), and is reasonably heavy, but it has a "well built" feel about it. It feels sturdy and I know it won't break anytime soon!
If you're worried about style though, then I wouldn't recommend this - it's not the prettiest, but it is acceptable.

Overall, this is a very nice phone. It's reasonably cheap, does everything the majority of users will require, and has some nice extra features thrown in too.

The main downside is the key size, so if you don't like small keys on your phone, or have relatively large hands, it probably isn't the phone for you.

Summary: I highly recommend this phone, it does everything most users need at a great price.

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