nothing special! (Sony Ericsson K850i)

Member Name: jamiebeck

Product:	Sony Ericsson K850i
Date:	27/05/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 5.0 mega pixel camera

Disadvantages: touch screen is pointless and can cause problems.

This was my second sony ericsson phone, i also had the k850i's predecessor, the k750i. The noticeable differences between the two is the replacement of the small stick in the middle of the keypad with 4 small highlighted buttons and the touch screen.

The touch screen is a gimmick that is pretty unneccesary to this product, it isn't fully touch screen like the i-phone but it only has 3 buttons on the lower screen. I truely feel that the only reason touch screen is on this phone is because they wanted to say 'hey we can do it too'. In fact it proves an annoyance more than anything as the bottom right button is for internet browsing which vodafone charges me for. I've lost count the amount of times ive pressed the button without realising at the end of a call or text and later realise its been on the internet for the last ten minutes!! However, I think the buttons replacing the small joystick-like feature was a good decision. The stick tended to accumulate dirt very easily which made it appear dirty and eventually cause problems in movements being recognised.

For me, the main reason i stuck with sony ericsson is the camera quality. One of the best cameras on the market of household phones, in my opinion, it has 5.0 megapixels and i believe that the next update will have even more. One thing i would say about the cyber-shot camera is that it never took so long on the k750i (3.2 megapixel) to save a new photo and load old an old one, in fact, it was nearly instant. However, whenever i take a photo it will take a few seconds to 'save picture' which can be annoying if you're trying to take a picture of something on the move. Apart from that the quality is very good, unless you zoom in!

This phone enables you to hold many text messages on its basic memory however the more you have the slower it operates so be careful not to keep them for too long! Another issue with memory is that you need a memory card to hold a reasonable amount of music. The set up of the media is very good and accessible but you can't hold a decent amount unless you have a memory card which, of course, doesnt normally come with the camera.

Although i haven't experienced it myself, many of my friends with the same phone have experienced the phone cutting off randomly, be it on a desk or mid-phone call it shuts itself off with no warning. If you're lucky then you can switch it back on and phone and apologise to the person you were speaking to but some people aren't so lucky. In fact someone i know had to connect it to the CD you get with it and install an update, i've only ever known this to happen to i-phones. I just dont see why you would need to install an update if you don't use the internet? Are sony programming this to fail after 6 months or so? That's most probably paranoia, but it makes you wonder...

The radio function isn't too bad, i worked in london for a year and used it a lot on the bus on the way to work and i was able to get good signal on the bigger stations such as radio 1, however, not so much on the smaller stations, and this was london so i would of expected a little better. Luckily i was happy with radio 1!

Gone are the days when you get good games for free. This phone just includes demos, which, if you like, you will have to pay for in future. The games include brain games, pacman, rollercoaster rush, trivial pursuit, tetris and zuma. None of which i have purchased.

To be honest i only use my phone for the basics and taking pictures. From that basic need i recommend the phone however it does have a lot of flaws i'm sure other phones do not.

Summary: good camera, but not much else

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Sound quality:
Variety of features: