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Electronics Review (View All)
Sony Ericsson K800i
Wednesday, July 2, 2008 2:05 PM
Rating
(loved it!)
(loved it!)
Notes
My trusty old Canon Elph S100 (2.0 megapixel, 9 yrs old) finally decided to go kaputt, so I've been in the market for a new camera. But then I was thinking, do I really want to lug around a camera? Considering that my Samsung SGH-x497 (no-frills basic cell phone) was coming up on 3 years, maybe it would make sense to actually get a semi-modern phone that had a built-in camera...
So I started to do some research. I found that even though the majority of phones have cameras, they're actually pretty crappy ones, and that you really still need to look for a dedicated "camera phone" if you want anything with decent optics and picture quality. Though there have been some recent entries from Samsung and LG, the real battle over the past couple years has been the Nokia N73, N95, and Sony Ericsson K800i, K810i, and K850i.
My goodness, you can find all sorts of reviews on these cameras, there are quite a few passionate debates in the forums over which is better. Every phone takes a different approach and thus has its strengths and drawbacks, and of course there's also cost. Nokia runs Symbian OS, which is purportedy slower, but can support more PDA-like applications, whereas Sony Ericsson is faster. Nokia has Carl Zeiss optics, but the flash is lacking, Sony Ericsson has a Xenon flash which is better for nighttime shots. Nokia's image processing creates colorful but unrealistically oversaturated photos, whereas Sony Ericsson's are more realistic, if not duller.
Based on the price range I was looking for ($150-$200, used on Ebay), I ended up finding a K800i for $150 in almost-new condition. This was a flagship model which was introduced in 2006, actually. The K800i is the international version of the original K790, important to me since I go to Hong Kong often.
It took me a little while to get used to the joystick, but after a few minutes of playing around it seemed fine. I read that the K810i, while more svelte and updated in design compared to the K800i, has too small of a joystick and is very hard to use. The K800i indeed has a very fast, responsive interface. Taking pictures is a snap, just slide down the lens cover, and the phone goes into "camera mode" within about 2 seconds, and you're ready to shoot. I've read the Nokias can take around 8 seconds to go into camera mode, which could be annoyingly unacceptable in certain situations, I'm sure. Picture quality was very good at 3.2 megapixels, but mind you, I'm used to the output of my 9-year-old Canon 2 megapixel dinosaur. I only upload to the web though, so generally I'd say this is more than sufficient for that.
Reception seems fine, speaker loudness seems ok, but just a tad quieter than my trusty ol' Samsung x497. I don't anticipate a problem though. The screen is not terribly huge, but very bright and clear to read.
The K800i has an excellent mp3 player whose interface rivals that of an iPod, I've read. I'm still waiting on my 8GB M2 memory card to arrive ($40, ebay), will update this review when I get that and load it up with mp3s.
As long as it holds up, the K800i will be my cell phone, mp3 player, and digital camera, and I anticipate it to last me quite a while. It's not the newest phone by any stretch, but it's a solid performer and won't break the bank.
So I started to do some research. I found that even though the majority of phones have cameras, they're actually pretty crappy ones, and that you really still need to look for a dedicated "camera phone" if you want anything with decent optics and picture quality. Though there have been some recent entries from Samsung and LG, the real battle over the past couple years has been the Nokia N73, N95, and Sony Ericsson K800i, K810i, and K850i.
My goodness, you can find all sorts of reviews on these cameras, there are quite a few passionate debates in the forums over which is better. Every phone takes a different approach and thus has its strengths and drawbacks, and of course there's also cost. Nokia runs Symbian OS, which is purportedy slower, but can support more PDA-like applications, whereas Sony Ericsson is faster. Nokia has Carl Zeiss optics, but the flash is lacking, Sony Ericsson has a Xenon flash which is better for nighttime shots. Nokia's image processing creates colorful but unrealistically oversaturated photos, whereas Sony Ericsson's are more realistic, if not duller.
Based on the price range I was looking for ($150-$200, used on Ebay), I ended up finding a K800i for $150 in almost-new condition. This was a flagship model which was introduced in 2006, actually. The K800i is the international version of the original K790, important to me since I go to Hong Kong often.
It took me a little while to get used to the joystick, but after a few minutes of playing around it seemed fine. I read that the K810i, while more svelte and updated in design compared to the K800i, has too small of a joystick and is very hard to use. The K800i indeed has a very fast, responsive interface. Taking pictures is a snap, just slide down the lens cover, and the phone goes into "camera mode" within about 2 seconds, and you're ready to shoot. I've read the Nokias can take around 8 seconds to go into camera mode, which could be annoyingly unacceptable in certain situations, I'm sure. Picture quality was very good at 3.2 megapixels, but mind you, I'm used to the output of my 9-year-old Canon 2 megapixel dinosaur. I only upload to the web though, so generally I'd say this is more than sufficient for that.
Reception seems fine, speaker loudness seems ok, but just a tad quieter than my trusty ol' Samsung x497. I don't anticipate a problem though. The screen is not terribly huge, but very bright and clear to read.
The K800i has an excellent mp3 player whose interface rivals that of an iPod, I've read. I'm still waiting on my 8GB M2 memory card to arrive ($40, ebay), will update this review when I get that and load it up with mp3s.
As long as it holds up, the K800i will be my cell phone, mp3 player, and digital camera, and I anticipate it to last me quite a while. It's not the newest phone by any stretch, but it's a solid performer and won't break the bank.
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