Sony Ericsson K800 review: Digicam in disguise

Plugging it in…

Besides the USB support and the Infrared port, the handset offers the usual connectivity capabilities such as 3G and GPRS for fast data transfers, video calls and streaming content.

As we tested, the integrated HTML NetFront Internet browser is at a good level and it does its job more than all right. It has a lot of options - you can view the pages fullscreen with no menus showing and you can even browse your Web pages horizontally or vertically on the screen - the so-called Landscape and Portrait modes. The browser uses the same tiny font size I already mentioned as a disadvantage of the phone menu system. But here it serves a good purpose and you could zoom in the pages if you want to. Generally, the Smart-fit function of the browser manages well with fitting the web content into the screen.

The handset supports Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP profile support which means that you could use stereo Bluetooth speakers with it and that is something you don't see in every phone nowadays. Another notable thing about the excellent Bluetooth support is the Human Interface Device (HID) profile which allows the phone to be used as a remote control for PC and other Bluetooth-enabled devices. Further on the phone could be used as a Bluetooth modem for Internet access of a PC or a mobile computer. Besides that, the phone supports the following Bluetooth profiles: Dial-up networking profile; Generic Access profile; Generic Object Exchange Profile; Object Push Profile; Serial Port Profile; Handsfree Profile; Synchronization Profile; Basic Imaging Profile; File Transfer Profile; HID Profile; SyncML OBEX binding; JSR-82 Java API; A2DP. An interesting feature is that you can connect to a wireless Bluetooth remote screen when browsing your pictures, for example.

The phone has support for local and remote synchronization of contacts and calendar events. The local one is with Outlook and a PC while the remote synchronization is with remote servers. The USB connectivity of the phone has two modes - one for file transfers and one for USB Internet or to put it simply - the second one is for using the phone as a modem. A great feature is the capability to update the firmware version of the phone over-the-air, meaning you can download the new version through the phone itself.

Time management

This phone offers plenty of time organizing features. There is an Organizer icon in the main menu and it contains several applications: Alarms, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Synchronization, Timer, Stopwatch, Calculator and Code memo. The Calendar allows for monthly/weekly view or weekly/daily view. The New Appointment menu is fashioned in a nice way and doesn't feature any unnecessary options seen in most phones. As we have mentioned above, when you add a birthday date in the phonebook, the phone asks you if you wish to add it in the Calendar.

Adding an appointment to the calendar

The Tasks menu offers option to save small tasks that don't need a reminder. Under the Notes menu you can save up to 25 notes of your choice. A nice feature is that you can add text and a picture of your choice to any of the five available alarm slots. You can further on decide the behavior of the alarm if the silent mode is enabled at the time it is set to go off. The FM radio broadcast can be used as an alarm instead of the saved ringtones.

The Organizer menu • Setting an alarm and adding text and a picture to it

The entertainment of the user is well ensured by the Entertainment menu of the phone, no pun intended. A Video Player is present here which has an interface strangely resembling the NetFront web browser. It's nothing special anyways and you've probably seen it already in K750. It doesn't have any special options to it that would make it a preferred application for watching videos. There are some other interesting applications such as VideoDJ, PhotoDJ and MusicDJ, Remote Control and Voice Recorder. VideoDJ is for making video clips from scratch using special transition effects and even by adding background music. It's a very amusing application. PhotoDJ is for applying effects on images and MusicDJ is a very simple application for creating polyphonic melodies. The Remote Control application is for controlling a PC via Bluetooth. It offers three modes: Presenter /for making PowerPoint presentations/, Media Player /for commanding media players/ and Desktop /for commanding the PC mouse with the joystick/. The Voice Recorder allows for unlimited recording and saves the recordings in .amr format.

The Entertainment menu • Sound recorder has no length limits

Have time to waste?

The test phone came with two preinstalled games - FotoQuest Fishing and Mini Golf: Castles. Both games are very good, 3D, nice to play, and rather amusing we must add. The FotoQuest Fishing immerses you underwater in the role of a diver photographer where you get to do assignments on capturing rare and beautiful fishes on film. The pity thing is that the game is rather easy to complete. The Mini Golf is a well-known game genre but the thing that sets this game apart is that you play it with the phone in horizontal mode. And of course the game graphics are well developed.

FotoQuest: hunting for the best fish picture • Mini Golf: Aiming for the hole

Final words

Undoubtedly, K800 is an exciting phone to have and use. The feature packed 3G handset would become a market hit and it would develop a strong fan base of people who do not consider the size of their mobile phone that important. The superb display and the high-level still camera functionality are something that many men would fall for. We look forward to see more on how the mobile phone will find its place on the market.