sony ericsson k800??

gavo82

Hi,

I'm thinking of buying the k800 for the joint option of a quality digital camera and a phone!!

Does anyone know if this is worthwhile in doing??

wba88

yes the camera is very good, good flash, quick aswell

AdrianII

have one

its a class phone
but the camera makes it
3.2 mp - quality is very good

fenris

a good camera, but if you are used to a nokia phone you will probably find the K800 response to key presses quite slow and the menu system is nowhere as user friendly. Also it seems to be impossible to stop the phone accidentaly connecting to the internet as the button to connect to the net doesn't seem to lockout properly using the keylock, so the chances are high that you will pull the phone out of your pocket and find that you have bought some stupid excuse for a game! changing your homepage to google can help this!

The Sony Ericsson PC link software is really bad, use MyPhoneExplorer instead, to get your picture off the phone, there onboard storage is good so there is probably no reason to buy an storage card. The red eye removal utility on the K800 is better than most PC based programs!

If I could have the camera from my K800i on a phone with the responsiveness and menu system of a nokia phone, I would be a very happy chap!

AlmightyCushion

Fenris I've never had a problem with it connecting to the internet accidentally while the keypad is locked. What happens to me quite a bit though is that I pull the phone out of my pocket and find the camera shutter down so it's in camera mode. It's not that big a problem but I'm sure it kills the battery.

fenris

Whatever the mechanism, the effect is that you cannot trust the phone to stay keylocked in your pocket, the internet button seems to be the main one to get hit and you end up explaining why your work phone is being billed for crappy games or whatever else is on the front page of the O2 default site!
I know that I could tape the slide down or wrap the phone in bubble wrap, but the point is that the phone is prone to accidental connection to the net (not good at 02 data prices).
It is the best mobile phone good camera I have used but the standard for mobile phone cameras is not very high! It is important to remember that when reviewers say that the camera is good, they are comparing to phone cameras not real cameras!

I miss a lot of the shots I want (high speed toddlers) because of the shutter button lag and the lack of optical zoom.

My next step is to get responsive phone that behaves like a phone and a good pocketable point and shoot camera, a dedicated camera will have optical zoom and a responsive shutter button, reducing the amount of photos take of the place where something happened rather that the event itself and allowing me to snap the phot I want rather than having to crop like mad on a PC afterwards and loosing detail.

slegs

fenris wrote:

a good camera, but if you are used to a nokia phone you will probably find the K800 response to key presses quite slow and the menu system is nowhere as user friendly. Also it seems to be impossible to stop the phone accidentaly connecting to the internet as the button to connect to the net doesn't seem to lockout properly using the keylock, so the chances are high that you will pull the phone out of your pocket and find that you have bought some stupid excuse for a game! changing your homepage to google can help this!

The Sony Ericsson PC link software is really bad, use MyPhoneExplorer instead, to get your picture off the phone, there onboard storage is good so there is probably no reason to buy an storage card. The red eye removal utility on the K800 is better than most PC based programs!

If I could have the camera from my K800i on a phone with the responsiveness and menu system of a nokia phone, I would be a very happy chap!

SE menu kicks Nokia's out the gate. Nokia users are just used to the antiquated menu provided by nokia. Example, when you click call in SE all preious calls are visible including out, in, missed etc. In Nokia you have to navigate through three different menus to find an older missed call. Very unfriendly. Settings changing in Nokia is very obscure also. In and out of alsorts of menus just to setup MMS.

fenris

I personaly find the SE menuing to be less intuitive and responsive than the Nokia menuing, I felt that the K800i was a definite step backwards in terms of basic phone operation, I have been using this phone for nearly a year and still find the user inteface annoying. Unless you have never used a phone before, you will have some expectation as to the responsiveness of the phone.

If you are moving to the K800 from a nokia phone you may find the K800 menu's cumbersome and slow, returning from deep menus is slow, functions that you are used to finding easily are spread across multiple menus.

If you are moving from another SE phone you may be already used to the SE menu system and not notice the performance delta.

If you are moving from a moto then you will most likely find the K800 a revelation in usability!

The K800 is a good phone camera with a sub-par phone attached. This is the reverse of most other products and the best attempt at a converged camera and phone that I have personaly used. However the phone quality has definitely been sacrificed in favour of the camera quality, unfortunately for me, I need to use the phone part more than that camera part!


Bear in mind that the K800 is a 1 year old phone and that a lot happens in handset development in a year, so you may be better off looking elsewhere entirely!

gavo82

Fenris, if you say oone would be better of looking elsewhere for a high quality camera phone, what phone would you recommend. From my research it seems that the SE k800i is the best phone available for my budget.

Any recommendations would be much appreciated!

Kintarō Hattori

I'll just wade in here and say that I've owned both Nokia's and Sony Ericsson and the SE menu's are definetly better designed. Much easier to hanigate and find what it is your looking for. For me at least.

Random

+1 for the k800i. Used it on my hols a few times now and no complaints

fenris

I think that the K800 is great compromise as a camera with a phone but not up to scratch as either one individually. It is a better camera than most phone cameras, but that is like being the fastest donkey in the grand national, but even a slow horse will beat a fast donkey!
My recomendation is that if you want to be able to take reasonable photos get a nice small camera with optical zoom (for example argos have a samsung 7mp with 3x optical zoom on the back of the catalog for €99), then spend the rest of your cash on a great phone with a reasonable camera!

The K800 is good enough to stop you bringing a small camera with you when you are leaving the house, but you could end up frustrated because you cannot get the photos you want, due to lack of zoom, because the autofocus is not quite ready, the shutter is slow or you are trying to get out of writing a text message to get the camera started.