Sony Ericsson K850 Review

Design:

Replacing the previous Cyber-shot models, the K850 builds on them and although different, one can easily guess it is from the same family. The overall look is inspired by the K810 and its keypad and combines the style of the recently announced models of the manufacturer in one.

Model	Dimension (Inches)	Dimension (mm)	Weight (oz)	Weight (Gramms)
Sony Ericsson K850	4.0" x 1.90" x 0.70"	102 x 48 x 17	4.20	118
Samsung G800	4.0" x 2.0" x 0.70"	101 x 51 x 18.8	4.90	139
Nokia N95 US	3.90" x 2.10" x 0.80"	99 x 53 x 21	4.20	120
LG Viewty	4.10" x 2.10" x 0.60"	103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8	4.0	112

Similar to other new SE device, including the W880, T650 and K810, the buttons are small and with lots of space between each other which results in very precise feeling of each separate button (excellent haptic feedback). Pressing of each is also something you would like, as it is easy and one feels it clearly. Due again to the spaces between them, It is impossible to press two keys at the same time and hitting the wrong button is definitely rare.

In the pursuit of increasing the size of the display and the numeric keyboard, but not at the price of bulky dimension, some compromises had to appear. The unique thing here is the new navigation method Sony Ericsson have used – three touch sensitive buttons and 4-way d-pad built in-between the keypad. Yes, you’ve heard it right – in order to save place, the D-pad is not above the keyboard, it is over it, surrounding the “2” and “5” buttons. As the 5th (central) position, you would find on most other phones, cannot be placed here, it is exactly above, with the left and right soft buttons respectively next to it. Those three keys are pretty small and if you don’t want to touch the display, which often results in leaving of fingerprints, you must touch them with the tip of the finger. Still, they react pretty accurately and by any mean better than the ones of the Samsung phones and the LG Chocolate we’ve used. This is due to the technology, which is activated by the touch and not by electricity over your skin. Like in standard touch-sensitive display, you will find on any WM Professional device or SE UIQ phone, this buttons can be activated with stylus or any other object and not only with finger.

After the first official photos were revealed, most people were concerned about the manipulation with the D-pad, but as we’ve mentioned above, the big spaces between the numeric keys are enough for housing it. It actually has excellent relief and is very usable, more than are most others. Once you get used to the fact that the “central position” is not in the centre of the d-pad but above, you will have no concerns about it.

All keys but the top row (the touch sensitive ones) are illuminated in white (with slight purple nuance) color and when the camera is in use, the right column has additional characters backlit in blue for shortcuts to some functions. This first appeared in the K810, but it used the left column (bottom row) while the K850 now uses the right (top) one. The K770 which comes as budget version of the K850 has two rows of such shortcuts, but the K850 isn’t really jealous about this.

When (un)locking the keyboard, an impression makes the fact that the buttons illuminate from the top to the bottom row or pass out gradually (in a wave manner), which is similar to the T650’s illuminating effects. Plugging an accessory will also make the keyboard light “dance”. Unlike the T650 though, the K850 doesn’t take full advantage of this and the preloaded flash themes doesn’t interact with the backlight.

While the left side is blank, on the right there are plenty of side keys, appointed to different functions of the camera. Standard in the upper part is the volume rocker which although small feels easily, thanks to the protruding ends. It doubles as a zoom in/out in the camera, but as this is digital zoom, we will suggest you not to use it.



A characteristic which brings the K850 closer to the regular digital camera feels and operation is the camera controls constellation. The shutter key resembles the one of the T650, with projecting oval shape which makes it easy to feel. One thing that is added here is that once the camera is active, it is illuminated in blue. Strangely, it doesn’t start the camera but just focuses and acts as shutter key when pressed. To activate the camera, Sony Ericsson has put additional on/off button which is flat but still can be found easily, having in mind it is next to the shutter. This is done in order to prevent the undesired starting of the camera while using or carrying the phone but is also another likeness with camera.

On this side also is situated the 3-way switch, which will change the functionality between camera, camcorder or playback interface – just as on regular digital cameras. It moves rather hard, but when the phone is in landscape orientation it won’t really cause a problem.

The two sides and the top house a green trim, which is the same color as the D-pad. The other color version of the phone is silver instead of black and has blue trim instead of green but in both cases, the contrast is what the designers seek. We’ve also noticed it in other Sony Ericsson phones, including the Walkman Black+Orange/Gold combination which is the most obvious example. One of the S500’s color variant is even named after the contrast, called “Contrasted Copper”. This way the manufacturer tries to escape from the boring all-black or all-silver models in its own unique way.


On the front is the 2.2 inches display, which is an improvement over the 2.0” of the K800 but still lacks in size compared to the 2.6” of the N95. The resolution is the standard nowadays QVGA and the colors are 262k . Although it has slight yellowish nuance, we are happy that remains visible even in direct sunlight, which is something many displays suffered from in the past. Thanks to sensor, it is bright when it has to but saves power otherwise.

We cannot skip the fact that we are impressed by the design of the back-side. Back in the years, many manufacturers have tried to copy the look of a pocket digital camera’s face for the back of the cameraphone, but not many have succeeded. A good example is the Sony Ericsson S700, which had one of the best camera modules in a phone for its time. The K850 now repeats the success with smooth glossy black surface, central-mounted circular lens with contrasting silver border, Xenon flash with LED below it and large Cyber-shot 5.0 megapixels and Sony Ericsson labels. It looks as a feature-rich cameraphone should, but also doesn’t lack style. As the back is the “Face” of the phone while you are talking through it or using it as a camera, we think that designers should put greater effort on its look. The Sony Ericsson’s ones have done their job successfully, creating a pretty back.



The small details are the things that improve with the new generation of phones. Those who follow the history of Sony Ericsson phones must have noted that the K810 is slimmer than the K800 thanks to a redesigned lens cover. The K850 upgrades this aspect once again, with now automated lens-cover, which is inside the phone’s body and in contrast to previous models, opens easily and only when one wants to. This is logical improvement and is something we’ve seen on almost any portable digicam, but just now arrives in a cameraphone. Still, we would have preferred the cover to protect the glass in front of the lens as well because now it can be scratched.

Once again, we give our approval when it comes to changing the memory card, SIM or the battery. The back is not removable, which helps for the lack of any unwanted movement, and the bottom is opened, giving you access to what you need. This is very wily idea and we believe we will see this in future phones. Previous Sony Ericsson phones were known for the “Easy-to-put-but-hard-to-remove” sim-card slots, but the new one is totally redesigned and seems that none of the previous problems will appear here.

The K850 has some unique design details we must note. When powering the phone on, or starting the camera, if you are looking at the back, you will notice the blue circular light around the camera lens to glow. In the prototype we used a few weeks ago, the power button glowed in red when powering on, but here it is illuminated only during charging .

We’ve marked all the things that we like about the new K850, but cannot skip what we do not. Our main disrelish with the manufacturer is that it still keeps on using the proprietary connector. Even the conservative Nokia has started using 2.5/3.5mm jacks and mini/microUSB, realizing that this is what the consumer wants – standard cables and accessories which can be used with a variety of devices, no matter the brand.

The only improvement in this direction is the unique, dual-card-support. For extending the internal memory, the user can use either Sony’s M2 card (which is among all recent models of the brand) or a “standard” microSD instead of it but not both at the same time. This is a great feature as the microSD is the most popular standard now, used in most of the phones of the major brands including Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, HTC, RIM and others.

Interface:

As we’vementioned earlier, the Sony Ericsson K850 moves the Cyber-shot line tothe next level thanks to both hardware and software changes. Thehardware innovations are described above, while the software ones willfollow. As a whole, the interface is similar to the ones before, but isupgraded, tweaked in some of its parts. In this aspect it reminds ofthe W910, which also runs the same generation of software.



This is the first Cyber-shot phone with support for Flash Themes.In the past, only Walkmans did, but with newer models we see that SonyEricsson has integrated this feature also into the “S” (S500) and “T”(T650) series, and now into the “K”. The flash themes can change theicons in the main menu and as we’ve seen in previous models, can evenuse other layout for it, for example a horizontal list with largevisualization. They definitely look much better than the ordinary ones.

Phonebook:

Asfar as saving numbers to the phonebook is concerned, there's almost nodifference with the previous models; you can save up to 1000 contacts,while each of them can store several numbers (up to 7000 numbers intotal), e-mails and web addresses, as well as a personal picture andring tone, or video-tone for indication when you have an incoming call.You can add contacts to groups but you cannot set a common ring tone ora caller ID to a given group. As a whole, this function is planned tobe used only when you want to send a message to more than one contactfor example. Finding a contact is done by directly entering lettersfrom the keypad, but unfortunately only the first word of the nameconsidered during the search. However, an option we really liked was tosort the names both by first and last name. Still, if you’ve sortedthem by last name, you will not be able to search by First name, whichnow appears as second word.

Whenyou start dialing a number directly from the standby screen, you willfind one of the tweaks coming with the new firmware. The phone willsearch the phonebook and the calling history for matching results (bothabout numbers and names) just as it is with any WM6 or BlackBerrydevice. The convenient thing is that it searches the names as if youtype them with predictive input system. For instance, if you want todial “Neo”, you have to dial 636 (6-MNO, 3-DEF, 6-MNO) and almostimmediately the phone will show you all matching names. Unfortunately,like in the contacts menu, the phone won’t search through the secondword of a name.

This is just ridiculous and people spending somuch money on a phone don’t only require camera with large resolution,but also decent phone functionality. Any phone nowadays should be ableto find the names by the second word.

Organizer:

Justas the Contacts, the Organizer menu has its own icon in the main menu.Its options include calendar, tasks, notes, alarms, calculator, timer,stopwatch, code memo, applications links, and synchronization option.


TheCalendar can be viewed for a month, week or a day; the latter optionshows the events, set for the particular day, as well as thepossibility to add new options. When you want to add appointments, youselect the starting time, duration and the reminder’s time. You can adddetails about the venue of the event, as well as a description. Youhave the option of setting it as an All day event (all birth dates fromthe contacts list are added as such) and to include recurrence options(daily, weekly, monthly, yearly).

You can also save simple Tasks(reminder for Task or Phone Call) or write a plain note. The menu alsohouses a Calculator with basic functionality, a Countdown timer and aStopwatch capable of storing up to nine results. We think that the CodeMemo option is useless and we will prefer to have a “safe” where we cansave text information, LOCKED (not coded) by a password.



Additionally in this menu is the file manager, which was found inthe main menu of phones with the earlier software version. It sorts thecontent by type and offers option to filter either the phone or thecard memory, or to view both at the same time.

Instead themanager, the main menu has icon for the five alarms. Each of them canbe set on its own and has fields for time, recurrence and signal type.


Thevoice commands are activated by holding the Volume Down button, and ifyou don’t have any voice-tags recorded, the phone will prompt you do toit. We think that this system is useless as you must read what itwrites on the screen, but shortly after that hold the phone to yourear, as it has sound notifications but doesn’t utilize thespeakerphone. This makes them absolutely inconvenient to use and weeven had a problem with only one contact saved. There's no room formaking a comparison with the system used in Symbian S60 phones or anyother that have speaker-independent voice commands for making calls andopening applications. To sum it up - the one here simply does not work.

The phone has about 40MB of internal memory that can be expanded through Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards, or microSD ones.

Messaging:

Besidesthe standard and multimedia messages, the messaging menu also housesthe e-mail client, which makes it easier for you to send and receive large files that are not suitablefor MMS, like full-sized pictures for example. Entering text is aidedby T9 which increases the text input speed. The preloaded templatesalso are intended to help you save time typing in often used phrasesand sentences. What we found weird is that this menu houses a RSSReader, which is convenient to quickly view the content of a given website without loading it - we checked phoneArena's news in an instant.

Thenew thing is that you can manage the messages – assign categories tothem and save them either to the phone’s memory or the one of thememory card. It would be appreciated mainly by the texting fans.

Connectivity:

Finallya Sony Ericsson phone capable of global roaming arrived on the market,which means that it can be used in GSM networks all around the world.Thanks to support of tri-band UMTS/HSDPA, 3G is also usable both inEurope and in America, and the K850 will work with no problem inAT&T’s 3G network. There even is some rumors that the carrier willoffer it, but this is still not officially announced.

Locallythe Cyber-shot phone connects through Bluetooth 2.0 wirelessly or viathe USB cable that is in the box. It comes with the standard for allSony Ericsson phones PC Suite. You can by-pass it and connect the phoneas a mass storage device, in order to transfer files to and from itsmemory.

Internet:

As other new models of the company, the K850 is equipped with full HTML internet browserthat loads pages as you’d expect to see them, like on a computer. Thecomplicated phonearena.com homepage isn’t problem for the modernbrowser.

Camera:

The Sony Ericsson K850 is a dedicated cameraphone with 5-megapixel auto-focus lens, Xenon flash and additional tri-LED for assistance of the auto-focus system. The K850 enters into the 5-megapixel market as one of the most advanced cameraphones, and the only thing that seems to be missing is the optical zoom. In order to bring more and more features, the camera interface of the Cyber-Shot is an upgraded version of the one on the previous models of the line, the K800/K810 and K770 phones.

Still, the changes are not major and you won’t be surprised by the rather familiar landscape interface, you would expect to see in a Cyber-shot device. As before, the left software key opens the options menu, where you can set the various options including the mode (normal, “Best Pic”, panorama, frames), scenes, resolution, and other settings like night mode, self timer, white balance, and even ISO. Unlike Nokia N95, where it is displayed as “low-high” levels, here it is with real options as on a regular camera – Auto, 100, 200, 400. Additional settings which you will change rarely are packed into an “edit” submenu.

The redesign includes small icons next to every option and the Scenes menu even has color pictures for visualizing their idea. If you are a novice user, this is the easiest way to understand the meaning of the regime while those who know the idea will find this feature of no use but giving modern and more advanced look of the menus.




We are happy with the fast reactions of the K850, which is an important thing for such hi-end cameraphone. Even in average indoor light, the auto-focus locks for 3 seconds while in bright outdoor light it needs just one second. Taking and saving a picture with the best possible quality takes 5 seconds. As a whole, the camera acts very rapidly, faster than the “smart” N95.

When it comes to image quality, we are rather disappointed by the results of the K850. Considering its specifications, it should deliver super quality for a phone, but that really isn’t the case. Similar to the K810, there is something like a grey filter over the image, which results in unsaturated colors and low contrast. The images are sharp and have good detail when compared to the competition, but noise is noted even when shooting in bright environment. When it gets darker, the higher amount of noise is compensated with noise-reduction system which significantly decreases the detail. When the flash of the phone is used as main source of light, the K850 repeats the success of the K800/K810 with its Xenon flash and is way more powerful than the LED-equipped cameraphones.


The video camcorder of the K850 now records in QVGA resolution at 30fps, which is definitely an improvement when compared to earlier models of the brand, but is nothing spectacular when put next to the N95 with its VGA, which is 4 times more. Still, the QVGA (320x240) must be enough for online usage, like posting in YouTube for example.

Multimedia:

The new generation software brings improved multimedia menu. We first met this one in the W910, but it is also available in the Cyber-shot K850. This media menu houses Photo, Music and Video options and has flash interface, which is different than the other submenus but changes (its background) with the change of themes. Over the background can be noted small animations, which similar to the visualizations of the W960’s music player help for greater look.

In the Photo menu you will find the latest photos on the phone, camera album sorting the captured pictures by months. You preview their thumbnails in flash interface and can start a slide show with music, choosing from Silent, Sad, Romantic, Happy, Energy moods. The feature is called x-Pict Story. You can put tags to the photos, like Favorites for example, so they will be more organized. You can add Tags, choosing a name and a small icon.

In the Music menu, you can sort the tracks by Artist, Albums, Tracks (list of all), Playlists, Audio books and Podcasts. This is very similar to the Walkman 3.0 player on the W910 but lacks some filtering options (SenseMe, Year). You can create and edit playlist directly on the phone, and there are two by default. The interface during a playback is exactly the same as on the W910’s Walkman 3 and will display small album art cover and information on the song, artist and album.




Like the W910, the K850 has a sensor for controlling the orientation of the display – depending on the way you hold the phone, the interface will turn from portrait to landscape and vice verse. This is a cool feature, reminding us of the Apple iPhone. The sensor works only in the options of the “Multimedia menu” (the other menus and even the camera have only one orientation) and can be turned off.


The phone also has built-in FM stereo radio but for it you should use the headphones as an antenna. The radio supports RDS, so text information from the stations will be streamed. Total of 20 stations can be saved, and names can be added to be easier to distinguish. Unfortunately, even if the station broadcasts its name through RDS, the phone won’t add it automatically. An option allows to scan the whole range and add all (up to 20) stations that are found. TrackID is supported here and in as an option in the Entertainment menu, so if you want to get information on the song currently playing, just start this feature and it will sample the music, connect to a server (online) and give you information on the artist and track name. As in our previous test, the current ones showed excellent accuracy of the program.

Software:

Like previous Sony Ericsson phones, in the entertainment menu there are Photo, Music and Video DJ applications which are simple multimedia editors in the phone. Here also is the Bluetooth Remote control application and the Games. In addition to the Tennis we’ve seen before, there is an interesting game called Marble Madness 3D. You must control a ball over a relief terrain, but the unique thing is that it is controlled by the tilting of the phone, thanks to the sensor that is used for the orientation of the interface. As K850 supports JAVA MIDP 2.0, such applications can be additionally installed.

Performance:



Conclusion:

We are disappointed by the Sony Ericsson K850 and how it performs as a camera. Really, considering it is the top Cyber-shot branded phone, it should be one of the best on the market, but the comparison with the old N95 and the G600 shows different things. As the K810, the K850 has its strong flash, but probably due to wrong algorithm delivers colorless images. Having in mind the upcoming cameraphones from other brands, we are not sure the K850 will be able to stay competitive. Although it has a few good features, thanks to the new UI of the manufacturer, it isn’t as powerful as the smartphone N95 or the multimedia-device Viewty and its only advantage over the others is the tri-band HSDPA.