SE K800i CyberShot

I bought the SE K800i (K series) in November 2006 and it was the first time I was using an SE cell phone. Before this I had tried laying my hands on Nokia, Samsung and Motorola and this is my first encounter with SE. Is it good or is it awful? Well, eventually I got attracted with the inner beauty of the phone as the outer appearance seemed to be too bulky and heavy to the modern people, especially girls – who prefer setting their eyes on the hand phones which are slim and sleek enough. As for me, I am not saying that I go against the cute hand phones, but I just couldn’t press on the shiny tiny keypads which are so close apart and yet the dimension of each key is so mini which led me to pressing four keys simultaneously when I was trying to press one (maybe my thumb is too fat and I just don’t wanna admit it, aiks…). So, SE K800i is renowned for its capabilities of shooting a 3.2 Megapixel picture and it promises a crystal clear picture and it offers high detail with crisp effect images (according to the cyber reviews). The copyrighted CyberShot^TM is already carved on the front surface of K800 which speaks everything for itself – it is indeed a camera phone. The distinctive camera function is packed with a Xenon Flash technology which generates high power flash beam when capturing pictures in dark and shadowy areas. However, to me capturing using the flash beam all the times will cause the phone to run out of battery in short as the phone draws more power to deliver such a bright wavelength. Furthermore, I am also keen to knowing that the camera is bundled with an auto-focus function which helped the user to capture fine and non-shaky objects by calibrating the focal point so that he can obtain the picture in the best conditions. Pressing the camera shutter button on the right spine will hold the picture for secs and once the system is ready, red light will be blinking to indicate that the picture is ready to be taken. To complete the whole package, functions such as Macro ( the ability to capture something which is very near to the lens without smudgy effects), Image Stabilizer, Red-Eye reduction are implemented in the photo-imaging toolset.

However, the negative drawback of this phone is that the sound quality is fairly poor. The generated sound is quite clear but lacks of bass. There is a function of Stereo Widening in the Music Player settings but triggering it hardly made any changes. I had tried to improve the bass value by calibrating in the equalizer window by pulling the bass value as high as possible. As a result, the sound is almost the same, high treble low bass. I guess this is because this phone is placed in the list of K series, and not W series. In the W series (Walkman phone) such as W800 and W810i, it came with a bass enhancement feature and again, W810i is built as a music jukebox where W is the copyrighted Walkmanphone products for range of SE phones.

Below is my picture taken using my friend's Samsung SGH-U600 (10.9mm thickness) and edited using ACDsee 8.0 :-

I don’t really like the memory storage as it is too small to hold abundant of MP3, MP4, Themes, Games, Java apps and Images. 64 MB is just enough to store 10 full 192kbps MP3 files (size might vary according to the length of the track). As normal, the higher the bit rate level of the MP3 file, the greater space is consumed to keep them in the phone. By that time I realized it, I went to Low Yatt Plaza to get to know the price for SE Memory Card M2 and it didn’t surprise me as the price can get me another ordinary MP3 player (No brand) which costs around RM 130 for just 256 MB capacity if I wasn’t mistaken. There is no one to blame as the phone was still new and the M2 memory card isn’t high in demand as the Pro Duo’s popularity overwhelmed other memory cards.

Below is my picture taken using K800i and edited using ACDsee 8.0 :-

However, the display of 256k TFT colour screen did impress me and the SE themes are very attractive and lively as there is animated wallpaper in the provided original themes. Each theme came with different interactivity inclusive of the buttons, selected icon effects, menu and even the SMS text screen. These themes are available for download for free at selected websites. However, the “why pay more” is quite a contradictory name because the themes which are purchased online using credit cards usually arrived in a form that won’t disappoint the K800i user. This is because; the free ones are generally created by anonymous people who held the interest of designing their own themes. Nevertheless, some themes are quite special though.

The A2DP function of K800i comes into handy when user wished to connect the phone using Bluetooth wireless technology to be paired with Bluetooth headphones or other products with the same Bluetooth profile. Secondly, this is very useful when the user is driving while he received urgent calls. So, using a Bluetooth headset is also another key advantage for the Bluetooth connectivity.

The PlayNow^TM allows the user to surf the net without using a web browser to subscribe and download the latest MP3 songs available in the market in just 3 clicks. User is allowed to try the sample song titles before decided to pay for it. The price tag is clearly stated on screen and if the user planned of buying it, a “Yes” button will do the rest and the amount of charges will be directed to the mobile phone bill.

Most significantly, 3G connectivity is available in K800i and this phone constructed with an integrated secondary camera which allows video conferencing too. With the connection speed of 384 kbps, web browsing, photo blogging, MP3 downloading and video calling will perform better than ever.