Sony Ericsson isn't the first to come up with a 5-megapixel camera-phone and, in fact, Samsung has even higher-resolution mobiles in its pocket. And with a 5-megapixel autofocus camera and an onboard Xenon flash, some are bound to wonder if the Cyber-shot K850i can rival that of Nokia's N95. Previously, we had a quick hands-on impression of the unit at CommunicAsia 2007. This time, we're delving deeper to find out what else the K850i has to offer. Do note that this is still a prototype unit we're reviewing, so there may be differences in the commercial set when it becomes available in early Q4.
Design
When we read the specifications, we couldn't help feeling that this should have been what the K810i aspired to. Fans of the first Cyber-shot have waited for a promising successor to the K800i and were no doubt disappointed that these turned out to be chiefly aesthetic in the K810i. In the K850i, Sony Ericsson has not only increased the resolution from 3.2 to 5 megapixels, other less-publicized features give the K850i street cred as a camera-phone.
Taking a page out of the Sony Cyber-shot book, the K850i sports a slider switch that toggles between the shooting modes and playback function. Previously, users had to access the onscreen menu to change from stills to motion images. With this new hardware switch, toggling between shooting modes is a lot easier.
One of the most notable changes (we're inclined to say improvements, but there's a reason we're not) is the automatic lens cover. The company has dropped the entire mechanical lens cover on the K850i, replacing it with an automatic one. The catch is that a layer of clear plastic now protects the cover. This may be a problem when fingerprints smudges come to play.
On the K810i and the K800i, sliding down the lens cover automatically activates the camera. But on this new Cyber-shot, there's a dedicated on/off button that does the job.
The last feature, probably also one of the most interesting and innovative ones, is the battery compartment on the K850i. Unlike most mobile phones where changing the power cell involves removing a cover, this Cyber-shot sports a slide-out door that allows access to the battery and the SIM card. This feature may be common on standalone digital cameras, but it's definitely one of the firsts we're seeing on a camera-phone.
Like the K810i, Sony Ericsson has not only given the K850i a glossy front section, it has also kept the numeric keypad and Call/End buttons equally tiny. The usual directional pad is now a rectangular ring that wraps around the 2 and 5 buttons.
After fiddling with our prototype unit for a few days, we felt the buttons, though tiny, weren't that difficult to use. It was a little awkward at the beginning, but ample spacing between each key helped in the typing. The experience would have been better if the buttons had provided more feedback, though. Our only quibble was accidentally hitting the directional pad when reaching for the 2 and 5 buttons.
In our previous assessment, we wrote about the top row of softkeys that appear to be neither touch-sensitive nor hard buttons, which left us baffled. We have since confirmed with Sony Ericsson that the softkeys represented by three white dots are touch-sensitive and they glow in the dark, as we found out later. However, when in use, the keys will depress slightly because the screen and the keypad are separate components and the latter felt to us as if it was lying on a hollow layer.
Cool user interface
The user interface in K850 is the well known Sony Ericsson standard non-smartphone one, yet livened up with some refreshments and applications. The most important ones are the Media Center and the Flash Lite theme support, as well as the stylish light effects for incoming calls and the video ringtone support. As most previous models, the Sony Ericsson K850 comes with a dedicated Flight mode. When turning on the phone, you may opt to start it directly into Flight mode. Unlike its Nokia S40 rivals, the Sony Ericsson handsets cannot work in Flight mode unless a SIM card is inserted.
In active stand-by mode the screen displays information about the network signal, battery strength, current date and time, plus the next alarm due. Pressing the navigation pad in any of the four directions can start a user-programmed feature or application. The main menu itself is a 4 x 3 grid of animated icons. All sub-menus are in list view with tiny icons on the left side. Response is fast in every submenu and application.
Like Sony Ericsson T650, the K850 also supports Flash Lite themes, even some of the preinstalled themes are Flash-based. They change not only the color scheme and the wallpaper, but also the menu icons themselves. We tested K850 with the default theme from T650 and sadly found out that the home screen animations didn't affect the keypad lighting in any way. We came to miss the captivating lighting effects of the T650. It is possible however that the lack of this functionality is only due to our handset being a pre-release unit.
Camera: 5 megapixel
The Sony Ericsson K850 has a thrilling 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a powerful xenon flash and automatic lens cover. Upgrades are serious in both interface and ergonomics. There's only one thing the Cyber-shot logo, the 5 megapixel sign and the digicam-like design and keys can't make up for. And that's a common drawback of all cameraphones: the lack of real quality optics. As the megapixel count in cameraphones will continue to go up, developing quality optics should be the first thing to address to give cameraphones some competitive edge against low and mid-end digicams. As to the interface, Sony Ericsson K850 is the first Sony Ericsson cameraphone to offer Cyber-shot SE v2.0, inspired by Sony's T series digital cameras. The major amendments are the pop-up sub-menus enhanced with icons, or even embedded color photos, for even more intuitive performance, and the Multi Menu packing all the available settings. Autofocus mode automatically changes to macro, when a close object is chosen to shoot at and that's another handy option.
There is an Activity menu which has a dedicated shortcut key on the keypad. The Running Apps tab of the menu offers multi-tasking - for example you can run two Java applications and listen to the radio or to the music player simultaneously. A new feature allows minimizing the dialog window when you receive a file via Bluetooth and opening the window on demand through the Running Apps tab on the Activity menu. This is really convenient, as now you can explore the phone in the meanwhile, as opposed to other Sony Ericsson phones, where you have to wait until the transfer completes. Strangely, this is not the case if you're sending files from K850 to another Bluetooth device. The two available options are "cancel" and "back" and both result in interrupting the file transfer. The Activity menu also offers quick access to recent events, the web menu and the My Shortcuts menu which contains a list of favorite features and can be modified to the user liking. The TrackID service is present here too, and is found in the My Shortcuts menu, in addition to its original location in the radio options menu.
Features
The phone's menu is similar to previous Sony Ericsson models with a 3-by-4 icon grid, tabbed browsing interface for Settings and vertical scrolling for other options. The softkeys are mapped to the applications and they show up as different options when selected.
One of the most radical changes is the new tree-like Media browsing interface that looks vaguely like the Sony PlayStation Portable. The Photo, Music, Video, TV and Settings icons are lined in a column. To select any of the options, we had to press right using the navigation pad. The interface just needs to be spruced up with some colors instead of the grayscale theme we're seeing now. That said, this is a prototype and things may change down the road.
On the digital imaging front, the K850i has a comprehensive set of features and is comparable with some midrange digital cameras. The user can choose different image sizes, quality settings and shooting modes. There is 16x digital zoom, though at maximum telephoto setting, we expect a drop in image quality due to pixelation. The K850i also comes with autofocus, a built-in Xenon flash, selectable ISO, white balance, metering modes and a variety of scene modes to help the user along. The onboard accelerometer (Apple's iPhone also has a similar feature) keeps the pictures in the correct orientation regardless of whether we're looking at it from a portrait or landscape perspective.
Other notable goodies on this Cyber-shot include a front-facing camera for 3G video calls, memory card slot that accepts both Memory Stick Micro and microSD card types, FM radio, organizer functions, Track ID, Video/Photo/Music DJ, voice recorder, RSS feed reader, Web browser and triband HSDPA connectivity. The K850i also supports streaming video clips in Netchannels which we were unable to test.
Conclusion
We believe the Sony Ericsson K850 lives up to the responsibility of being a landmark product in the company portfolio. With rich camera settings, the K850 comes incredibly close to stand-alone digital cameras. The novelties in navigation suggest the K850 will not resort to simply being an upgrade to older Cyber-shot handsets and will be aiming beyond the brand-loyal consumers. However, the first 5 megapixel Cyber-shot will be forced to handle a lot of pressure. It's been a year since Nokia N95 was introduced, which indisputably outruns K850 in non-cam features. Other tempting 5 megapixel mobiles as LG KU990, Samsung G600, Samsung F700, and Nokia N95 8GB will soon be crowding the cameraphone market. With an expected price tag of about 430 Euro, some users will think twice before buying a K850 at its very release. If the mentioned rival phones get launched at the same time, the domination of Sony Ericsson K850 will put to a serious test.
