This is what we bought to replace my lost phone:
It’s a Sony Erisson K800i, which we bought at a store in Park Square for around Php18,500.
The phone’s specs may be found here. It is said to be a successor to the K750i, a very successful model which was released sometime in the second quarter of 2005. Coincidentally, I had that phone sometime June of 2005 only to have it stolen while I was taking my daily commute at the MRT, 3 months later.
With the K800i, it felt like coming back to something I’ve had before. Honestly, it looks and feels somewhat like the K750i, albeit the phone is a tad taller. The UI looks the same but animations are smoother, the keypad is still cramped, the black with silver trimming is the same, the camera lens has an active shutter as well. I never had to read the manual to get things set up the way I wanted it to be. Kudos to Sony Ericsson for putting a consistent and easy to understand UI on their phones.
Immediately I bought a crystal case as you can see in the picture. I also bought a screen protector just to be sure that the screen won’t get scratched if dirt gets stuck inside the crystal case. I admit to being vain with my gadgets, just a little scratch makes me very annoyed, especially when I’m not the one who did it. I also got a neoprene belt pouch to cushion it in case it falls — I told you I’m paranoid!
Here are some pictures I took using the phone:
Please note that I did not rotate the last image to make sure that the original contents of the file created by the phone is preserved. Pretty good CMOS camera sensor, if I may say.
I haven’t tried placing a video call yet, but for those who do want some feedback, I’m willing to relay my thoughts to you once I do. I’m on prepaid SMART Buddy, and at the time the mugshot of my phone was taken I had 3G disabled.
As for battery life, I’m on my second charge cycle now, letting the phone drain all of the juice on the batteries and performing a full charge overnight. It took 3 days before it was necessary to recharge, and all I did was send SMS and receive a few calls here and there. Pretty good compared to my previous phone which only took 2 days.
Call volume is good enough for me, I could hear the person talking at the other end of the line clearly even when people around me are yapping and talking about.
Ringtones sound great, though not as loud as I wanted it to. The accompanying vibration is quite weak as well and, unlike Nokia fanboys are used to, occurs only before the audible alert is started.
The K800i takes in Memory Stick Micro (or M2) for secondary storage, though for storing ringtones and small clips, there’s around 64Mb left in the phone itself. Don’t bother looking for the memory card in the box, the K800i doesn’t come with even 32Mb of M2. Shame!
Maybe I’m just spoiled with how my previous phone’s keys were large and well spaced-out, but the keypad in the K800i gets my hands aching even before I finish a full SMS text. Well I think that’s the consequence of trying to squeeze in a bright (even at 50% setting) and clear 2″ 240×320-pixel TFT LCD screen.
I miss MegaBass with this phone. I don’t know if Sony Ericsson went with the trend Apple did with the newer iPod where they lowered the volume to prevent people from listening to it with a very loud setting, but there’s no MegaBass. There’s a preset equalizer with the bass option, and a stereo widening setting to replace it.
Overall the K800i, despite the non-inclusion of an M2 card and the cramped keypad, gets mad props from me because of the myriad of features that it has in a form factor that is still comfortable to carry. We definitely got our money’s worth with it.