Hands-on Sony Ericsson K850i Cyber-shot phone

At long last we've got our hands on the almighty Sony Ericsson K850i Cyber-shot, a camera with a built-in phone. This is the latest handset to join the ranks of the photo-focused Cyber-shot family and we were very keen to take it out for a spin.

As first impressions go, we weren't as bowled over as we hoped we would be. Don't get us wrong, the camera is fantastic -- and potentially the best camera on a phone we've seen so far -- but the K850i has a few annoying traits.

As you can see in this picture, the K850i has a very strange navigation key and keypad layout. The three white, touch-sensitive bits directly underneath the screen take some getting used to and don't always respond properly.

Underneath the fiddly soft key is a very bizarre four-way navigation key that sits in between the number keys. It's not that difficult to use, but you do end up tapping the 2 or 5 keys, thinking they'll select something when they won't.

The keypad isn't overly impressive either and we're stumped as to why Sony Ericsson chose these keys over larger, easier-to-press ones. All of these niggles take away from the fact that the K850i's feature set, and the camera in particular, is very good.

The 5-megapixel camera packs auto-focus, red-eye reduction, digital image stabilisation, Bestpic mode (which lets you take a quick succession of shots) and its star feature, a super-bright xenon flash and LED photo light. The LED acts as a focus-assist light and the xenon flash illuminates the darkest of corners.

Once you've taken a photo or video you can upload it to a blog or send it to a friend. Other clever features include easy-to-access slots for the SIM, battery and microSD and Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards, which are housed at the bottom of the K850i and can be got at by flicking open a spring-loaded cover.

We can see the Sony Ericsson K850i being a love/hate object and you'll have to try the keypad out for yourself. It's currently available from several major networks for free on a monthly contract. Expect a full review soon, where we'll discuss the K850i's features in more depth, but in the meantime click through for more photos. -Andrew Lim


To operate the camera, you hold the Sony Ericsson K850i in the same way you'd hold a standard digital camera. The layout is very straightforward and easy to use.


The 5-megapixel camera is undoubtedly the Sony Ericsson K850i's star feature and looks fantastic. We really like the xenon flash -- it makes taking shots in low-light conditions possible, which has always been a major problem with camera phones in the past.


At the bottom there's a very easy-to-access SIM card slot, battery slot and microSD/Memory Stick Micro slot. We hope to see this on future Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot models.


The Sony Ericsson K850i's Achilles heel is definitely its keypad, whose layout we found difficult to get used to.

Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K850i, a 5 MP Mobile Device Unveiled

Sony Ericsson has launched its new Cyber-shot mobile phone called K850i in India.

Unveiled by the two International WTA players Mario Kirilenko and Marto Domachowska, the new camera phone features 5 megapixel camera with Auto focus, Xenon flash and 16x digital zoom.

The BestPic feature helps the owner to click as many as nine images in one click and even choose the best one amongst all. K850i also allows the user to automatically adjust the combination of light, contrast and brightness for best images through Photofix feature.

The multimedia phone also sports a new media browser that enables the consumer to put all the photos, video, music or podcasts at a place. In addition, it also gives access to scroll, sort and get hold of media from a single point on the menu.

The large 2.2-inch crystal bright display allows users to view photos in thumbnail images or even scroll through in full-picture mode. You can also see photos that are stored in the camera a month back.

Additional features of the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K850i:

• Up to 40 MB
• Memory Stick Micro (M2) and SanDisk micro SD/Transflash, 512 MB M2 in box
• Video call, Music tones, Polyphonic ringtones, Speakerphone, Predictive text input
• Up to 9 hrs/3 hrs 30 min of talk time
• Up to 400 hrs/350 hrs of Standby time
• Up to 3 hrs 20 min of Video call time
• Video recording, FM radio, Streaming audio/video, PlayNow 4.0 Media browser
• Navigation key, Picture wallpaper, Java support, Sound recorder, Alarm clock, Calculator, Calendar
• Networks: (UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900)

The auto rotate feature displays it in the correct aspect, portrait or landscape, irrespective of the orientation it was taken in.

Sony Ericsson has not released the price and availability date of the Cyber-shot K850i mobile device. The camera phone will be available in two different color such as Luminous green and Velvet blue.

Sony Ericsson K770i developer specs

We usually skip this sort of information, but it’s a slow news week and why not — I still think the Sony Ericsson K770i is one of the best looking devices (not yet) on the market. Let’s roll…

The K770 is based on Sony Ericsson’s Java Platform 7 and among other things it will be able to run a host of downloadable Java apps like advanced 3D games, mobile navigation applications, video streaming, travel companions, various applications using the camera (i.e. photo and video blogging). The new Cyber-shot phone also supports other entertaining content like ringtones, music, animated wallpapers and themes…

And that’s it for the rest of us. Developers - check out the following list after the jump.

Highlights of the Sony Ericsson K770i developer specifics:

• Supports multimedia features like 3D gaming, video streaming and podcasts, listening to music, using various web services like full HTML browsing, RSS feeds and picture and video blogging.
• Preloaded content includes 2 Java games (no major titles) and 2 Java applications: FaceWarp & Photomate.
• Based on Sony Ericsson’s Java Platform 7 (JP-7) supporting a range of Java programming features for gaming, video streaming and other entertainment, personal and business productivity.
• Developers can access the 3.2 Megapixel camera through the Advanced Multimedia Supplements API, JSR-234, to let users control the exposure, focus, zoom and frame-by-frame video recording from a Java application.
• Supports SVG Tiny 1.1 with anti aliasing, compression, opacity and gradients
  Supports Java Wallpapers (this sounds promising)
• Supports push e-mail with Exchange ActiveSync and Java push e-mail solutions provided by third parties and leading e-mail standards such as POP/IMAP
• Supports Sony Ericsson’s content download service - PlayNow (no surprise here).

Is Sony Ericsson Cooking Up a Cyber-shot Slider Phone?

As if a skinny Cyber-shot phone wasn't enough to tickle your fancy, it seems that Sony Ericsson may finally be working on a sliding variant of its popular Cyber-shot line of mobile phones. What you see here is far from being an official rendering, so we'll have to take this report with a grain of salt.

It would makes sense, though, wouldn't it? Slider phones have rapidly increased in popularity these past couple of years, especially with the release of the LG Chocolate Phone. Sony Ericsson has already taking the sliding mechanism to their Walkman phones (W850, for example), so why wouldn't they do that for the more photographically-inclined in their mobile phone family.

We'll have to keep our ears to the ground, but I personally like the prospects. Sliders are awesome.

Sony Ericsson K770 Cyber-shot announced

As expected, Sony Ericsson started reveling the new handsets today. The first one announced is the new Cyber-shot phone - K770. Unlike other such phones coming from the Swedish-Japanese handset manufacturer, this one doesn’t just emphasize the camera — there’s also the new level of style incorporated with this device.

At just 14.5mm, the Sony Ericsson K770 is the thinnest Cyber-shot device ever. Plus, its “Truffle Brown” color make the device look classy!

In terms of specs, there’s the 3G/UMTS radio, 1.9″ 320 x 240 screen with 262k colors, 95 gram weight, 105 x 47 x 14.5 mm dimensions, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio and the Memory Stick Micro (M2) expansion slot (the sales package will containg the 256 MB memory card). The camera is 3.2 megapixels with auto focus and users can quickly share their photos online. Also important to note is that K770 comes with pre-installed Photo fix software, which allows PC-free photo editing directly from the handset.
In a word - excellent, though I wouldn’t mind that 5 MP camera from the K850i. On the second thought, there’s no way it would be this thin with such a camera.

[Via: Sony Ericsson Press Release]

Sony Ericsson K850i wallpaper

This one’s for all you guys and gals that are waiting for the Sony Ericsson to make available its ultimate Cybershot phone. Useful to counting down the days till the actual release — after that you’ll probably want to use some other photo taken with your brand new baby’s 5 MP camera.

Click here to download the 1280×1024 wallpaper (159 KB).

[Via: Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]

Sony Ericsson K550i

Sony Ericsson’s K550i is a Cyber-shot handset, which means it’s designed with photography as a key feature. In this instance the 2-megapixel camera is, in pure pixel terms, a bit behind the times, but the Cyber-shot metaphor is held together with features like auto focus, some image doctoring and built in picture blogging. Of course, as a Sony Ericsson handset the K550i can also play music, so tune-fans won’t miss out on that feature by taking the Cyber-shot route.

The quad-band Sony Ericsson K550i is pretty widely available. You can get it from free from T-Mobile and Orange, and O2 has an i-mode version of the handset available. Yes, i-mode is still alive and kicking.

There are two colour schemes available – black and silver, and white and silver. My review sample was black. Either way this is a reasonably pocket friendly phone. It is 46mm wide, 102mm tall and 14mm thick and weighs 95g.

It can’t match the emaciated 9.4mm thick W880i, though it shares that handsets approach to the numberpad. I loathed the thin and narrow number buttons on the W880i, preferring the slightly wider format they were given on the W610i. Fortunately, we are back in that territory again here, with the number buttons a mere single millimetre tall but 8mm wide. That’s 2mm wider than on the W880i. Believe me I found that small increase made all the difference when it came to speedy texting.

Sony Ericsson likes to use round shapes for its other buttons but tends not to go for full circles.

So, beneath the screen we have a round navigation button with top and bottom sections lopped off and semi-circular buttons at the edges of the handset for accessing the internet and getting to the Activity Menu.

This is a series of tabbed screens, which cater for things like skipping between running applications, seeing alerts like missed calls, and accessing web bookmarks.

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Sony Ericsson's K810i joins the Cyber-shot camp

Successor to the widely popular Cyber-shot K800i, the K810i is finally available at retail stores in Singapore. The Sony Ericsson K810i has big shoes to fill considering the popularity of the K800i, and it attempts to do so with a slimmer and lighter body.

Other new features to set it apart from its predecessor include the PhotoFix application which is said to enhance image quality and the illuminated camera icons to the side of the main keypad when the shooter is activated.

But is it worth the upgrade? Read our review to find out. The Cyber-shot phone is currently available at S$698 (US$444.08) with a two-year plan and S$798 (US$507.70) without plan.

Sony Ericsson Released Their Latest Cyber-shot Cell Phone, the K810i

That's the catchphrase that Sony Ericsson chose to accompany their latest Chyber-shot cell phone, the K810i candybar. In many ways, it's nearly identical to the K800i which preceded it, including the 3.2-megapixel camera built-in.

This picture-taker is accompanied by auto focus, an image stabilizer, and a super bright Xenon flash. Continuing with the photocentric trend, the K810i also features BestPic and Photo-fix technology.

In terms of aesthetics, the K810i is still quite similar to the K800i with its 17mm slim design, illuminated camera icons, and sliding camera lens cover. One of the most obvious differences is in the keys, because this one's got round metal keys, but really, it's all the same.

Should you bother with the upgrade? Don't you think it would have made more sense for them to at least upgrade the camera?