Sony Ericsson K850i review

A design aspect we didn't expect but were fond of is a spring-loaded cover at the bottom of the K850i that pops open very easily, making accessing or transferring the battery, memory card or SIM card very straightforward.

The spring-loaded cover at the bottom of the K850i hides the battery, memory card and SIM card slots

Interestingly, you can insert a microSD card or Memory Stick Micro (M2) card into the K850i, which is very useful if you've got a leftover microSD card from an old phone.

Features
It's probably clear by now that the K850i's most captivating feature is its camera, and deservedly so -- this should be called a phone camera rather than a camera phone. The K850i's camera packs a 5-megapixel sensor, autofocus and xenon flash.

All of the above work well and while many will argue the merits of better optics over more megapixels, there is a noticeable difference in quality compared to a 3.2-megapixel camera such as the K810i, for example.

Is it better than the Nokia N95, Samsung G600 or LG KU990 Viewty? If you're taking shots in low light, then yes, as the xenon flash is fantastically bright. In daylight, though, we think it's comparable to them.

A very welcome new feature is an LED photo light that works as a focus assist light and makes sure your shots are in focus in low light levels. In terms of internal settings, all the usual suspects are available, including the ability to adjust ISO levels and Cyber-shot mode that lets you take nine shots in quick succession.

Once you've taken a picture you can view it in gallery mode and the K850i will sense which way you are holding it up, adjusting the large, bright screen to landscape or portrait mode accordingly, similar to how the iPhone photo gallery works.

Sharing your photos and videos is made somewhat easy. We say somewhat because straight after you take a photo or video you can blog it or send it to a friend via a picture message, which is useful, but if you want to Bluetooth it to someone you have to go into the gallery.

Accessing the photo gallery can be done using the mode switch on the camera or from the K850i's start page via the new media menu, which looks a lot like the PSP's menu system and groups together all your music, photos and videos in a simple menu.

Aside from being able to listen to music, watch videos and look at photos, the K850i also comes with an FM radio and java games, including one called Marble Madness 3D that's quite fun and lets you roll a ball around by moving the physically moving the handset around.

The K850i also features HSDPA (3.5G) and a Web browser, which combine to give you fast access to Web sites and RSS feeds. For the most part, the browser works well but we found it a bit clunky when trying to zoom in and out of full-sized pages, which is something the iPhone does very well and a feature we would like to see on more phones.