Sony Ericsson K810i is designed after the K800i, being almost an exact replica of the latter, yet houses enough of “tiny” alterations, lending it a somewhat different feel. The first thing that grabs your eyes is the number pad, whose buttons are rounded with concentric texture. It does make you believe that it is nothing else but metal; up until now keys with such shapes were used only in Mobiado’s handsets, which are in fact tuned and revamped editions of Nokia’s commercial products.
The numeric buttons are easy to use, boast soft travel, so their form and spacing seem to be well-matched after all. Since the keys themselves could not possible have backlighting, the key padding, the front panel itself glows with blue. The front fascia is made of transparent plastic, unlike the K800i’s metal, underneath lays inky sub-layer. There is also another trim available, to be more specific, silver, but both look good.
The handset’s style, thanks to the plastic used, is closing in on what we see on the company’s now-current solutions, like Sony Ericsson Z610i, Sony Ericsson W610i. At that the plastic on the sides and the rear is still finished in soft-touch, yet inky as well as well (in our unit).
The functional keys above the display have grown in size and ease-of-use aspect, and what’s more there are now captions on the casing standing for what they do. The socket of the main speaker has been cut down and now lacks metal grill, which makes it less appealing in some respect, but again, it is all about Sony Ericsson K800i’s being made of metal, while the K810i is more staid, fashion-charged. It seemed to me that during a call the K810i was harder to line up with my ear properly, since the sound was sometime muffled due to a grill like that.
The plastic used on the front plate makes for easier-to-soil surface, as it readily picks up face grease and fingerprints. From the practicality standpoint, the K810i is obviously behind Sony Ericsson K800i.
While having the same functionality to the last bit, the revamped model has got one millimeter trimmed from the casing’s thickness, thanks to its different camera shutter, which is now recessed into the casing, thus opening it accidentally when carrying the K810i in pocket is next to impossible. In this regard the handset looks interesting. For the rest of its physical data, the phone weighs in at 115 grams, and shaves 2 millimeters off the predecessor’s length, which allows it to measure only 104x46x17 mm.
The display hasn’t undergone any updates, matching that of the previous model. Even though it is pretty crisp, the K810’s screen still can’t reach Motorola ROKR Z6 in this aspect, though is in line with solutions put up by other vendors like Samsung and Nokia. The display shows up to 262 K colors at 240x320 pixel resolution, which allows accommodating up to 8 text and 3 service lines for most applications; and when browsing web-pages, or handling e-mails or text messages, you can cram more lines into the display by decreasing the font size.
Flipping over to the phone's right side, the Infrared window can be found, as well as the volume rocker and dedicated camera key. Such layout, that has already become par for the course for most of the company’s offerings, is due to landscape orientation of the phone when working in camera mode.
Looking at the left-hand side reveals the music button, that can be set up to launch the radio, player or the last used application. Further down is Memory Stick M2 memory expansion slot.
The handset utilizes a 900 mAh Li-Pol battery (BST-33), that is starting to be a constant guest on all of Sony Ericsson’s latest proposals, including medium-priced ones. As the manufacturer claims, it can keep the handset up and running for 350 hours in standby, and provide up to 2,5 hours of talk time within UMTS networks, and up to 7,5 hours for GSM.
Phonebook. Up to 1000 contacts with fully filled in fields can be stored in the phonebook, but number of phone numbers is limited to 2500. This means that despite the ability to assign up to 5 phone numbers to one contact, you cannot go over 2500 entries. This is enough even for the most active users, as only few have more than 500 entries in their phonebooks.
Messaging. All tools used for managing messages are standard, there are some templates available and you can come up with some more of your own. Phone’s memory together with SIM-card is used for storing messages. Chat function is supported. On the whole everything is just like in any other phone from this company.
Connectivity. All connectivity settings for the phone can be setup from here, starting from WAP and GPRS (similarly to the K800i, EDGE is missing here,) to Bluetooth and Synchronization. I will not describe the standard options, they are kind of standard in the first place, and everything works fine. I’d like to highlight stable Bluetooth operation - no problems were encountered, synchronization with other devices runs smoothly, all profiles (including A2DP, which is stereo sound via Bluetooth) are supported. EDR-enabled Bluetooth version is 2.0.
Video player. The manufacturer has singled out the player in an individual menu item for the purpose of emphasizing how different it is compared to the music player, and other makers’ offerings, where video and music players share one section. On the plus side is ability to playback QVGA-clips at 30 frames per second, progressive fast-forward feature, landscape mode switcher, auto-scaling of high resolutions down to the display’s size. And the last, but of course not the least, highlight on the list is possibility to get snaps of frames of the played back video, which are saved as pictures and can be used in whatever way you like afterwards.
Radio. The K810i has memory capable of storing up to 20 FM radio stations and the auto-tuning ability, as well as RDS feature onboard. The Radio application used here is no different from that found on the K750i quality-wise, meaning that it is mostly fine. The handset comes boxed with a stereo-headset - HPM-70 (black).
Performance. The model puts up nothing special in terms of performance for the handsets of the company’s latest generation, yet it does better than most of other offerings available on the market. Low screen resolution compared to senior models, has a positive impact on the K810i’s performance – the interface works at the light-speed. There are no caps on JAR files, while HEAP can make up from 512 Kb to 1.5 Mb in size.
Applications. The handset comes with three extra applications – PhotoMate (picture editor – again), FaceWarp (wraps faces), HP Print.
Player. The phone has built-in mp3, AAC, 3GP and mpeg4 player (version 1). It is a good tool for listening to mp3 files. Besides settings you can setup equalizer (there are predefined settings: Bass, Voice, Tremble, etc), as well as the ability to create your custom settings. The sound changes according to the settings, this is noticeable.
Camera. The handset houses exactly the same 3.2 Mpix camera module as that found in the K790/K800, generally, they are totally identical, saving for a sole difference – Fix Photo mode that is now available in the K810i, allowing you to apply sharpness boost filter right after taking a snap. Basically, this is what any graphics editor can do – details get shaved off for the sake of a richer image
Impressions
Despite the polyphony having 72 chords in the K810i, the handset does not provide a breakthrough in sounding of mp3 tunes compared to other Sony Ericsson branded phones. Volume-wise, performing on average level on this front, the K810i is pretty much akin to Sony Ericsson K790/K800/W810. Be sure you will hear the handset outdoors. The silent alert provides average vibration strength. The reception part is in line with that of other products by the Sony Ericsson – in other words, it’s very fine.
If you come to realize that Sony Ericsson K810i has been launched not as a line-up extender or a replacement for the K800i, but rather as an addition to this model, then all pieces click into place. By the middle of march, when Sony Ericsson K810i is making its debut on the shelves, the original model will have become even more popular, though its design might get somewhat boring, and what is more the new edition is offered at a tad higher price . Thinking of the roaring demand for Sony Ericsson K790/K800, we have all the right to expect some good sales from the K810i as well, for it is a fetching solution that still has no competition in its class. Although, Nokia N73 may be counted for one to a certain extent, but at the end of the day, it is backed up with a wholly different philosophy.
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