Sony Ericsson K810i - Martin's Quick Review

One of the recognised giants of the mobile phone industry, Sony Ericsson has long been admired for the way it's managed to mix sleek design, often stunning sound quality (thanks to the Sony involvement) and excellent build quality alongside genuinely innovative features. And in the mobile phone market, this approach needs to be maintained at all times. It's for this reason that Sony Ericsson's newest 3G handset, the K810i, seems rather underwhelming, especially when it replaces such a great phone in the K800i.

One of the first things to strike you when you take the phone out of the box is the look of the phone. Rather than continue on their own design path, Sony Ericsson seem to have joined the "me too" crowd and gone for the shiny appearance that many of its competitors like. While this in no way makes it an ugly phone, it can often be an acquired taste.

The next thing to hit you is the keypad - instead of the usual square pads, you're greeted with little circles. Although they look nice, and certainly different, they can be a bit of a pain to use, as can the rather disappointing navigation wheel which seems all alone.

The camera is a bit of a conundrum as well, although that's not to say it's disappointing in any way. With a 3.2 mega pixel lens combined with its predecessor's xenon flash and auto-focus feature, the quality of the picture and video that can be taken with the camera is never less than impressive. As well as this, you have what Sony Ericsson call the BestPic feature. Similar to a sports lens on a digital SLR camera, it allows you to take nine photographs in a row, to let you get the optimum picture every time.

Yet the K800i had this as well, and it's only an automatic balance, light and contrast feature called Photo Fix that separates the K810i from its predecessor - not really a great step forward. You might also notice a slight delay when taking a picture, meaning you need to keep a steady hand until after the picture is taken.

On the sound side, the usual Sony Ericsson quality is in evidence, with full MP3 support as well as an FM radio. The headphone socket allows you to use an adaptor as well, so you can use your own headphones instead of the supplied ones, enhancing the sound even more. And although the 64MB internal memory isn't the greatest (but then, how many mobile phone memories are today?), there is the option to upgrade using the Sony M2 Memory Stick, which can offer a considerable boost in storage space.

However, once again, the K810i disappoints slightly when it comes to internet browsing. Since it only supports the WAP 2.0 software, you can't view any web pages that don't support WAP browsing, which for some users might be a burden.

Although it's not a bad phone, and it has some excellent features such as the Photo Fix option, the K810i just feels like it's not as big a step up from its older brother as it could have been. Then again, perhaps the K800i was already an excellent phone that didn't need replacing.

Get the Sony Ericsson K810i on a free line rental monthly deal, or select from a diverse range of 12 months free line rental mobile phones to ensure that you minimize your costs.