Shooting Star : SE K790i Review

Sony Ericsson K790i

Introduction

Ok so the market is fullof new 3.2 Mp camera phones with the future promising to cram even more...The K790i (or the K800i as elsewhere) is the latest camera phone from the house of everyone's fav jap-swede partnership...Sonyericsson..It is one of the few 3.2 MP camera phones in the market today, and being "cybershot" branded has quite a few expectations to match..


Major Features

• 3.2 MP camera with AF and Flash; blogging facility
• Bluetooth, Irda, Edge, HTML lite browser
• Java Multitasking
• QVGA screen 262k 2 inch
• Full screen QVGA 30 FPS video playback

For official specs and more photos and a much better review head to GSMArena.com

Box contents

• Handset
• 64 MB m2 duo pro with adapter
• a stereo handfree same as K750i
• lanyard
• USB cable
• manuals, etc
• charger (new one where u can also attach the handsfree while the phones is charging....)

Design and Build quality

Design is down to personal preference, But I personally love it.... It has a brushed metal front (similar to N80) and a rubberised back (same as E398)..

I love this combination... It looks and feels good and also resists fingerprints better...Build quality is very good as far as the assembling is concerned.. even too good, as a result of which the battery cover and the M2 flap are a bit tight

The only "loose" thing is the camera cover, which does scare away a lot of potential customers,but I do not find it a problem..


Keypad: The number block is rubbery and is a bit difficult to use.. however the functional block is made of hard platic and is very cool... The

infamouse SE joystick is back though.. so you are cautioned


Display and Sound

display of K790i is downright gorgeous.. It is QVGA 262k but the size of just 2 inches makes the resolution very high and the resulting effect is there

fr everyone to see... as a result games, camera pictures , videos are excellent on it..There is small problem with viewing text in the web-browser because the text is too thin....

Sound: Sound through the speakers is just average... and if u play it at max volume then it does tend to get distorted...but I guess this as a firmware

issue ....


User Interface

The UI is same SE as in W810i but has been spruced up.....

• Now The "activity" menu has a new tab called "running apps"...... In practice u can run around 3 java apps at once... Fr example U can use the opera
  mini browser , use mig33 yahoo messenger and at the same time listen to music...
• those with K750i will be happy to know that now u can see the contents of M2 and phone mem separately
• copy/paste function is now available wherever u have text
• The processor is now 220 Mhz, and the UI is quite snappy even with QVGA screen
• Netfront is the default browser, but unfortunately, it cannot open large html pages...
• The new Video player is fantastic; It gives you a no. of choices like " fit to screen" , "full screen" , " actual size"
  You can fw and rew, and u can even zoom into the clip while watching...
  also It handles video at 400 KBps (max 30 FPS) whch is nothing short of amazing..
• The music player is same as "walkman" phones, but stripped of walkman branding and "megabass" equalizer... it is stil very
  good, u can make playlists,et al.. The manual equalizer is still there.. also you can play .rm songs too!
  and Before I forget "play/pause" button is still present, and the volume keys still skip tracks...
• Now when u add a "birthday" entry to your contact, then it gets auto added to the calendar as well... that is normal... on the day of birthday,at the specified time, the phone alerts u and asks you if u want to call/message that person... now how cool is that..
• as far as blogging is concerned imagine this- I dont have a blogging account and actually dont know how to blog. I took a photo, chose> send to blog.
  The photo was resized in a second. Then I just pressed "publish". The phone will automatically connect to the "blogger service",
  an account will be created fr you, and you will recieve an sms confirmation with blog address and password... that is as simple as it gets.. (now I guess
  why dumbphones like this are fr dumb people like me)..
• another good feature which I earlier never used is "rss reader"..
  When you visit "techenclave" with the built in Browser, there will be the small RSS icon in the corner of screen. Just choose add feed from the menu.
  Now go to the messages>RSS reader. all the new topics will be there with the 1st post/ main points.
• Now phone Firmware can be Updated "ota" or GPRS... so no need of data cables..

Mine was R1CB which is the latest available now...




Camera

well I guess most of You guys were waiting for it.. But as I am no expert in cameras, I doubt if my opinion will help u much..

anyway, I can say The camera is very good. I used to have a W800i. The camera quality is more or less the same but the resolution is ofcourse

increased.....

Camera starts in 2 seconds max, when u open the camera cover... all the controls are same as K750i..

Features:

• Now you have got predefined scenes that help you adjust most settings in the same menu.... also It automatically adjusts the
  iso which unfortunately u cannot do manually....
• The Xenon Flash Is certainly "star of the review" . It is powerful and makes a world of difference....I will post example pics
• Bestpic is included and kindaa useful in "birthday parties" when u want to capture the moment the cake enters ur friend's
  mouth!
  It helps in overcoming the lag due to AF. 9 photos are taken fr a single click, and u can keep the one u like....
  A minor disadvatage is that the flash cannot be used along with "bestpic mode"
• Macro mode is as good as K750i if not better....
• a Minor irritant is That the phone takes much longer to focus then K750i and N73(yeah, I used it fr a day) But that also
  results in less blurred pics...
• also the photos are very susceptible to camera shake , image stabliliser is
  present but works only in lanscape and twilight landscape modes( at those times AF is off)
• and before I forget there is a "red" light led that helps the camera focus in dark....
• Video is poor! same as K750i but totally unacceptable fr a 3.2 camera...
• there are two keys above the screen that help u in adjusting scenes and focus, open the gallery, and also allow you to play games...
• gallery is superfast and I mean It. just press the small button near the screen and it opens in full glory...
• pressing the left key above the screen opens the last pic that u have taken in full screen, landscape... (These buttons are very useful when u want to show off ur pics to your friends)

Camera summary :
well I personally want to take pics when I go to theaters,pubs, discs, Birthday parties, and these are the places where the K790i really shines... all

the places where there is dim to bad lighting...
Landscape pics are not the best I have seen (Both N73 and D900) are better...anyway you are not going to take this phone to France with u to take pics
Macro is good ; but the video recording kinda spoils the party,


One thing is sure. Set it on auto modes and u will end up with shitty photos...
use the the scenes, WB, focus correctly and get rewarded...
Now can someone pls tell me which WB setting is best fr indoors?


Reception and Battery Life

very good reception. always full. Call quality is also cool. call volume could have been louder...

Battery is 950 Mah; use the phone lightly and it goes fr 3 days.... take a lot (and I mean a lot) of pics in the dark, and it

will just go a day....


Cons

• M2 is damn expensive and the max ia 1GB
• Keypad is bad
• ho ho the great SE joystick is back
• bad video recording
• camera "hunch", though not a problem fr me)
• tennis game is slower then what it was in K750i
• Phone restarts atleast once everyday,but then I guess when u get the latest phone, u expect that..

Conclusion

Well It is great phone, no doubt. It has a great screen, excellent UI, good multimedia features and now after price reduction is also good value fr

money.. In short it is the smartest of all the "dumb" phones out there... But still If u need symbian , a better day camera (and have more moolah) then

better get a N73... But if like shooting in dark and have fallen in love with sony UI then u know what to get ....

Sample Photos





Buying price: 18.2k (Vat included)
Place: Bangalore.


If u have any questions, Please shoot! also u can also ask regarding N73(although I dont have it now)... I will try my best to answer...