Sony Ericsson K750i

[Dazzla Veteran]

Here?s a few more pictures:

[Dazzla Veteran]

Ok, let?s get straight into it. The K750i is the latest phone from Sony Ericsson and packs a hell of a lot into its little package. Here?s a quick run down of the specs:

2.0 Megapixel camera

Built in MP3 player with playlist support and equalizers

Memory Stick Duo slot

RDS Radio

176*220 resolution screen with 262k colours

Those are the main reasons I bought the phone, plus I fancied a new toy, you know how I like my toys :Box Contents:

Out of the box it?s a pretty standard fare; there?s the handset, 64MB MS Duo plus Adapter (for using it in regular Memory Stick slots), headphones, USB lead, charger, CD and manuals. As such there?s not a huge deal there, I wouldn?t have minded a little slip of sorts like I had included with my 7610, just a little pouch for the phone or headphones.

It comes with a quick start guide which is extremely basic. All it tells you is how to insert the sim, how to play music, how to put the Memory Stick in and how to take a photo. The basics and nothing more.

The camera cover has a very, very nice motion. It takes about 5-8mm of smooth motion before it flicks out all the way open and the same is true of the reverse. There?s just enough resistance so that you couldn?t open it by accident, but you?d never struggle to get it open (cue comments about m:pin the video later on :p ).

The MS Duo slot on the other hand I have a problem with, it?s nothing to do with the built quality but the design. Now anyone who owns a PSP will know that the MS Duo cover unclips then has something like a tether, so you can pull it about 8mm out and fold it away before inserting or removing the MS Duo; now the K750i doesn?t have this ?tether?, well to be true it does, but it?s only about 2-3mm so there?s almost no travel. There?s just enough give to fold it 90? to the phone which leaves people with larger then average fingers in a bit of a pickle. The MS Duo sits below the surface of the phone so you have to squeeze your finger right in and I can only remove and insert the card with the very tip of my nail, it?s very fiddly and seeing as this phone shares the 1GB Duo Pro with my PSP and my T7 I?m going to have to get some practise in.

The keypad feels good, it?s nothing spectacular but it?s more than usable. Comparing it to some other phones I feel it comes out on top. The D500 for example I can?t get on with because of the raised rim of the face getting in the way of the outer keys. The K750 is traditional enough with the right amount of click to not annoy or stand out in any way; couldn?t ask for much more.

This phone is my first experience of a Sony Ericsson phone and as such I?ve not used a joystick on a phone before, always a rocker or 4 way keypad. Now I?ve read in places that people coming from a K700i to a K750i find the joystick overly sensitive but considering this is my first time using it, it feels pretty damn good. There?s no accidentally hitting up or left/right when trying to press the centre joystick button and again, it?s done its job without hindering me at all. The UI suits the joystick down to a tee but more on that later.

There are a couple of important buttons which sit on the side of the phone which are pretty important to the usage of the features mentioned at the beginning. The first and most obvious to mention is the camera shutter button.

I can tell you that from the time I?ve used it so far, it doesn?t seem to do anything in any other mode apart from the camera mode where it takes photos. That?s it. It has quite a lot of travel, you can press it quite a way in at which point you?ll hit a little resistance then there?s a further click. I guess you could liken it to the Gamecube triggers. Pushing it halfway in makes the camera auto focus (as it would a normal digital camera) with the full click taking the photo.

The other button is in relation to the music feature, this is where another problem/annoyance occurs.

I would?ve assumed that pressing the music button brings up the media player, and in fact it does, but it only does this if you have the headphones plugged in. Now you can run the media player from the menu without the headphones (in fact the speaker is pretty damn good!) so this seems like an oversight on Sony Ericsson?s behalf. In the settings you have the option of it starting the radio, which I agree needs the headphones plugged in because the cord acts as the antenna for the radio, but I liked to listen to some music at work with the phone sat on my desk (in my nice quiet office on my own) through the speaker; cue the annoyance. I?ve mapped the media player shortcut to ?up? on the joystick so it?s still only 1 butt:o press, but if that music key would let me I?d have a free shortcut space! :o

Onto the last of the accessories (and I?ll make this one brief), the headphones are crap:

They feel too large and the layout of the cord is clearly designed for hands free use as opposed to music with the little microphone hanging around neck height. The W800 coming up in the autumn has a regular 3.5mm adapter which would suit this phone down to a tee, I can only hope Sony Ericsson don?t limit its usage on the K750i through firmware. My other option is a DIY job, people are opening up the microphone area and just soldering on their own headphones. I might have to give that a t:rofl:tPhone OS:uy another set of headphones for when I inevitably sell this on :rofl:

Phone OS:

As I mentioned above, I?ve never used a Sony Ericsson phone before so for me to be delving into the OS and into settings withCamera software:nt to the intuitiveness of the OS; it?s extremely simple to use.

Camera software:

Anyone familiar with the Cybershot range of digital cameras from Sony will feel right at home with this, when the camera is activated (by opening the cover) the viewfinder activates and from there on it?s exactly the same as a Cybershot. The camera UI definitely suits holding the phone in a horizontal position, the text and all the on screen instructions are rotated through 90?, pressing the settings button brings up a horizontal line of icons where you can have the following options:

Switch to video camera (also doable by flicking down on the joystick)

Shoot mode ? Normal, Panorama, Frames or Burst

Picture Size ? Large (1632*1224), Medium (640*480) or Small (160*120)

Turn on macro

Turn on night mode

Turn on light

Turn on self timer

Effects ? Off, Black & White, Negative, Sepia or Solarize

White balance ? Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent

Picture Quality ? Normal or Fine

Turn on time and date

Reset file no.

Save to ? Memory Stick or Phone Memory

As you can see it?s pretty comprehensive. I?ve taken a few sample shots, but the weather has been really bad so there?s none of gloriously sunny days unfortunately. I will take a good walk when it's nice and sunny and take some more photos because I know it can do better (I've seen!) Here?s a few samples (resized to 1024*768):

Music mode:

I?ll get one of my misconceptions out of the way first, this phone does not support .M3U playlists. When it says playlist support, it?s the phones own custom playlists. You can create a new playlist within the phone adding music from special folders in the Memory stick. This frustrated me because I was hoping that I could leave my music in X:\PSP\MUSIC so both the phone and the PSP could share the music but that?s not the case. The music has to be stored in X:\MSSEMC\Media files\audio\ which is a shame. Let?s get one thing straight as well, this is a more then competent MP3 player, but it is no replacement for the iPod. If you?re happy with sticking a few albums and a playlist or 2 on your phone when going out then it?s perfect, but for anything more a dedicated MP3 player would be needed. I mean I could quite happily use this on the bus on the way home from work or something, but if I was going away then I?d need my iPod, that and the headphones suck. But saying this, compared to all the other MP3 players in phones I?ve tried this beats them all out by a long shot, along with playlist support it has a couple of equalizer options, shuffle, repeat; basically what you might expect from any MP3 player. You can also minimise the player and go back to the phones front screen whilst still being able to control the player with the music button and the volume buttons.

The radio is probably one of the best specced out radio features I?ve seen on a phone as well. It requires the headphones to be plugged in (the same as other phones) because the cord acts as the antenna for the radio. Initial scanning picked up zero stations for me, but I was stuck in the office so I manually added a couple and they were fine. The radio has RDS as Video:cks up the station information such as ?Radio 1?

Video:

The video support on this phone is above average, but just a few little changes and it could be a hell of a lot more impressive. I played with some video converted on my PC; I converted an episode of Scrubs to 150kbit/s MPEG4 with 80kbit/s audio, the video has to be 176*144 which is where my first problem lies. Here?s a shot of the video occupying 1:1 space:

As you can see it?s pretty tiny so kind of pointless but alas! There is a full screen mode!

Except this is where Dazzla gets annoyed again, the full screen mode turns 90? which I?m OK with but it stretches out the 176*144 to fill 220*176. I?m going to give it a try later with a higher bitrate but the results weren?t really to my liking with the stretching producing a little bit of artifacting. It would be absolutely ideal if you could encode 220*176 videos to fill the screen, that would be ideal, but as it stands you can?t do that so I?ll have to try and compensate for that.

I guess you could call these my initial impressions; I've only been able to play with it for a few hours so I've really got to get stuck in. I want to report back on the Sony Ericsson?s software, I've installed and ran it and the synchronisation software seemed to do its job. It pulled Calendar entries, Notes, Tasks and Contacts from Outlook 2003 and inserted them into the relevant places in the phone. It was all seamless with the Calendar application in the phone now sporting my schedule, pretty handy, and all it took was the phone sat remotely near my laptop; it synced over Bluetooth.

[perochan]

you have alot of toys. can i have some? lol

[Mx]

Dazzla oh Dazzla, I am coming to rob your home of all your gadgets some day. Man, k750i is my next new phone :)

[giga Veteran]

And now, I will KILL YOU!

..

:envious:

[dan]

God damn Dazzla. What do you do for a living? You have more money than god. I am so jealous. Ace review as well. Coutoe's to you dude.

BTW Where did you get the K750i from?

[Corona]

great review and pics are stunning :woot:

[blik]

Great review. I love my K700, and if only i could afford it I'd get the K750.

[saxondale.]

very nice man, i know you have mentioned it before, but what camera do you use? i see you use macro mode on most of your shots...right?

[Fish]

I'd be interested to here about it's battery life. I know a Couple of people with K700's, and they both suffer with poor batteries.

[Dazzla Veteran]

The camera used to take the shots was a Panasonic FZ20 (Silver ;) ). As for battery life, I received the phone yesterday at about 11AM and it was around 50% charged, I had it in the USB port of my laptop up until about 80% at which point I haven't charged it again. I've made about 10 minutes worth of phone calls, listened to around 2 hours of music and had bluetooth active the entire time and I'm back down to just over 50%.

[. Xs]

Great review. And you got a lot of gadjets.

But why do you need them all? iPOd, K750i, that Nokia, Cybershot and PSP.

Actually K750i plays music as your iPOd (and you have a lot of space with that 1GB. ok if you need more...), and takes photos as your Cybershot...

That PSP is awesome and it's good to play..... It's worth the price?

[J2733]

Dazzla which do you prefer your 7610 smartphone or the K750i?

[Oblivion]

how much did it cost you ? you rate it far better then 7610 ?

[saxondale.]

If i remember, he got it for ?289, sim free.

[Riz360]

:o I was just looking at the prices and reviews for this on the internet.

Seems like a great phone, shame about the video hitch.

Great Review, thanks Dazzla (Y)

[Adrian]

Looks nice and sleek. I Like.

[mikmo]

Awesome review Dazzla, liked the later photos - blatant gadget showing off! :p

[IlliniPi]

I was looking at a few reviews for this phone, but I never really got a clear answer. Does the phone play MP3 ringtones? Also, will this phone work on Cingular's networks? I ask just because some triband phones don't get along so well with Cingular.

[Dazzla Veteran]

Comparison to the 7610. Hmm. If I compare just the core features that I reviewed then it would come out on top. It has a better MP3 player, better camera and has a Radio. But then the applications that the Series 60 platform can offer is immense. I mean I'll never be able to have emulators, N-Gage games, e-book readers etc on this K750. That's the sacrifice you make.

[Dazzla Veteran]

Yes, and very well. The speaker on the rear of the phone is extremely clear. I've got a 320kbps VBR MP3 as my ring tone, works perfectly.

[Acezo]

Also, will this phone work on Cingular's networks?  I ask just because some triband phones don't get along so well with Cingular.

586011472[/snapback]

It'll work on Cingular's 1900mhz band, but not the 850mhz band (as its 900mhz). I'm in the same position...I'm hoping a 850mhz version of this phone or the W800 comes out, I don't know if the reception around here would be quality just using the 1900mhz :(

Was going to get the S710a, but the phone's too fat for my tastes...really loved the look of it too

[Elmo]

very nice (Y)

i still like my k700 tho

[nitronix]

cost me ?29.99 hehehe love upgrades

[Dazzla Veteran]

Well, the phone is available for free if you wanna go on contract. I was gonna plump for the ?29.99 + ?25 a month from Orange but 1. I despise branding and 2. I hate contract.