Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2005/07/08/review_sony_ericsson_k750i/

Sony Ericsson K750i

The best multimedia handset yet?

By Pocket Lint

Posted in Personal Tech, 8th July 2005 13:24 GMT

Review It seems that Sony Ericsson has been hard at work on their latest batch of handsets, recently announcing no fewer than seven new models. Always the chameleon, Sony Ericsson seems to have perfected the art of squeezing the same technology into suitably different shells, so that four of the handsets being cat-walked were in fact two different chassis with two sets of bodywork on each, writes Charlie Brewer.

Sony Ericsson K750iThe K750i and D750i are effectively the same phone with the 'K' being the unbranded original and the 'D' a bespoke version for T-mobile UK. To be clear from the outset, besides a slight difference to the shape of the keys and a variation on a theme for the lens cover, the handsets are identical. The D750i naturally carries T-Mobile's trademark user interface, with a white background to reflect the sunny deposition of the baby-blue body with silver edging, while the K750i carries the darker, broodier, go-nastier-stripes of black and silver.

The K750i is an update to the K700i, launched mid-way through last year to much screaming and shouting from the press, but in our case only when we came to use it. Roll forward almost 12 months and looking at the K750i almost every aspect, of everything, is improved, working and making us enjoy playing with a mobile phones again.

The VGA camera on the K700i was superseded later in 2004 by the S700's 1.3 megapixel job on the S700. That, in turn, has been outmoded by the K750i's two megapixel camera, complete with 4x digital zoom and active auto-focus. A phone that actually takes decent pictures - wonderful. But it's not just the quality that makes the camera useable, it's the bodywork as well. The lens is protected by a sliding cover, manually moved on the K and operated by a flick-switch on the D. When the cover is moved to reveal the lens, the camera activates and is ready to shoot. The shutter-release button is mounted on the right-hand side of the body, so that when the phone is rotated anti-clockwise the release in on the right-hand side of the lens... just like a real camera. The cherry on the cake is that the shutter button has been so designed that light from the keyboard's LED escapes around its edges so you can find it more easily in the low-light conditions favoured by phone photographers. A double super-bright LED has been included next to the lens so you can throw a little more illumination onto the subject, and the photo-capture options are more advanced than on some cameras we've reviewed.

The design of the body is compact, even though the K750i's form has bulked up a little from that of the K700i, gaining 1mm in length and depth, and 6g in weight. But the additional mass is worn with style. The screen has stayed the same size, 176 x 220, but the colour depth has grown from 65,000 to 262,000 colours. The battery has also been extended to 400 hours' stand-by or nine hours' talk-time, although with the number of media options crammed in there is the very real danger that you will have 'funned' the battery flat before you ever get a chance to answer any calls. On the subject of the battery, another 'well done' to Sony Ericsson for one of the simplest design of battery compartment. Just pull off the small cover at the base of the body and the battery can be slipped out, revealing the docking point for the SIM. There's no straining to remove awkward body covers here.

Sony Ericsson K750i

Operating systems and user interfaces have been refined, offering greater clarity, and the five-way 'navi-key', in the centre of the body, has evolved into something really useful from its messy prior incarnation. The designers persist with the removal of the red and green phone operation buttons, opting instead to use the top two quick-keys, which now seem to better suit the general decor of the phone.

Connectivity is available in almost every flavour conceivable, with GPRS, tri-band GSM, Bluetooth, infra-red and USB. The memory of the last time I tried to configure a Sony Ericsson handset was still at the forefront of my mind as I tried to get online to download a tune, and initially I was confronted by the same bewildering set of menus and options. It seems though that this has been universally acknowledged by the service providers, and even Sony Ericsson is now providing a one-stop set-up service. A simple service update from the Vodafone website transformed the phone from an unconnected-brick to an Internet-feather in a single SMS, although e-mail and IM functions do still need to be hand configured into life.

For those who need constant entertainment, the K750i supports the latest Java games, and even though the graphics are stunning, the screen size and the sleek keys does make gameplay a little like ballroom dancing in a garden shed. The RDS FM radio is impressive, picking up good strength signals, from 87.5-108.0MHz, from well within large buildings. The hands-free headset needs to be attached to activate the radio function, acting as the antenna, but once working the radio can be played through the speaker. The built-in MP3 player allows you to annoy your fellow passengers on public transport.

Sony Ericsson D750iThe handset comes with 37MB of memory but also ships with a 64MB MemoryStick Duo, which locates itself snugly in the bottom right-hand side of the body, and can be upgraded to 2GB. You can download files onto the phone from the web, with the standard double-whammy of charges for content and data applying, or they can also be transferred by Bluetooth, infrared or USB, with the phone mounting as a standard external drive on both Macs and PCs. The K750i ships with its own Sync software, to allow the handset to tie-in with office applications such as Outlook, although this advanced system is solely for PCs.

We've got a lot less gripes with this update than with the K700i. The shutter release is very slow, but it's a phone so you should consider yourself lucky to have a shutter release in the first place. The handset can be charged by USB, while it's attached to a computer, but the literature seems to omit the amount of time this will take. I left a K750i attached to my Mac overnight and discovered it was still virtually flat in the morning. Directly connecting to a socket will charge the battery in four hours. Sony Ericsson has gone and changed the charger point on the base of the handset to their new 'Fast Port' system, which is only annoying if you've already got a Sony Ericsson handset and wanted to have chargers in two places.

Verdict

The K750i is fantastic. The downsides seem like quibbles when compared with the dramatic improvements made over the K700i. The camera alone would almost sell it to me but combine it with the MP3, the radio, the all-points covered connectivity and the simple Internet set-up and I'm really sold. The technology comes at a price, but Sony Ericsson have always charged a premium for offering a SIM-free purchase service. If you're already a fan of the design and you've got an upgrade coming up, this handset will easily see you through the next few years of multimedia evolution and smart-device wars until the next generation of do-everything handhelds emerge.

Review by
Pocket-Lint.co.uk

Sony Ericsson K750i
 
Rating 90%
 
Pros The looks; simple operations; screen; 2mp camera; entertainment facilities.
 
Cons Slow USB charge; Sync software; new charging point.
 
Price £300 SIM-free; less if bought via an operator
 
More info The Sony Ericsson K750i site

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