Sony Ericsson K700 - user opinions and reviews
- Anonymous
Conclusion:
The K700 is the best mobile phone from Sony Ericsson so far. The exception is of course the P800 and P900 PDA mobile phones, but these are PDA models aimed at the corporate market and twice as expensive.
- Ku7n0k0niown
My first experience with the upcoming K700 model from Sony Ericsson was while I visited CeBIT in Germany earlier this year. It was one of three unreleased phone models from Sony Ericsson. The 3G model Z1010 was announced a long time ago while both S700 and K700 was announced just a week before the trade show. S700 and K700 were because of the news interest the models that attracted most visitors on the Sony Ericsson stand on CeBIT . The Sony Ericsson S700 is a high-end phone with design similarities with the Japanese Sony Ericsson model SO505i and the K700 is a successor to the Sony Ericsson T630. While the updates from the T610 to T630 were minimal, you will be surprised to see what extra Sony Ericsson has put in the K700.
The first impression is that Sony Ericsson is satisfied with the form factor of the T6xx model series. K700 is measuring 99x47x20 (height, width, depth) mm compared to the T630's 102x43x17 mm. The K700 is more round in the edges but for an "untrained eye" it could be mixed for a T630. The main visual differences in addition to the rounded edges are that the Sony Ericsson K700 navigation key has been slightly enlarged. The navigation key is larger in diameter and the length seems shortened. The device we tested was not new and someone has been using the navigation key thoroughly. Using the navigation key to navigate left-right-up-down felt comfortable while the confirm click had to be done twice from time to time. I don't think this was a production fault or caused by heavy usage. It was just a matter of change in habit when moving from T610 to the K700.
Sony Ericsson K700 uses the BST-30 battery also found in the Z200, Z500 and T230 models. On the Z200, this battery gives you up to 4.5 hours talk time, but K700 manage to squeeze up to 7 hours talk time out of the same battery. Still, this is only half the talk time compared to T610 (BST-25) and two hours less than you will get from a T630 (BST-25). Battery usage will of course vary. With a phone equipped with radio and Bluetooth the consumption of such always-on services will drain the battery faster than normal. I don't know which applications a typical user will use regularly, but I guess Sony Ericsson has done some research in this field and based the stated battery performance on their findings.
K700 is the first phone from Sony Ericsson with built in Radio. Other manufactures have had radio for some time and this was something missing from the Sony Ericsson range of phones. They sold the cheap HPR-20 FM Radio Handsfree but no mobile phones with built in radio. To listen to the radio on the K700, a headset is needed even if you choose to listen trough the loudspeaker. This is because the headset function as an antenna. The Radio application will not even start without the headset connected. To set up your favourite radio stations you can type in the frequency manually or use automatically search. Up to 20 radio channels can be saved with the preset function.
The menu system in the K700 is very similar to the one found in previous Sony Ericsson models. You start off with a blank screen and one click with the navigation key gives you access to the 12 main menu elements that are represented by large icons. Menu tabs is something you might remember from the old Ericsson days. The last models (R320, T39 etc) from Ericsson had this feature. Instead of been lost a long way down the menu hierarchy, the tabs let you jump straight from one submenu to another.
The uppermost illustration image shows that you are into the New Contact menu, adding name and number. To add an associated home address to this person, you only have to move the navigation key 3 times to the right.
Another menu change is the automatic view of current menu settings. Not all information is automatically viewable this way, but when the information is small enough it saves you some clicks to get down the menu hierarchy. The name of the current ringtone is revealed in the illustration image to the right. The 12 main menu elements are: PrePlay (link to Sony ringtone site), Internet, Entertainment, Camera, Messaging, Radio, File Manager, Contacts, Media Player, Connectivity, Organizer and Settings. As with all previous models, Sony Ericsson has done their homework and placed the Messaging icon in the centre of the second row. This is selected menu item when you click the navigation button once. Sony Ericsson claims that the icons are arranged so the most-used applications are easiest to find. From this statement, we can draw the conclusion that the three icons at the bottom are the least used applications. These are Connectivity, Organizer and Settings
The camera resolution is expanded up to VGA quality. That means you can capture still pictures up to 640 x 480 pixels in size (0.3 Megapixels). It's still no substitute for your old digital camera but the quality of the relatively small pictures has improved. See example of the three different resolutions here. Sony Ericsson S700 will in comparison be shipped with a 1.3 Megapixels camera. The main attraction about the camera is that it also can record video clips. The default settings are to limit the recording time to 10 seconds. These small clips can be sent by MMS. But you are not limited by the 10 seconds. Just change the settings to "unlimited" and the only limitation is the storage space left of the initially 32 MB free memory. My example clip (requires Quicktime 3GPP) is recorded in 176x144 resolution and occupies 145Kb. It is 16 seconds long and with recordings under similar conditions you could take a 58-minute short movie, even longer with a 128x96 pixels recording. Several filters are available to the photographer. Some useful and some for show-offs.
The easiest way to start the Camera application and capturing the moment is by pressing a dedicated camera button located on the top left side of the phone. The same button can be used to take pictures while using the screen as a viewfinder. The built in photo light improves the quality of pictures take in dark environments, but the range is low, so don't expect miracles. Up to 4x digital zoom will bring you closer to the object, but image quality will be reduced. I'm not very found of the digital zoom feature in cameras. Zooming can be done just as easily with applications like Photoshop at a later stage.
A new application called Media Player is the starting point that provides easy access to stored and streaming video clips plus audio files. Sony Ericsson K700 can be used as a MP3 player, but the 32MB limits the number of songs you can bring with you. Too bad it is impossible to expand the memory. File types supported by the Media Player are AAC, MP3, WAV, AMR, MIDI (Polyphonic) and the MPEG-4 video format. From the Equalizer sub-menu, a couple of pre-set and adjustable elements can change
Running Java applications feels much smoother than before. More processing power has been dedicated to the games and a new Java 3D engine also improves the experience. The K700 support J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition).
Like most new Sony Ericsson phone models the K700 also support themes. Themes can be downloaded from several sites including Esato, and by changing theme the K700 will get a completely new look. Background images, text colours and text background colours, default ring signal plus more than dozens of other colours and images are changeable. The creation of themes is not done within the phone, but must be created using freely available Windows applications like the Sony Ericsson Themes Creator.
Sony Ericsson K700 has applications to handle a large number of files types. To manage these files the File Manager application comes handy. The File Manager has 6 root folders in where you can store sub-folders. These are Pictures, Sounds, Videos, Themes, Games & More and Other. All image file types received via MMS, Bluetooth, infrared, downloaded from WAP or taken with the camera are automatically saved in the Pictures-folder. It is not possible to save images to one of the other folders. All recognized file types are stored in their designated folder. If you receive a file with an unknown file extension, the file is placed in the Other-folder. The File Manager let you mark, move, rename, copy and delete files one by one, or several files at the same time. Operations to multiple files are possible because you can mark the files one by one before selecting an action to perform.
Music DJ is an application for composing your own polyphonic ringtones. The application first appeared in the T610 so many readers will be familiar it. You create a melody by inserting segments of music into a blocks displayed in horizontal rows for each instrument. The available segments are divided into four parts of a song: Intro, Verse, Chorus and Break. When you play the melody, the blocks containing music in each vertical column will be played at the same time. Example tone
Since the test unit was a prototype, I did not have access to bundled software or user manual. There were also two cool features found in the K700 that I did not manage to test: Remote Screen application where images or sound can be sent via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth Media Viewer MMV-100 allowing you to view or listen to captured images or sound on a TV. The other application is the Remote Display. This is an application where you can use the K700 as a remote control for your computer. Get your PowerPoint presentation started, and slide through it with your K700. Remote controlling a PC or Mac have been possible before on older models, but then only with third party applications like Christersson's PcControl or Salling Clicker for Mac. This is the first time Sony Ericsson includes such type of software with a phone. Sony Ericsson does also include a couple of other useful applications in the K700 phone kit. Sony Ericsson Video Editor software for editing of video clips, in addition Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition for image editing.
Conclusion
The K700 is the best mobile phone from Sony Ericsson so far. The exception is of course the P800 and P900 PDA mobile phones, but these are PDA models aimed at the corporate market and twice as expensive. While we are waiting for the camera/mobile phone S700 to come out in Q4 this year, the K700 is for sure the best mobile phone small enough for most pockets and cheap enough for some wallets. The 176 x 200 mm 65,536 color TFT display is large and clear. Battery performance is good and the phone is full of features you would ever want. What's missing is something you'll never get enough of: possibility to add more storage space. Yes, the 32MB seems large enough on paper, and Sony Ericsson claims that 450 images can be stored simultaneously. But we all know that when you have taken a couple of high-quality images, downloaded a couple of ring tones, themes, wallpapers and recorded some video clips you'll have to start deleting files.
- Curiosity
hey folks i am so curious if this phone got a handfree function like Nokia always do !!!!
- Jib
Can you have a mp3 or midi as your message tone? or is it just the 6 listed???????
- Dad
corey u son of a bitch why the hell u cares if people dont like its memory u sucker y u want other people to be in the same shiiiiiiiiit
- Dad
corey u son of a bitch why the hell u cares if people dont like its memory u sucker y u want other people to be in the same shiiiiiiiiit
- Tumi Makama
The handset is just right but does anybody know if one can access the radio or listen to it without the ear /headset piece????will appreciate feedback from you pips....
- Dad
corey u son of a bitch why the hell u cares if people dont like its memory u sucker y u want other people to be in the same shiiiiiiiiit
- vini
I am using Nokia 6600 but after looking at the features of K700 i'm gonna change to it .Could u plz tell me what is the price of memory stick in it.
- Maical
well, this is hard
Nokia 6230 is better because it has expandable memory (reduced size MMC), has edge tehnology for fast data transfer (will be available at gsm operators soon). Also, battery life is longer.
SE k700i is better because it has a bigger display, i heard the mp3 quality and camera are a bit better. it has 3d support for java technology, thing wich i don't know about 6230.
If u dont care much for a big screen, u should buy the 6230.
Samsung E800 is out of the question, can't be compared with these phones!
U should of checked the forum better before asking those questions >>> John
- Aaron
how do you determing the firmware that the phone is using? Is it on the box? Cuz I don't want to buy a k700 which uses the first release firmware...
- John
Anybody could tell me which phone is the best one? Either Nokia 6230, or Sony Ericsson K700i or Samsung E800? pls tell me ASAP?
- DMX
all 41mb free for users to use.
to download mp3, you can send it via IR/Bluetooth from your PC or Pocket PC. you might want to reduce quality so taht you can save more mp3's on the phone..
- Dexter
This mobile phone is great! Glad that i decided to buy it... color and features in this phone really amazing
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