Sony Ericsson K700i review (Warning: LONG)

[CooLes]

The web has been filled with great reviews of the K700i at esato, mobile review and at howard forums.

This review will only try to cover areas relevant to us Mac users. The size of this phone is just as tall as the T68i and weighs just as much. And its a lot slimmer than the Z600 while only being a tad longer. The bottom part of the phone features a rubberized port connector cover.

Bluetooth pairing on this device via the PowerBook is pretty straightforward via Bluetooth Device Setup. You can browse the contents of the phone on your Mac. The files are stored in numerous folders for Pictures (jpg, gif) Sounds (mp3, mid) Themes and Video (mp4). iSync 1.4 works with this phone via dual pairing (Mac then Phone) as discussed here which was taken from the esato forum.

After backing up the contents of the K700i to the PowerBook and copying my addressbook to the phone after a four hour charge, I decided to play around with its multimedia features:

AUDIO–This phone has an audio recorder that can be transferred to the Mac as AMR files playable under Quicktime! And its only limited by available phone memory. MP3 files can be transferred to the phone via Bluetooth and can be used as a ringtone, an alarm signal or added to a contact. This phone also supports the WAV format with a maximum of 16 bit sampling rate.

VIDEO–The K700i can shoot video clips with sound at a maximum of 176x144 pixels. The default is 10 secs but it can be switched to take advantage of available phone memory! Tested this at home and found out that a minute of recorded video takes around 572Kb of space. It can be transferred to the Mac via Bluetooth as a 3GP format playable under Quicktime. You can even zoom on video as much as 4x at 128x96. And 2x at 176x144.

RADIO–The included hands-free earphones comes with an antenna to let you tune in to FM stations. Although you can also switch to the phone's speaker to hear the music, the radio function can only be activated by inserting the earphones to the phone. You can save a total of 20 FM channels on the K700i.

STILL CAMERA–The built-in VGA camera can take pictures at a maximum of 640x480 pixels. 1280x1024 pixel resolution is achievable via software interpolation which takes a longer time to process and makes the image bigger but not necessarily better. The photo light helps in shooting under low luminance. Interestingly, the camera software comes with a Panorama effect to help you shoot and stitch a wide angle image. The first shot taken will create a ghosted image on screen so you can align the camera when you take the second image and so on. The effects have to be turned off when you decide to switch resolutions. Software zoom has a maximum of 4x. But it is only available on images at 160x120. 2x zoom is only available at resolutions of 320x240. And no zoom available at VGA and Extended modes.

MEDIA PLAYER–The K700i has a media player that supports playback of MP3, MP4, 3GP and WAV files (16 Khz max sampling rate).

REMOTE CONTROL–Interestingly, the Bluetooth tab features a Remote Control to control a PC desktop, a Media Player and Presenter. Hopefully there would be a software that can remap these functions for controlling iTunes and Keynote.

Well, there you have it. My personal review of the K700i.

[Buddhaboy]

Hi Lester!

Thanks for the review. I got a K700i as well. Do you you have any problems with iSync?

I get an error after syncing which says that iSync is unable to delete certain Calendar entries.

Also, on another note, i did a master reset and I lost the themes and the games that were installed. Pa email naman sa akin yung mga files

[ditoy_eagle]

Hey CooLes, how's the speed? I still have my T610, I just hate it everytime I text, super lag! Is phone memory still the same? The T610 internal 500 phonebook is not enough for me. The separate SIM card phonebook memory access is a hassle. What are the other improvements in operation or performance of the K700i over the older SE phones?

[CooLes]

Gabe, I believe you can download the games for free at the Sony Ericsson site. Sent you a U2U. Haven't had any problems with iSync so far. Though when I started to pair it from my PowerBook, have missed out the part that it should be done from the phone as well. Calendar entries and To Do items sync fine with the K700i.

Ditoy, texting is responsive for my tastes. Quite as fast or even faster than the Z600. Though when you click the navigation key to the left, it presents you with two options on writing via text message or a picture message.

Here is the good news: Am sure you remembered this when I showed you my Z600 a few months back. The phone automatically creates a shortcut to your common recipients when sending text or picture messages and removes that other step when sending messages. So now you only need to do 3 clicks compared to the previous 4. E.g. After composing a message, click on continue, click on name, then click on send. Sent you a message via T9 earlier just to try it out. Just in case you were wondering what "the quick brown fox..." means. Am sure Vic can do it a lot faster on a K700i

Phonebook memory is sadly the same. Checked on my memory status from the options under phonebook and it displays 268(510). Was hoping they would reserve a minimum of like 1000 and dynamically allocate it across the phone's memory.

Review update. You can zoom in and out while you're shooting a video. Took some still and video clips last night as well as a voice memo. Browsing at the phone's new file manager - more - memory status menu reveals the phone actually has 42 MB of memory:

Phone: 37 MB free
Pictures: 1.0 MB 39 files
Sounds: 1.2 MB 25 files
Videos: 1.5 MB 4 files
Themes: 797 KB 4 files
Games: 453 KB 3 files

Will try to give more test results in the coming days. So far am enjoying it

[Absinth]

How's the text msg capacity? IS it the same with the T610/T630/Z600?

[Arel]

Another phone migration has begun!

Enjoy your new toys, guys!

May have to sit this one out.

Originally posted by Buddhaboy
Hi Lester!

Thanks for the review. I got a K700i as well.

[vicicasas]

I got to play with a K700 demo unit at the Hub in Rockwell yesterday. Fantastic screen, very nice operating system, reasonably snappy (I can't tell whether or not it will be more responsive than my T610 until I get familiar with the layout and the menus), great camera, the built in photo/video light is a nice touch. In fact my only beef with the unit is the rather odd build quality - it feels like a step backwards from the T630 and T610. I am so used to the raised, individual keys of my T610 that I found myself stumbling on the smooth, combined-key layout of the K700. Still, it's a minor niggle that may disappear with familiarity and I'm willing to overlook it in light of all the cool new features. I want one!

POSTSCRIPT: May a thousand fleas from a thousand camels infest the armpits of the woman standing in line in front of me at the Hub. She was holding the K700 in one hand and her T610 in the other and she was standing there FOREVER, just playing with her T610 and looking supremely bored. I thought she was doing some comparison testing, or maybe sending some files from one phone to the other, but no ... after about ten minutes I realized she was standing there because she had unplugged the charger from the K700 demo unit and had stuck it into her own phone! BWISIT TALAGA. Grrr.

[vicicasas]

Some questions for Gabe and Lester: How's the ringtone volume? It seemed awfully soft in the Hub. I had to put my ear to the phone to hear the rings! Also, how's the built in loudspeaker quality? that's a feature i've been longing for since my t68 days, and have been very envious of Nokia users that seem to have it on so many models.

EDIT: I also wish the joystick on the K700 stuck out a bit further ... it didn't feel as easy to use as the T610's.

[Edited on 7-4-2004 by vicicasas]

[Arel]

& the Hub staff didn't do anything about her freeloading, Vic? Deadma lang?

Unfair! When I'm there looking at the phones on display, if somebody's inquiring about the phone I'm checking out, the staff always ask me if they could "borrow" the phone & demo it to the interested party.

& I'm not even there to charge my phone!

Originally posted by vicicasas
POSTSCRIPT: May a thousand fleas from a thousand camels infest the armpits of the woman standing in line in front of me at the Hub. She was holding the K700 in one hand and her T610 in the other and she was standing there FOREVER, just playing with her T610 and looking supremely bored. I thought she was doing some comparison testing, or maybe sending some files from one phone to the other, but no ... after about ten minutes I realized she was standing there because she had unplugged the charger from the K700 demo unit and had stuck it into her own phone! BWISIT TALAGA. Grrr.

[Edited on 7-4-2004 by Arel]

[vicicasas]

Originally posted by vicicasas
Some questions for Gabe and Lester: How's the ringtone volume? It seemed awfully soft in the Hub. I had to put my ear to the phone to hear the rings!

I was looking around esato.com and I found a relevant post that seems to have answered my own question. To wit:

"For those concerned about the volume of the ringtones. I don't know why SE did this, but when you play the ringtones, the volume is low, but when someone actually calls you, the ringtones are LOUD.

I was concerned as well, thinking that I'm gonna have the weak ringtone that I did with my T616 (I hated that, that's why I got rid of it). But luckily that the volume of the tone when a call is being received is really loud."