Tuesday, December 25, 2007

S0ny Ericss0n K77oi

First things first: The color. Upon catching your first eyeful of the 3G-capable K770i, you will either be taken aback or smitten by the color. Certainly, we've had a good mix of pained grunts and excited squeals over the funky Ultra Violet that our review unit came in. It's a surprising hue to complement its muddy Truffle Brown twin, and a shade that's unfortunately not for everyone. We've yet to see the Sandy Beige, though.


Design
Now that's out of the way, there's much to praise about the design. Here's what we like a lot. With the K770i, the Cyber-shot series of phones have slimmed down by some more (14mm, 95g). We also favor the gently curved back of the unit which sits very snugly in the cradle of our palm, unlike some of the more hard-edged skinny sets. The satiny matt finish also makes it a true joy to handle the phone.

For texters, that's much to thank over the more sensible choice of conventional keys, abandoning those ridiculously unfriendly chips that served as keys on the W880i. While some might feel the metallic strips a mite plasticky, they're more than serviceable.

Another design feature you'd like is the slider lock which holds down the back plate of the K770i. Unlike other attempts we've seen, this one is painlessly easy to unlock.

Sony Ericsson has notably been tweaking its lens cover with each Cyber-shot iteration, and it may have gotten this one almost right. The cover is now a slick metal slider flush with the back. You slide it horizontally instead of up/down to unveil the lens and activate the camera. A thin light strip across the back flashes blue whenever you slide open the cover. That said, a few of us found the slider too smooth for any traction. As a result, we lost a few candid shots while struggling frantically to get the lens slider open. Failing that, you can console yourself with self-portraits using the micro mirror.

Now for things we didn't like at all. First up on the list is the strange position of the port. Sitting it on the lower left edge makes pocketing the phone, while the headset is attached, very awkward. That is unless you happen to have very baggy pockets.

The speaker will also prove to be deficient. To keep everything streamlined, it has been cut into the casing at the rear of the phone. As a result, music playback through the speaker tends to be muffled when the unit is flat on its back. Several times during voice calls, we had to ensure that the speaker was facing up to hear the other party speak.

Navigation-wise, the K770i uses a flat four-way rocker with a central button. A second VGA sensor sits on the top right for 3G video calls, and all the shortcuts, power, volume and shutter buttons are in the usual places. The LCD screen is classic Cyber-shot in sharpness and rich hues.

Features
For regulars who've grown along with Sony Ericsson's Cyber-shot series, the K770i is less of a Cyber-shot than a Jack-of-all-trades. One obvious clue is the (gasp) omission of a Xenon flash. It's a surprising decision given the phone's pedigree (just name one Cyber-shot that hasn't a Xenon flash) and 3.2-megapixel autofocus sensor. However, it's not the end of the world. For less fussy camera users, a photo light is by our reckoning a lot more practical as it can double as a torchlight. After all, everyone knows you just can't get very far with a puny camera-phone flash for night shots. So why bother?

Other than that omission, the K770i retains the more user-friendly aspects of its predecessor. Here, a set of backlighted icons on the numeric keypad work as shortcuts to navigating through the camera's menu, reducing the hassle.

In addition to photo and video capabilities, the K770i is an accomplished music phone with support for MP3 and AAC formats. Besides a Memory Stick Micro (M2) card slot for expanded storage, it also supports the A2DP profile letting you connect wirelessly via your own Bluetooth stereo cans. There's also the music recognition feature TrackID, and to complete the audio experience, there's built-in RDS-capable FM radio as well.

Other features of note are a 262K-color, 1.9-inch QVGA screen, PictBridge, photo blogging, RSS feeds, USB mass storage and the ability to control other devices using Bluetooth which is typical Sony Ericsson fare.

Performance
The overall performance of the K770i was within our expectations, though barely. The 930mAh Lithium-polymer battery lasted about 2.5 days with average use of calling, texting and occasional listening to music. This is rather typical for a phone of its size, but not spectacular. Audio quality was decent and sufficiently loud when we were on speakerphone. The only thing that was distracting was the slight muffling of sound when the phone was on its back since that's where the onboard speakers are.

While shortcut keys were useful to access applications quickly, we were miffed over the numerous occasions when the Web button would self-activate without our knowledge, resulting in uncalled-for data traffic charges. The automatic keylock did nothing much to help in this case since it would kick in after only 15 seconds of inactivity, which by then, the button could have been accidentally pressed while the phone was being slipped into a pocket or handbag.

As a Cyber-shot, we expected and got the 3.2-megapixel camera to fire up in 2 seconds upon sliding the lens cover, just slightly faster than the K800i which took an additional second in tests, though that's a difference most users wouldn't notice. The LCD screen doubles as a viewfinder and it's a good thing it remains visible under direct sunlight, else we would have had to shelter the panel in order to frame our subject. On the downside, shutter lag was timed at 0.9 seconds. Compared with the flagship K850i's 0.25 seconds, it's obvious the K770i hails from a different league. In fact, it bordered onto slow given the phone's pedigree.

Image quality was also nothing to shout about. While our pictures looked crisp and sharp on the phone's LCD, viewing them on a desktop screen left us slightly disappointed. Colors appeared a little washed-out and lacked punch. However, we liked the sufficient depth-of-field with our macro shots, provided these were in focus. Video capture resolution, unfortunately, was still the dated QCIF resolution and we're beginning to wonder when Sony Ericsson is going to do something about it. At that resolution, there's really not much use for video as you'll probably be straining yours eyes a lot to view it.

As for music, the K770i uses the earlier Walkman Player version, so there are no frills such as album art, etc., which is available on the newer Walkmans. The application is a rather barebones set that supports the usual audio formats such as MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA and m4a. The good thing is, since the phone supports multitasking, we could let the player run in the background. Pairing the K770i with our HBH-DS980 Bluetooth stereo headset was also a breeze. Music would pause whenever there's an incoming call and pick up from where it left off after the call ended.
Conclusion
With the K770i, it goes to show that market forces can and will demand changes on the manufacturer's front. To be honest, we feel the K770i was introduced as a "buffer" or "filler" model in the Japanese-Swedish Cyber-shot lineup. It bridges the gap between a Cyber-shot and a fashion phone, the Cyber-shot brand probably slapped on because of its autofocus capabilities; something which the Walkman series lacks. As a result, the K770i is a phone that's neither here nor there. If the design appeals to you and you don't care a lot about image quality, the K770i would be the handset to get.

Price

http://www.vatgia.com/home/quicksearch.php?keyword=Sony+Ericsson+K770i+&typing=1&keyword_reject=&price=&price_to=
http://www.vatgia.com/home/detail.php?module=product&iPro=164769&iCat=438
http://www.vatgia.com/home/detail.php?module=product&iPro=165239&iCat=438

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