When it comes to handets which are relatively inexpensive, yet feature rich, this phone simply is your best bet. I purchased a K510i about three months ago and I’m fully satisfied. It cost me INR 6200 then but I trust its available for about INR 5900 as of now(Feb 2007)
Lookswise, like all Sony Ericsson phones, this one looks very sleek, elegant and classy. For a phone so inexpensive, this one is literally packed with features. Here’s what you get:
1.3MP Camera, Max picture resolution: 1280x1024
28 MB Memory
Inbuilt MP3 Player, GPRS Capability, Browser
Infrared, Bluetooth
USB Cable to connect it to the computer.
I’m sure that any other phone with a similiar feature set would be definitely costlier, apart from looking a lot’cheaper’ visually.
The camera takes excellent picturesand they can be easily transferred to the computer using the USB cable. Good for photoblogging. [For pictures taken with this phone, check this out: https://flickr.com/cameras/sonyericsson/k510i/]
On data transfer, what must be mentioned is that although SE PC Suite is included. It is not required for the phone to be usable. Once you plugin the USB cable, you get a choice to connect through "Phone Mode" or "File Transfer". While the Phone mode is slower and requires PC suite, File transfer is extremely fast - an additional drive gets added to your computer(Be it Windows, Linux or Mac) and all you need to do is copy paste. As against that you simply need to install Nokia PC suite if you want to use a Nokia phone similiarly. This is much better.
I’m regularly using GPRS with the phone and as far as I can say all major applications are compatible.The inbuilt browser is great, but it is a good idea to install Opera Mini- saves bandwidth and is more feature rich.
Bluetooth and infrared are good for sharing stuff with other cellphones, and you can even use Bluetooth to redirect all the phone’s sound to your computer.
The Navigation is fairly simple and very pretty, like any other SE phone. Extremely beautiful themes, wallpapers and applications for this phone are freely available from the net and can be installed via PC data transfer - a great way to save money.
Lots of contacts can be stored(limited by the phone memory of 28 MB - thats a fair bit) and you can set pictures to contacts, have voice operated dialing, set custom tones, etc.
The phone has great sound - though not as great as the Walkman Series(W series phones always sound better than K series phones), definitely better than a Nokia phone in the same price range. While an MP3 player is included, due to low memory and lack of expandability you can hardly store one or two songs(if you want to, that is). I’d rather prefer storing lots of 20 second MP3 ringtones.
*There is no FM by default(sad, I know) - but an option available includes buying an FM enabled handsfree for around a thousand bucks(or more, I dunno) - it comes with 1GB of data storage/expandable memory - and can transform this into a "complete phone" .
Battery life is superb - I generally have moderate usage, and manage to last without charing for more than 48 hours, at times.
Well, thats about it. I hope this review is useful to those who wish to buy an excellent phone but are constrained by a tight budget.