After hitting the headlines last year with it’s T610 series last year Sony Ericsson has decided to “Hit It baby one more time”. Let’s take a sneak peak to know what this fuss is all about
An Overview :- The K700 boasts of a Sleek and trendy design to impress most of the youngsters. It has a Vga camera placed on the back making it possible to record and play movies. It has enhanced color display (then the T610 series). The keys feel even better and the amazing thing is that in spite of stuffing all of the stuff in the phone the phone is actually same as that of T610 series, actually a little smaller.
Hot Shot Camera and memory :- The K700 is mainly targeted at the youngsters and hence had to be priced accordingly. All this resulted in no provision for any memory card. What? Please explain..... . When you’ve got a phone that let’s you capture videos, you would expect it has enough space so that you can store your videos.If the space is too limited then you’d be stuck with a 10 second video that can’t even capture you blowing off candles at your Birthday Party. The K700 boats of a 32 MB internal memory. But that won’t be enough for a long party, where you expect to grab a whole bunch of videos.
The K700 doesn’t have any possibility for expansion of memory (like MMC – multimedia card supported by nokia 6600 etc). SO you are stuck and 32 MB is all you have.
Design and ergonomics :- Sony Ericsson designed a great phone T68i, kept up the good will in T610 series and also in T630 and the flags are flying high with K700 too. The design is elegant, sleek and very soothing. An Absolute Stunning beauty . The screen is large, with nice keys even better than T630. The metallic touch to the phone really makes the phone shine. One thing new users may find is a little awkward is the handling of the phone when using the camera. Since the T630, Sony Ericsson had made an effort to make the phone look and act more like camera. So have to hold the phone horizontally. But you get used to it once you use it a while.
There is an extra camera control button on the side of the phone which makes life easier.
The GUI Sony Ericsson are working hard to change the phrase “It’s not possible to improve perfection”. Sure is! The T630 had an elegant display lot better then T610 and even Nokia 7250. But Sony Ericsson has not given it up they have further increased the screen clarity and color contrast. The icons have been reworked and are a lot-lot better. All this sums up to be a great display. The menu like previous series are easy to use and as a matter of fact the phone is fastest ever. The T610 were said to be a little slow , then T630 was a little faster but K700 is really fast (just like Nokia phones). Java applications run fast too.
The phone includes some 3D technology , which means you’ll be able to play true 3D games like in the pc(Please be kind enough not to expect Quake 3 kind of graphics). Like the previous phones you can also play Morphun games and Java games as well. One note (which is not actually under this heading) that the keys are really silent. That means you won’t hear that clicking noise everything you play your favorite game.
Connectivity One area where the company is showing off is connectivity. Say you have a Bluetooth enabled TV; you can actually transfer images from the phone to the TV (obviously via Bluetooth). But you can transfer only stills and not videos.
Conclusion :- The K700 is a great offering from Sony Ericsson. It stands tall in competition to the Nokia’s latest offering (I forgot the series number). The only area it loses out is the Memory capacity. But that’s the catch, and that is why the K700 will be cheaper than the rest. Targeted for the young generation it’s a phone that turns every head.
Overall score 8.5/10
Design – 9.5/10
Ergonomics – 8.5/10
Functionality – 7/10
Features – 8.5/10
K700 has been recently launched and may not be available in many parts. People who have the patience and want to same a few bucks can go for the buy in the end of 2004. It should be priced around 300 – 400 US dollars (15, 000-20, 000 INR). In the first half of the year the phone is expected to be more than 400 US dollars. Around 450 – 470 US $.
Please let me know your comments. Welcome to constructive suggestions.
With Warm Regards