Review of Sony Ericsson K770i: classic solutionThe company introduced another mobile phone appeared to be one of the most unusual solutions, as well as the most logical one in the very important price range.Table of contents:
We have touched upon the growing range of Sony Ericsson many times, but all in all, the situation hasn’t changed radically. The most important aim of the company is to create the widest range of devices comprising solutions having some advantages, which single them out others. But at the same time these handsets don’t have to become sales hits in order not to overshadow other mobile phones. As you know, since 2007 the company has been producing another line of cellular phone featuring the common ideology. These are so-called “emotional” products notable for distinguishing design as well as heaps of different lights. At the first stage, the market demanded the Al known as W880i. The latter proved to be very successful solution, as it comprised all merits Sony Ericsson is notable for (that is, the powerful platform, as well as user friendly interface), plus very attractive design. Along with the W880i the company created the more complete solution expressing the image idea - the T650i. The phones seem to have the same characteristics, and the T650i is likely to subsidize the Al well. But the company decides to bet on the quantity and made their best. They took the T650i featuring the better camera, improved the ergonomics, removed the steel casing and named the upgraded device the K770i. The latter matches those who’d like to have a device equipped with a camera with autofocus and classic keypad without paying for a useless steel furnishing and screen-protecting glass. This solution seems to be the common one, but the device is not so simple, as it looks. The reason is in the good work of designers, which created a really interesting design to this handset. However, we don’t want to be accused of prating, that’s why let’s move on to the K770i, which was interrupted by our thoughts about the T650i.        The candy bar mobile phone measures 104.8x46.7x14.6. Weighted 95g the device fits only pockets of the outerwear, which we wear in autumn and winter. But it turns out to be heavy to the light clothes, though the giant N91 excels the K770i. Unlike its steel twin the K770i utilizes the plastic casing, though because of the weighty steel joint it has the same weight as the T650i.  The phone fits comfortably in the palm of your hand thanks to the curved rear panel and rare glossy parts. There is only one sleeky insert around the screen housing the narrow slit of the loudspeaker.  To the left of the slit you see the viewfinder of the additional QCIF-camera used for the video-calls. To the right you find the lightsensor, which comes in handy to activate the flashlight when shooting. The display itself is covered with the protecting plastic resembling the glass utilized in the T650i. However, our small experiment, when we tried to scratch the display with a knife, brought noticeable scratch to the K770i. But unlike the latter the T650i resisted scratches easily. The screen remains unchangeable: 1.9”, 240x320, 262K TFT. Images have perfect quality definition.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the devices equipped with the same screen to compare the image quality. Screens featuring the higher granularity can’t be compared with our review model, as the result will be fallacious. We produce the following example – Nokia 6500 Classic’s screen has a better brightness (about 15-20%) than the K770i. The other characteristics are the same: perfect image sharpness, big visual angles, good sunlight resistance thanks to the protecting glass unliable to minor scratches.  The keypad deserves the same appraisal as the one installed in the T650i. The navigational pad consists of the couple of soft-keys with “back” and “delete ”buttons. Together they form a wide horizontal stripe with a big groove in the middle. The sides house two popping up keys activating the WEB-browser and Active Menu. All in all, in spite of the moderate dimensions, the keys are very handy to use. You are unlikely to mispress the adjacent buttons, it is almost impossible. The navi key stays in the middle of this very-handy-to-use keypad. It juts out a little; the OK button, due to the concave surface and small size, lets you navigate through the different menu items without annoyance and mispressings. Before we form our final opinion about the keypad, we’d like to say a couple of words about the numerical keypad. The narrow horizontal rows have a wide space between and occupy the whole casing’s width. They give very pleasant tactile feedback. The vertical rows are clearly visible thanks to the wide buttons. The latter have an average travel distance and a common distinctive click. In the end we’d like to mention the even white backlit of the keypad. So the keypad undoubtedly is one of the most convenient keypads, we’ve ever tested. As to the comfort, the device can be compared with Nokia 6233, though tastes differ. Fortunately, the manufacturers made the K770i free of any brand sticker, they just graved it on the casing. The edges feature the thin hollow silver framing, which houses several elements.  The left edge of the casing houses the common Fast Port to connect all kinds of wired devises, from the charger to a handset.   On the right edge you see the small volume rocker key featuring mediocre tactile feedback and uncomfortable pressure and stiff travel distance. It is unhandy to deal with, as you have to peer into the screen to learn whether you pressed it or not. The same annoyance is caused by the focusing/shutter button. While the first pressure launching the autofocus is beyond complaints, the shutter release can get on your nerves.  On the left edge, near the silver framing you find the mike hole, as well as two holes to the wrist band, which will be mentioned later.  The top edge is crowned with a tiny power button allowing to change the current profile, as well as with sliding latch of the buttery cover consisting of the whole rear fascia.   Most of all it is noticeable due to the one of the best camera shutters presented on the market nowadays. Locating on the same level with the casing, it is made of the thin metal plate measuring less than 2cm in width. It is equipped with the autofinishing with the distinctive click when opening. It is handy to use, except when in gloves. To the left of the shutter you see a small self-portrait mirror, as well as the LED photolight with two kinds of voltages, which correspondingly give two kinds of lightning. It is remarkable, that below the middle of the casing you see two thin LEDs lightning in blue when the shutter is opened.  Another lights you see in the keypad, the latter has lightning edges of the left and right rows. The similar solution has already seen in the K810i but without lightning right (upper) row of keys and changing backlight. Below near the bottom edge you find the polyphonic loudspeaker hole consisting of five small cuts.  As we mentioned, the main fastener of the rear cover is the latch on the top end featuring only one fixed position. To remove the cover you need to pull the latch back as far as it would go, then to raise the cover slightly at the edges.   Under the cover we see the elements positioned in the same way as in the T650i except the aforementioned sensors and two contacts to activate the camera. Tough the right contact works only when the left one is broken. Under the camera you find the 930mAh Li-Ion battery BST-38. It lasts about two-three days depending on the user activity.   After removing the battery, you are enabled either to remove or put a sim in the slot featuring no any holders. Near the Fast Port slot the phone houses the M2 memory card slot.  The latter has a limiter preventing cards from pulling out with the help of strong spring. As the cards can boast about the tiny size, this solution proves to be reasonable. The last that is worth to be mentioned are the jack of the external antenna located under the brand sticker and the fragile hole to the wrist band. Below you see the comparative photo of the K770i and the 6500 Classic from the same price segment.  Interface In the stand-by mode the screen displays the upper bar ranged the icons indicating receive signal level, GPRS/3G connections, missed calls, unread messages, Bluetooth connectivity, as well as the battery charge. The more detailed information about the battery charge is available after pressing the volume control key. Then you can also see the amount of free memory, system information, profile, and … the model of the phone (!). The latter is quite strange to see here. Beneath the icon line you see operator’s name, followed by the System information. The user is enabled to switch on the clock occupying either the one third of the screen or a small sign similar to one showing the date. The free place opposite the date can be occupied, for example, by the timer counter. The bottom part of the screen is traditionally given to the operations of the soft-keys. The print is large and bold. In the stand-by mode you can bound the most applications with the navi key. The “Internet” key launches the WEB-browser Net front. On the opposite side the phone houses the Active Menu key depicting the events from the first tab, file manager of the started apps, quick menu, as well as browser tabs list.   As to the stand-by mode, the device lacks the Flash support, namely themes and swf-screensavers. But it still features the full-screen mode to jpeg, gif images.     To enter the main menu you have to press either the navi key or the right soft-key. The main menu can be viewed as 12 animated icons arrayed as 3x4 grid. There is a digital navigation through all menu items. The submenu is listed vertically. In most cases, the lines are provided with the horizontal tabs allowing to cycle through the different types of item sorting.   Phonebook As it used to be, the phonebook saves up to 1000 entries, which can be filled with up to 2500 phone numbers. To cycle through the list you enter the first letters of the necessary contact. If the contact has several attached phone numbers, you can view them with the navi key horizontally declined.        New contact may be given a name, 4 phone numbers (mobile, home, work, other), email, web address, home address, as well as work place. You may assign any picture or a video clip, which occupies the half of the screen when incoming call. Ringtone, text note as well as reminder about the birthday are also adjusted in the entry.        The call lists are still limited to 30; it includes both answered, dialed and missed calls, as well as all calls list.     Messages The handset comes with a handy application to create SMS/MMS. As usual, the emoticons can be viewed as pictures. The maximal size of the text message amounts to 1188 symbols.        The MMS application hasn’t changed since the K800i. It has eye-catching interface, the compound message may have up to 300Kb. You are enabled to attach audio files, pictures, video clips. The necessary apps to create attachment may be opened right from this menu (camera, voice recorder).        There is an email client, which created new account with a name. It is handy that you can receive a service SMS with a settings to the account. To do that you have to visit the Support page and fill in a small form. In 10 seconds your chosen phone receives a message offering to install the adjusted account.    All message enclosures may be saved in the phone memory – this is undoubtedly a good thing. Organizer Let’s look through the Organizer apps. The first one is a functional alarm clock allowing to create up to five alarms. To each of them you can adjust time, recurrent. The phone also makes it possible to choose alarm signal or radio. It is pleasant that you can rename the alarm (for example, to name it “it’s time to dine” instead of “alarm 3”), as well as fix the alarm picture. (If we are talking about dinner, there is a plate with soup).     Calendar It has two ways of viewing: monthly or weekly with each day having an hourly schedule. After choosing the necessary weekday, you can quickly create a reminder. The latter has lots of settings. They are as follows: subject, start time, duration, reminder (5-30 minutes before), recurrence (daily, weekly, monthly, early), location. To cap it all, you are enabled to add small description of the event. As you see, the reminder is not the perfect one, but it is rather good taking into account, that it isn’t the separate organizer, but just a function of the mobile phone.                  Notes Here you can create common notes 254 symbols long.   Times It is a common timer. You fix a time to within a second, and see the count in the stand-by mode.   Stopwatch creates up to 9 laps.   Calculator is noticeable for the possibility to extract root.  The presence of the code memo is very intrigue. In the rest, the 4-digit password symbolizes only, that these notes are very important.  Memory. File manager The device comes with 16MB of the phone memory obviously not enough to work with the multimedia applications. That is way the M2 memory card slot comes in handy. In order to maintain a low price of the device, the vendor claims that the handset supports the memory cards up to 2Gb. Though honestly speaking all modern phones work well only with the 1Gb memory cards. The 2Gb and 4Gb memory cards cause some long glitches, first of all in the file manager, which we check out below.    The file manager turns to be a handy app to view the content of the phone memory. You are enabled to quickly change the viewing memory with the help of the horizontal relocation in the roots of the manager. In our review we’d like to describe only the most interesting applications. Video, pictures These folders save all pictures, gif-animations, as well as video clips. It is interesting, that you are enabled to change the viewing mode from the common 3x3 thumbnail to the new 5x5 one, as well as thumbnail list short signs (the same we’ve seen in the Nokia devices), common list with a name. As to video clips, you can view them at the 30 frames per second rate. It is also pleasant, that the user is enabled to choose a video clip as a ringtone both to any and one particular contact.       Camera album It is a program to view the stills/clips made with the on-board camera. Besides the aforementioned styles of viewing it has a timeline. The new interface is simple: with the vertical pressing the navi key you cycle through the items in the upper scroll-line (monthly, daily); to view the photographs you use the left soft key.    When viewing the files, you can switch on the photo/video editors allowing to change brightness/contrast, to apply colour filters, applications and framings, as well as to cut off the necessary part of the picture. But to do the latter you can also use the common album viewer; the volume rocker key allows to zoom a picture from 1x to 2 with 0.2, 0.5 step, and then you can zoom it with 1 step till 32x. We can’t speak seriously about the slide-show mode to view the pictures, as the K770i is equipped with a simple autoswitching the photographs in three seconds. In comparison with other SE A2-based cellular phones or Nokia N73, N76, N95 having the same option, the K770i lacks the slide-show mode. The other features of the file manager are as follows: the DRM 1.0 support incompatible with the on-board multimedia content. The unprotected files, as it used to be, can be transferred via Bluetooth both one by one and all selected files. The folders can be separated into numerous subfolders at any level.    Communications The device ships without IR-port on board, but we weren’t sorry. But it still features Bluetooth 2.0 supporting the most profiles except the free access to the file system. The latter allows to create or delete files, folders. The data transfer speed amounts to 70-100 Kb/s. Games, applications The handset comes with two games by one vendor, namely Digital Chocolate, on board. The latter provides the built-in content to the most solutions of SE.  The first game – Foto Quest Fishing. The game is simple. There are a mobile camera viewfinder and space filled with water and fish. The goal of the game is to create pictures photographing as much fish as possible. The more animals are on the still, the higher score you have.     The second game is a collection of four solitaires. Fortunately, there is a classical solitaire, but the latter is adjusted to the lower screen resolution. That’s way it will be another test for your sharp sight, as you have to make out the tiny symbols on the cards.    The application section contains the popular time-tested application, which makes anyone funny, except those you photograph. It is Face Warp. In a word, the program puts different size effects on all images. The latter can be both a still made on this device and any picture you wish.       The second application Photo Mate resembles the manual to the different photo effects available in this handset. The K770i comes with the description to the night shooting and portrait mode. The other tips are available after downloading. In general this application comes in handy, as the camera interface can boast about numerous settings doubled with the presence of the autofocus.      Java-machine performance. Jbenchmark1: 6951 Text 1985 2d shapes 1924 3d shapes 760 Fill rate 553 Animation 1729 Jbenchmark 2: 1202 Image manipulation: 402 Text: 757 Sprites: 609 3d transform: 773 User interface: 17395 Jbenchmark 3d Jbenchmark 3d hq: 184 Jbenchmark 3d lq: 329 Triagles pear second: 27953 Ktexels pear second: 207 Jbenchmark hd Smooth triangles: 39245 textured triangles: 26898 fill rate: 818ktexels gaming: 45(1.5 frames per second) Music The phone comes with the program player Walkman 1.4, that we’ve already seen in the W800i, the W810i, the W900i. As usual, tracks can be sorted by artists, playlists or shown in the full list.  In the playback mode you can cycle through the tracks with the long pressing the volume control key. The volume settings include stereo widening and 5-line equalizer with a manual tuning.       As to the sound quality, the K770i can boast about some improvements in comparison even with the W910i hyped as the music phone. Unlike the other SE devices, the K770i escaped the common defect. The previous solutions used to provide low-quality sound because of the program congestion cleaner installed in the low-priced headphones. The loudness is also rather good. At the 80-90% the loudness is rather acceptable. The maximum rate is enough to listen to the player in metro using the Hpm 82 headphones from the sales pack. The phone is also equipped with the FM Radio RDS supporting the autosearch for the channels. Each of the active channels can be saved in one of 20 memory cells. The radio is lauder than the player at 10-15%.        Camera Our review model is most of all noticeable for the 3.2Megapixel Camera with Auto Focus. To begin with, we’d like to list the main differences of the camera from the similar one installed in the K790i.  The approximate specifications of the K770i and the K790i cameras.
This table covers only the most important differences among the cameras. As to the camera interface, we have to emphasize that it is simple and clear as usual allowing to make use of vide range of camera settings.
          We’d like to emphasize the good work of the viewfinder. In the room, the frame refresh amounts to 10 Fps, in the daylight this specification increases to 24-30Fps. We have to admit there are few cellular phones arranging the image so well.                 The stills prove that the camera can make good stills not only in condition of the daylight, but in the room as well using the noises neutralization mechanism. As the latter can’t be turned off, it may annoy those who put up with the colour noises in order to get the detailed pictures. To cycle through the photo/video shooting you have to decline the navi key vertically. The video settings copy those in the photo mode except the multishooting mode and res. The clips are record with the mediocre quality 3gp with 176x144 res at the speed 10f/s. Video sample, 3gp, 375 KB >>> In spite of the low-quality resolution 176x144, the clips turn to be much better, than those on the K790i due to the lack of jerks. Though you might have different opinion. The phone itself The phone provides good connection quality comparable with the most devices in the same price range. The loudspeaker is loud enough to speak in different places including metro, noisy street and others places which make difficulties to the most phones. The transfer quality deserves four points from five. In condition of the weak signal receive level, your interlocutor and you hear broken voice with heaps of noises. If the signal receive level is maximal, you have no complains about speech quality. The polyphonic loudspeaker featuring the cut low frequency turns to be too weak to be used outdoors or in the noisy places. In these cases vibration comes in handy, which is about the average one. The main problem of the powerful vibration mechanism is, strange as it may seem, the thin casing which doesn’t fit closely the body when in the jeans pockets. Conclusion At first sight, you may think that we have another remake of the well-known T650i leaving the similar impression. However, the K770i compounds better ergonomics with good functionality. Hyping the device at 50EUR cheaper than the stylish cousin, the company created the acceptable substitute for the K790i aimed at those who only now going to purchase this model. So let’s cast a glance at the K770i advantages in comparison with the one-year-old photo flagship. They are as follows:
Of course we can’t but say about some annoyance cased by the new camera, smaller screen diagonal, weaker polyphonic loudspeaker crowned by the Fast Port uncomfortably located on the side. Though all these drawbacks have been improved in the new photo flagship the K850i, thus we can say that each device finds its own customer. As we mentioned, the K770i can be recommended to those, who noticed the K790i only now. That may mainly be men aged 17-23. The elders may prefer either the stylish T650i or the K850i. The younger people prefer the cheaper devices. In any case the K770i will be the main solution of the company equipped with the 3.2Mpixel camera in the first six months of 2008. © Written by Tikhonov Valeriy, Mobiset.ru Translated by Arina Urban. Published — 11 January 2008. |
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