Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K810 mobile phone - FIRST LOOK review

Flagship camera phone gets updated

6 February 2007 17:40 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Sony Ericsson has broadened its Cyber-shot range with the launch to two new camera phones - the K550 and the K810. Pocket-lint managed to get its hands on the new K810 handset at the launch event in London.

Specs out the way first, the Cyber-shot K810 boasts a 3.2MP camera with autofocus and an Xenon flash. It sports 3G connectivity like its award winning predecessor as well as software features such as BestPic and the company's Blogger application in connection with Google's Blogger website.

Additionally, realising that people don't always take the best pictures, Sony Ericsson has added a software element called PhotoFix to help improve your images.

Hardware-wise and for the most part it's an evolution of design on the K800 rather than a revolution.

The best change has been to the slider at the rear of the camera. We loved the K800 at Pocket-lint, however hated that the lens cover constantly opened in our pocket on our test eight times out of 10. A design change seems to have put a stop to this and in our quick test of putting it in and then pulling it out of our pocket, the cover stayed shut.

Other hardware changes include the keypad, now small buttons, with the numbers and letters associated with them to the side rather than on the button. While this may give a cool look and feel it was rather off putting especially if you aren't 100% sure of whether the letter H appears on the keypad (4 by the way to save you looking).

As with the K550 and other Cyber-shot branded handsets in the past, the K810 has a strong focus on the camera element of the phone and Sony Ericsson has concreted this belief even further with the introduction of what it is calling "Illuminated Camera Icons" at the side of the keypad - these light up when in camera mode to help you quickly access camera menu options.

In the camera mode pressing the button above it gives you quick access to a range of features such as the timer, megapixel count, macro mode, and flash and makes using the camera elements much more a conventional thing.

Further pushing the phone's camera features other qualities include red-eye reduction, picture size, and self-timer.

The K810 will be available in Noble Blue and Golden Ivory in the second quarter.

Verdict

Although we weren't able to take any images with the K810 our overall impression was a good one on our first encounter with the new phone.

As we said earlier in the review, the K810 isn't going to win any awards for breaking the mould, this is an update and a refinement of styling rather than a something that is going to get you wanting to upgrade from your K800.

In fact looking at the specs it's hard to see what has been improved, there certainly isn't a megapixel increase to shout about, nor the introduction of any new technology we haven't seen from Sony Ericsson before.

Yes the Illuminated Camera Icons are new and there are some other bits and bobs here but at a first glance K800 users should be too worried their pride and joy is out of date already.

We will have a full review of the K810 as soon as review stock is made available from Sony Ericsson.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Sony
Price as reviewed: £price dependent on contract
The good: 3 megapixels, Illuminated Camera Icons, Blogger tool, lens cover
The bad: Keypad, evolution rather than revolution
Quick verdict: Our overall impression was a good one on our first encounter with the new phone
Score