vB Easy Archive - Sony Ericsson K790i, in a student’s POV

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Sony Ericsson K790i, in a student’s POV
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Posted by: mcg

Introduction
Well first of all, this review you are looking at will be a little different than others. I will be reviewing this phone in a young adult’s perspective. I won’t be rambling on about what I think isn’t important, and will focus on what I believe is of priority when purchasing a cell phone, in this case, the K790i. Meaning, don’t expect me to talk about its internet capabilities. I will also try to take pictures of the phone to the best of my abilities. Anyway, on to the review.

First Impression
This is the nice little box that I laid my hands on when I finally purchased the K790i. Finally, the I had grand successor to the K750i. It was pure joy. The box looked pretty good, so I had a good feeling about the phone too. I hoped I had made the right choice after reading a ton of reviews between the N73, D900, and K790i.

Opening the box revealed the phone, and hidden inside the compartments to the left and right of the phone were the charger, CDs, USB cable, M2, and other accessories.

Build Quality, Design
This is where the phone shines, in my opinion, compared to the Samsung D900 and Nokia N73. (If you didn’t know, those phones are the K790i’s closest competitors in terms of specifications) I’m used to SE’s candybar designs and I actually like it a lot now, and the choice of colour for the phone makes it quite professional-looking.

Being a past owner of a K750i, I compared the two in terms of quality and design. The K750i creaked occasionally when I pressed on it in certain areas, which was quite irritating at times. Thankfully, there is absolutely NO creaking of the casing on the K790i. It is absolutely great.

As a side note, some of you may have read the K800i review over at mobique.com. The design faults they outline in their review are not apparent in my K790i. The screen is perfectly aligned, and the earpiece grill is straight.

The joystick. I’m sure many of you have this in mind. I haven’t used the phone long enough to see if the K790i’s joystick improves over its predecessor in terms of keeping dust out. So far, everything looks good – the joystick is quite sturdy and shows NO sign of wearing out anytime soon. Maybe SE caught onto this problem. I’ll update the thread when I notice something.

The camera cover’s material differs from the K750i this time. Instead of just plastic, It’s a glossy kind of plastic. People have been wondering whether it scratches easily or not, and so far, there isn’t a mark on my cover. I don’t think it’ll scratch that easily unless you rub the cover with force over pavement.

The SE K750i has two black faceplates and a silver middle body. As for the K790i, its entire body is in a black colour with some silver lining around the phone. The back of the phone and keypad are made of some sort of rubber, with just enough grip to hold the phone tightly. Doesn’t cause that much friction either, which makes it good material for the phone. As for other design changes, I think looking at the pictures of the unit are self-explanatory. I appreciate the fact that Sony Ericsson modified the design of the successor of the K750i. When you take a look at the W800i, W810i, and W700i, man, there is little to no change in design at all, and the specifications are almost the same. Quite boring.

The phone itself is OK in terms of ergonomics. The keypad some may find is quite low compared to the rest of the phone, but when the phone is held midway it feels fine. With thin/normal sized fingers you can press the buttons with ease… otherwise if you have fat ones, it’ll be difficult. The softkeys are very sensitive to the touch, making life a lot easier to depress them when needed.

Screen
WOW! The screen is very, very nice. It has improved over the K750i’s by a LOT. The size of the screen is bigger (2”), and the resolution is QVGA I believe (240x320). This was definitely one of the reasons why I upgraded from the K750i to this phone. I am very satisfied at how crisp images are when viewed on the screen. Having owned a Samsung D600 before, I could say the K790i’s screen is about the same as the D600’s.

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Its performance under the sunlight is EXCELLENT. I can actually see what the heck is going on with the screen. Colours show up brightly and images are marvellous.

Inside the phone: Functionality
The menu system is identical to that of the K750i’s. It consists of the typical 12 options: PlayNow, Internet, Games, Camera, Messaging, Music Player, File Manager, Contacts, Radio, Calls, Organizer, and Settings. Nothing new if you are a past SE candy bar user. There have been a few additions I have noticed though, such as multiple alarms, a larger standby display clock, FLIGHT MODE, tiny clock in status bar, and other menu enhancements. The speed of the menu has increased as well. Not just slightly; there is quite a difference. The animations that come with scrolling up in down are also apparent in all menus now, unlike the K750i, where it only applied to some.

On to the call features. Again, nothing much new here... everything is about the same as the K750i. Reception is just as good, and I have experienced no dropped calls. It does its job as a phone.

Multimedia – MP3, Camera
MP3 quality is the same – crisp, clear. The application to play the MP3’s is identical to the one of Walkman branded phones, except you can’t scroll through the list of songs while a song is playing by pressing down on the joystick. The playback of MP3’s for ringtone is also the same… the quality is lessened. However with FAR Manager and the SEFP plugin it is possible to make the K750i’s MP3 ringtone quality the same as if it was played with the media player. Hope to see support for the K790i/K800i from FAR Manager and SEFP sometime soon.

Now, I have some unfortunate news. The camera does not perform as great as I expected. I’d say despite the reviews over the internet claiming the N73 > K790i > D900 camera quality, this phone’s camera stinks the most. Almost zilch improvement over the K750i. The indoor performance sucks in low lighting, despite the flash…even when dark colours are illuminated by the flash, they produce some slight noise. Ahem, and what about AF illuminator of the phone? I tried taking a picture of my friends at a distance of around 1.5m outside at night and the picture is completely blurry. The AF doesn’t do jack toward helping the phone focus. The flash is good though. I could see their bright faces in shock at my wonderful phone. (Joke.) Well, maybe I am a bit too harsh… the phone does take decent pictures in the dark as well…most of the time. Daylight performance is good. Well, it IS a given for a camera phone to perform well in daylight. No noise at all and pictures look crisp and sharp.

The crap:

One of the better dark photos:

As for the functions that come with the Cyber-shot labelling, there are more options available for the phone, ie. scenes (landscape, document, sports, etc.) and BestPic shooting mode. I don’t use BestPic though… takes too long to take pictures, and impractical for a point and shoot camera.

Look at that noise! Argh:

Overall, if the camera is of primary importance, truthfully, this phone isn’t for you. Go with either the N73 or D900... or heck, even the expensive N93. My friend sent a bunch of pictures from me taken from the Samsung D900 and they are great – there is little to NO noise. It makes the K790i’s cam look like mere horse manure. Sorry for the attack on you SE, but the K790i is nowhere near Cyber-Shot class. It’s just a pure marketing gimmick, and the camera is utter garbage at night. You might as well wait for the “K850i” to come out to expect a phone camera worthy of that label. Indeed, I am disappointed, but the camera suffices for my purposes.

Conclusion
Well this is as far as I have used the phone in terms of its features. As soon as I start utilizing its other functions, ie. the organizer, I’ll update this review accordingly. I could have sold this phone by now, but the reason I’m keeping it despite its horrid camera is for its looks. It beats the N73 and D900, and the screen is impressive. Just what I wanted all in a nice, SE package.

For now, the parts of the phone I have covered here are what I use the phone for most of the time. For those concerned with the camera performance, PM me or let me know in any way and I will gladly send you pictures taken with the phone to help in your decision for a phone purchase.

Hope I’ve informed many who are considering the K790i/K800i series.

Posted by: popocar

Thank you for your review, but I don't agree with you for your comment on K790i's camera, it's the best in its class, D900 can't come close to K800i in anyway, even Nokia N73 is just as good as K800i for a day shot, but for a night shot, K800i is to be the first in list ..

Posted by: ellzar

Good pictures, appreciate the review

Posted by: 4merly_blucific

nice pics
thx for the review
=)

Posted by: shaolinmonk

dude nice review.. but you need to get better with your picture taking skills.....have you compared the phones you mentioned head to head n73, d900, k800 in the same situation to determine which gives the best quality?

and if you compare head to head on screen's you'll find out the k800i screen is better then the d600..

people have also said it's better then the sharp 903 screen in terms of brightness and colors as well..

lots of head to head comparisons...

http://www.newmobile.nl/eur/en/news.php?news_id=caf44e

http://sotovik.ru/catalog/reviews/Nokia_N73-rev.html

http://mobil.idnes.cz/valka-spickov...15_telefony_ada

http://www.gsmarena.com/n73_d900_k8...-review-102.php

Posted by: yeung330XI

awsome review

so has anyone confirmed that Rogers will carry this phone???

Posted by: import_nation

i have the agree with him on the camera.. i was disapointed... its about the same as my w800 and w810i.. just a bigger pic.. when its really sunny outside perfect lighting then yea the photos are perfect.. but indoor there is so much noise in the picture its disapointing. you guys have to get the phone to understand.. online reviews can only say that much.. dont get me wrong im keeping this phone.. its a nice phone overall.. the camera is good for a cellphone.. but with the cybershot logo on there i was expecting more.. just being honest... in daylight its great though.. and yea the flash it awesome.. in complete darkness it lights up a small room.. just one thing that bothesr me.. i've only had the phone for a few days.. its crashed 3 times..

Posted by: shaolinmonk

Quote:

Originally Posted by import_nation

i have the agree with him on the camera.. i was disapointed... its about the same as my w800 and w810i.. just a bigger pic.. when its really sunny outside perfect lighting then yea the photos are perfect.. but indoor there is so much noise in the picture its disapointing. you guys have to get the phone to understand.. online reviews can only say that much.. dont get me wrong im keeping this phone.. its a nice phone overall.. the camera is good for a cellphone.. but with the cybershot logo on there i was expecting more.. just being honest... in daylight its great though.. and yea the flash it awesome.. in complete darkness it lights up a small room.. just one thing that bothesr me.. i've only had the phone for a few days.. its crashed 3 times..

the camera not meeting your expectation i can understand.. but saying the samsung d900 and n73, n93 are a lot better is completely inaccurate..

Posted by: import_nation

i never said that lol... i think out of the three you listed.. the only one i would be interested to know if its acutally better is the n93.. cause that phone seems to impress me in alot of ways except for the fact that its fugly

Posted by: shaolinmonk

Quote:

Originally Posted by import_nation

i never said that lol... i think out of the three you listed.. the only one i would be interested to know if its acutally better is the n93.. cause that phone seems to impress me in alot of ways except for the fact that its fugly

sorry the second part was referring the original poster

n93 didn't impress me either...

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=983023

Posted by: bodeh6

Good review.

Posted by: shaolinmonk

check out the shots captured by bestpic from this guy.. pretty neat

http://yorku.facebook.com/album.php...5f4&id=48902055