I’ve spent over a month with the k850 and have been quite impressed with all of the thought and care that has gone into its design. I am still a little disappointed by some camera kinks that keep it from becoming a truly fantastic camera phone.

I’m categorizing this piece as a quick look because this isn’t quite a full review. I owned a Sony Ericsson camera phone with auto-focus before, but that was four years ago, so I was eager to get my hands on this cyber-shot phone. Unfortunately, had some difficulty testing it out like I would any other phone because it was locked to Rogers and I’m a Fido user (woof!). That being the case, I’ve decided to focus this review on the hardware and cyber-shot elements of the phone.

Hit the jump for the full piece!

What’s in the box?

• a k850
• belt case
• stereo headset with mic
• USB sync/charge cable
• AC charger
• leather wrist-strap
• mini tripod
• m2 micro memory stick –> memory stick pro converter
  • • • • • for the purposes of this review I used an m2 micro stick from a w760, since there wasn’t any m2 micro in the k850 box

Camera keys

The back and right side of the phone are devoted to the camera. There’s a glass cover for the lens, a dedicated slider switch to toggle between camera/video/playback, power button, and two-stage shutter button for the camera.

If you view the phone from behind it really looks like a mini point-and-shoot camera. With the camera on you have to use the phone in landscape mode and the softkeys and keypad actually change to suit the different orientation. It’s also worth mentioning that the softkeys are touch-based keys that are similar to some of the touch controls like Sony’s actual Cyber-shot cameras.

Phone keys

When you turn the camera off (but why would you?!) the UI reverts to portrait and the T9 keypad lights up like it’s Christmas. The keypad and d-pad probably suffer the most from the dual face design, since they really seem stuck halfway between camera and phone keys. The problem is, cameras and phones usually need different button designs. Phone keys should ideally be large and easily identifiable by touch so that dialling and texting are easy, but the k850’s are all small squares that feel too small and clumsy. The call/end, clear (erase), and task switching buttons are also a lot smaller than I’m used to, but they have very deep wedges between them so they’re much easier to use than the keypad.

The traditional d-pad has also been changed drastically: instead of being centered above the T9, it actually frames the “2” and “5” keys. This change was definitely a gamble, but I think it paid off. Melding the d-pad with the keypad allows the k850’s gorgeous high-res screen to take up half of the length of the device so you can actually enjoy the picture you take. The d-pad change takes a day or two to get used to, but after that it just feels natural.

A camera’s battery door!

One of the things that I almost always find horrific on phones is the battery door. A lot of the non-smartphone designs feature a simple plastic cover that always feels like it’s going to break when I tug it off. This isn’t the case with the k850. The battery latch makes the phone feel like a pocket batmobile, it’s so cool. You pull the door away from the casing and then let the spring mechanism open it the rest of the way to reveal the battery, m2 micro/microSD slot, and SIM card.

The battery is loaded from the bottom of the phone and is held in place by a plastic latch. This means you can open the battery door and change your SIM or memory card without the phone turning off. I really, really appreciate little touches like this. What’s more, the SIM and m2 cards click into place with springs, so you don’t ever have to use tweezers or fingernails to pry them out. I wish more phones adapted this design.

Cyber-shot Experience

If Terminators used camera phones, they’d probably use ones from Sony Ericsson. The k850 boasts some pretty impressive camera specs on paper. It can capture up to 5 megapixels with its auto-focus lens and it even has a mini xenon flash for low light situations. The flash is decent, but fades away after about five or six feet. If you’re not happy with the default settings you can play with the ISO, switch to spot metering, play with white balance presets, and also add some special effect filters (you can also add these later on with the on-board photo editor). This phone definitely takes imaging more seriously, but it’s still not quite there.

The pictures I took with the k850 are leagues beyond what my iPhone can take, although they still have trouble capturing the depth of colour (see the rose pictures). You can probably capture the depth better with some post processing, but know that you won’t get that instant gorgeous colour you can get on even a $200 Canon PowerShot. That’s fine by me for now, since PowerShots can’t make phone calls or fit as easily into my pocket.

The biggest flaw of this Cyber-shot phone is the same flaw evident in my k750 from four years ago: the phone takes ages to save pictures. Whether you’re taking a normal shot or using the fancy BestShot mode (take nine pictures and then save your favourite), the k850 always takes about five or six seconds to save the picture and be ready for the next one. It takes its pictures relatively quickly, but I missed out on a lot of decent shots because I was still saving the last picture to the m2 micro card. Saving straight to the phone’s built-in memory is three times faster and would actually be doable, were it not for the measly 40 MB available. Each 5MP shot at “fine” quality is approximately 1 MB, so that really only allows me 40 shots until I’m all out. Lowering the picture resolution or the quality doesn’t seem to speed saving up either.

Cyber-shot video

I’ll let the quick video I shot speak for the quality:

As you can see, the QVGA (320×240) video is alright, but is still very fuzzy even in good lighting conditions. Strangely enough, videos save a lot faster to the memory card than pictures do.

The video controls are similar to the camera ones, and you can also pause mid-recording and resume later, as well as use the on-board video editor to edit clips together with music and text. If you just want to capture a quick video of some friends in embarrassing situations or record your daily rooftop jaunt, the k850 will perform just fine.

Conclusion

That criticism aside, I’ve had a great time playing around with the k850. Until I can get my hands on a higher-end Nokia device, I can easily say that the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot series are the absolute best mobile cameras I have ever used. If you read my last w760 review, you’ll also know that I think the Sony Ericsson interface is my favourite non-smartphone UI as well. The k850 is a very interesting device because it continues the tradition of sleek camera/phone devices (which started with the k750), but it makes some very daring changes in the form of its keypad and d-pad, as well as the dedicated camera controls.

I still don’t think a camera phone can really replace a decent digital camera, but the more serious ones with auto focus can be fantastic simply because they save you the trouble of bringing extra gear along on every outing – and the k850’s imaging capabilities are quite considerable when you put them in the context of such a small handset.

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You can pick up your own k850i from Rogers for $74.99 with an appropriate plan or for $469.99 for the device alone. [I'd normally include a link, but you'll have to navigate Rogers.com manually since it seems impossible to link to -- sorry!]

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