Sony Ericsson K850 vs. Nokia N95: 5 megapixel shootout
Introduction
This year several GSM cameraphones have already reached the 5 megapixel barrier. The Nokia N95 has been out long enough now that it’s even got an update – an 8GB version with a larger screen and a larger battery so obviously it will stick around as a Nokia flagship for quite some time. The Sony Ericsson K850 will be out selling really soon and it’s surely going to be the Sony Ericsson cameraphone of cameraphones. Taking those two with a pinch of the 5 megapixel LG KU990 Viewty must surely add for one interesting comparison. And since we were curious probably as much as everybody else out there, we didn’t lose any more time and we set off our GSMArena heads-on 5 megapixel cameraphone shootout – we thought that it would be fun and we really like to… well, shoot things. And it really turned out to be fun.
Official photos of Sony Ericsson K850
Official photos of Nokia N95
Before we start though, we should point out that it’s really hard to tell which of the 5 megapixel shooters is the best. First off, our Sony Ericsson K850 test unit is actually a pre-release version (expect our detailed review really soon), so changes in the camera algorithm are likely to be made. They all pack top-notch camera performance and there’s not an easy way to announce a clear winner. As each of them has its own quirks we’ve tried to apply a scoring system that would evaluate their overall performance based on their particular performance in different shooting scenes. Each handset can get a maximum of 5 points for its performance in the individual tests. But bear in mind that we haven’t applied any weight factor to these tests which simply means that shooting in the dark is equally important as shooting under bright sun. In real life however this is not always the case – many of you shoot only during the day, while others will find themselves with the lens cover open only at night-time parties. So in the end, it’s up to you to decide which cameraphone will suit your shooting preferences the best. Enough small talk, let’s get to work.
The two rivals
Taking a peek at the EXIF
Both mobiles save detailed EXIF information to the JPG files. This fact helps us a lot in our test. The focal length of the Sony Ericsson K850 is recorded there as 5.18 mm, while the one of the Nokia N95 it is 5.60 mm. That along with the fact that the two phones have the same field of view means that Nokia N95 has larger sensor and we can expect better performance from this phone in terms of noise and dynamic range.
Studio, moderate light
We started off with several studio trials in order to determine how the handsets deal with several controlled lighting situations.
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops • LG KU990 Viewty (full)
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops
LG KU990 Viewty (full)
Even from the thumbnails you can see the different color reproduction from the two photo mobiles. Neither of the phones is spot-on, but the real poster looks closer to what Nokia N95 shows. Sony Ericsson auto mode chooses 1/30 sec and ISO 64, which is a good choice, while the Nokia strangely prefers to shoot at 1/111 sec and ISO 200. No idea why N95 needed the ISO boost.
Bear in mind that the ISO and the shutter speed are the single two elements that determine the amount of light that is to be captured, when you have a fixed aperture size. A slower shutter speed allows more light to reach to the matrix. A higher ISO makes the matrix more sensitive to the light that comes in. However it’s a really fine balance between these two, since the higher the ISO is, the more noise there is on the image. The slower the shutter speed, the more likely you are to get a blurry picture due to camera shake. The camera software has to balance those two in the best possible way to avoid both blurring and noise. Sometimes one is taken care of at the expense of the other – it’s up to the camera to decide, really.
At first look N95 surprises us with a cleaner looking image (look at the first crop or at the sky). Very good ISO 200 performance indeed. However, looking a little bit deeper we’ve noticed the price paid. Nokia has implemented some clever noise suppressing technique, which delivers smooth image. In some cases however, it also results in a loss of detail, look at the second crop – the fine texture of the chair is missing and the sand looks very strange. The noisier image of K850 presents the sand a lot better. The file size of the K850 is twice as big, which is not a surprise, the noise reduction in Nokia N95 loses a lot of fine detail. You can see the same effect in some outdoor photos if you look carefully at the foliage. Overall, we’ve decided that the Sony Ericsson approach is slightly better, as image noise can be fixed with specialized software, while the lost detail in the N95 photo cannot be recovered.
| Bear in mind that the ISO and the shutter speed are the single two elements that determine the amount of light that is to be captured, when you have a fixed aperture size. A slower shutter speed allows more light to reach to the matrix. | // <
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops
Nokia N95 kept the ISO 200, just slowing the shutter to 1/17 sec. K850 used even slower shutter – 1/10 sec and increasing the ISO to 125. Note, that with shutter speeds like this you will usually end with unusable photos, because of the motion blur. Anyway, here Nokia is a clear winner, not much to explain.
K850 vs N95 – 2:4
Flash photos
We’ve tested the flash performance in almost total darkness. We expected Sony Ericsson K850 to win easily, because of the xenon flash and it did. Because of the weak LED light, N95 had to pump up the ISO up to 800 and even underexpose a bit.
K850 vs N95 – 4:1
Outdoor, strong light
Taking a step out the door brings us to this next test – the outdoor shooting.
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)• 100% crops
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)
Here, with the help of the strong sunlight, both cameras can really show their best. The details are high for both of the contenders, but in most of the photos we can see a certain advantage of Nokia N95. The colors are not correct again, especially the reds. Anyway, our subjective opinion is that the Nokia colors are more pleasant for the eye and closer to the real scene. We can also see some color aberration in the Sony Ericsson K850 samples. In rare cases you can see an evidence of noise suppression in the Nokia results – the tree foliage turns into a green cloud (check the second crop).
K850 vs N95 – 3:4
Close-up photos
Well, making some wonderful macro shots can really make the difference when you boast with your cameraphone in front of your friends.
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops
It’s a good opportunity to examine these photos, because finally the two camera automatics decided to shoot with the same parameters – ISO 100, 1/100 sec. Again, the colors are not correct in neither of the two cameras, but N95 is closer to the real colors. Also, it turns out that the noise suppression technique implemented works best with plastic objects like these. Sony Ericsson K850 produced noisier image, but with no additional detail.
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops
We have no idea what is causing trouble for the K850 with this shot. We took four shots and we present you the best of these, which is still not good. Nokia N95 copes with this installation a lot better.
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)
When going really close, Sony Ericsson K850 has one advantage, demonstrated in this set of photos. The smaller auto focus frame helps you to select which part of the object you want to be in perfect focus, in this case the center of the flower. The large auto focus frame in Nokia 95 fits the whole flower and as a result the top edge of the flower got focused, wrong choice in this case. Of course, with some practice, you might learn to overcome this fault.
K850 vs N95 – 3:4
| When going really close, Sony Ericsson K850 has one advantage, demonstrated in this set of photos. The smaller auto focus frame helps you to select which part of the object you want to be in perfect focus, in this case the center of the flower. | // <
Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops
Nokia N95 has an advantage here, because of the slightly bigger sensor and you can see from the crop that indeed it has smaller overexposed areas and they are presented in a more natural way. In the Sony Ericsson photo you can see some purple fringing too.
K850 vs N95 – 2:4
Video
We can announce the winner here by looking at the specs only. Nokia N95 records in VGA, while K850 reached just QVGA, both in 30fps. This means that the Nokia records 4 times more information, so as you may guess there is no competition. Anyway, just for the record we are publishing video samples of the two mobiles. We should note that at least Sony Ericsson are moving in the right direction with the K850 – K810 records video in QCIF and P1 in QVGA at 15fps, so the video in K850 is a step ahead.
K850 vs N95 – 1:5
Camera features
Although they differ in terms of looks, camera interfaces of the two phones have very similar functionality. And naturally, both possess extensive setting – white balance, ISO settings and effects work in the same way on Nokia N95 and Sony Ericsson K850. Slight differences start with the shooting modes – the Sony Ericsson K850 has Panorama mode in addition to the ulra fast BestPic – a burst mode that allows you to take several quick snapshots and then choose which ones to keep. The Nokia N95’s has a sequence mode with a user-defined interval which works great for making time-lapse movies for example. It does allow for Burst shooting too, but it’s way slower than the BestPic mode. The preset shooting modes equal in number on both devices – seven different modes as well as automatic settings. The picture size is of course user configurable varying from VGA to 5MP resolution. Both handsets allow you to turn the autofocusing off. The flash modes include red-eye reduction on both handsets. With the N95 you can also choose whether the flash should fire every time you shoot or automatically according to the available light.This setting is needed when you want to use the flash as a fill light for shooting portraits when there is a bright background behind the subject. The Sony Ericsson K850 doesn’t have that option and it’s a real pity as the xenon flash could work out great as a fill light. There is a slight difference in self-timers in favor of Nokia N95 – the delay period is adjustable, while K850 doesn’t sport such an extra. On the other hand the K850 features metering mode settings and focus-assist beam settings. Nokia N95 lacks both (the latter quite naturally as it has no focus assist beam light) but has sharpening and contrast settings. Strangely enough N95 doesn’t have a setting for picture quality (JPG compression) either.
Shooting with Sony Ericsson K850 and Nokia N95
Overall, the Sony Ericsson interface outperforms the one of Nokia. The camera istelf starts more quickly and the menus are easier to go through.
Finally, we need to mention the dedicated camera keys of Sony Ericsson K850. It is equipped with a sliding key to switch between camera, video and review modes and a separate on/off camera key. When you turn on the camera, several keys from the alphanumeric keypad light up and allow quick access to some of the features. We shouldn’t forget the automatic camera cover, too. Nokia N95 has quite a modest answer here – only a manual slider for the lens protector, which actually acts as an on/off button too.
K850 vs N95 – 4:3
Overall camera speed
The Sony Ericsson handset scores by a good margin when it comes to the speed of autofocusing and the general shot-to-shot time. In most of the scenarios that we used in our tests, the K850 managed to focus more quickly than the Nokia and showed a shorter shot-to-shot time.
K850 vs N95 – 4:2
Previewing you photos
We all know how good it is to preview your shots as soon as they’ve been made. It allows you to go immediately for a second shot if something has ruined your composition or you can simply brag about your super cool snapshot in front of everybody. When it comes to previewing your pictures both handsets score equal. The Sony Ericsson K850 shows a somewhat more detailed image, while the N95 results look more washed out. The animated slideshows the K850 creates are also better than the ones by Nokia. It has a snappy zooming on the photos that works in large steps, while the N95 zooms slowly in small steps. The Nokia N95 however wins our hearts with the large screen and when it comes to legibility under sunlight, Nokia displays have no competition at all. So we will simply write down this test as a draw – each gets 4 points.
K850 vs N95 – 4:4
| In this heavy-weight championship series the Sony Ericsson K850 managed to collect a total of 31 points, while the Nokia N95 managed to beat it by a slight margin with a total of 34 points. | // <
Sony Ericsson K850 official pictures
Key features
- 5 MP autofocus camera with automatic lens cap and three dedicated hardware keys
- Tri-band HSDPA (3.6 Mb), EDGE.
- New Media Center, smart search, Manage Messages application
- Monolith body with digicam-like battery cover
- Brand new three soft keys
- Innovative D-pad layout
- Dedicated call and end keys
- Large crystal-clear 2.2″ display
- Memory card slot with dual card support and hot swap functionality
- FM radio with RDS
- Bluetooth (with A2DP)
- Multi-tasking support
Main disadvantages
- Awkward D-pad
- Dust easily accumulates behind the protective lens cover
- Reversed soft key funtions, atypical for Sony Ericsson
- No Wi-Fi and infrared
- Fingerprint magnet
In June Sony Ericsson revealed its hottest addition to the Cyber-shot line: Sony Ericsson K850. The phone was labeled a milestone product not only for the Cyber-shot family, but for the entire Sony Ericsson portfolio. It is clear why it scores high with its wealth of features using the latest technologies. The K850 brings several brand new software and hardware solutions we pay special attention to later on. Make sure you keep in mind the three Cyber-shot handsets we reviewed most recently – the budget Sony Ericsson K550, the high-born Sony Ericsson K800 and its successful inheritor Sony Ericsson K810.
Cyber-shot evolves
The soft and rounded Sony Ericsson K850 visually differs a lot from the Sony Ericsson K810, not to mention its predecessors. At least it stays faithful to the bar-shape form factor. K850 accommodates some notable construction and navigation novelties: dedicated call and end keys, new D-pad layout, three-position camera key, as well as an on/off camera key and a digicam-like bottom battery cover.
Sony Ericsson K850 • compared to Nokia N95 • compared to Sony Ericsson T650
The large 2.2″ quality TFT display takes up most of the front panel and scores notably higher both in brightness and contrast, compared to the 2″ TFT display of Sony Ericsson K810. Keeping almost the same dimensions while building larger displays is an issue that constantly nudges handset designers. In K850 the obvious solution is integrating the D-pad in the keyboard, thus making some room for the larger 2.2″ display. The display, and the entire front panel, has a nice mirror-like finish, but again it catches fingerprints rather easily, like the K810 and K800. Above it, a small secondary VGA camera is discretely located, along with the earpiece. The camera is beneath the panel surface, leaving the even surface of the front unspoiled.
Sony Ericsson K850 – speaker and secondary camera
Right below the display, we find the three brand new sensor like soft keys. They perform multiple functions varying by the context of different applications. The sensor like soft keys offer a truly novel experience in handling the Sony Ericsson K850. The diehard Sony Ericsson user will immediately notice that the location of the soft key functions are reversed. In other Sony Ericsson phones the More soft key is located on the right, whereas now it is called Options and corresponds to the new left soft key, with several exceptions. The proprietary “Back” key is absent, now replaced by the right soft key. The center soft key performs variable functions within applications. The logic behind all this is simple – in menus, where in other Sony Ericsson phones you have only one active soft key, the center soft key is to be used. Alternatively, in menus where both soft keys have functions (for example messaging -> templates), in other handsets you would have “Select” and “Info”, while in K850 you have “Info”, “Select” and “Back” soft key order. Reviewing the K850 was fun, as we often pressed the wrong soft key, driven by the force of habit. However, using the device for a week was enough for us to get the hang of the new allocation, owing to the simple fact that most leading phone manufactures use the same soft key order in their devices. The new soft keys in K850 are also a design decision, driven by the lack of space with the large display on pretty much the same dimensions as K810. We welcome this innovation by the Sony Ericsson team, which to us is an attempt to respond to users’ demands.
The three soft keys and the keyboard
A bit below the three soft keys are the brand new dual-function Call / Quick Menu key and Clear / End key, that make the phone handling even better. The dedicated Call and End keys, along with the tree soft keys and the D-pad novelties are inconsistent with the longstanding way of doing things, but take the K850 closer to the mass market. Under the Call and End keys is the keypad with the T650 cool styling, however the keys have grown bigger. The rightmost column of the alphanumeric keys serves a double purpose: in Camera mode they’re used for changing the shooting mode, scene mode, self-timer and flash options. Icons with blue backlighting explain the function of each key. The D-pad can also be used for zooming in and out when taking pictures, while scrolling up or down on changes the exposure compensation. Most of the Sony Ericsson users out there would be happy to see that Sony Ericsson has again used the sleeker D-pad instead of a joystick. It’s now a thin color plastic rectangle, placed right within the keypad and enfolding the 2 and 5 key. A bold and controversial design indeed, as most Sony Ericsson phones have a confirming center of the D-pad or a joystick. In K850, the Confirm function is entrusted to the middle soft key, right above the D-pad – another decision that raises doubts about user-friendliness.
The debatable D-pad
The Sony Ericsson K850 left side features no keys. Neat and simple, all you see is the color stripe that runs along the side parts of the phone.
Left side: neat and sweet
| The bottom part of the K850 features a digicam-like battery cover, which shelters the phone’s battery, the SIM card, and the memory card slot. The latter deserves special attention since this is the first Sony Ericsson attempt at dual card support. Two cards are compatible with the slot: M2 and microSD. | // <
Digicam-like hatch at the bottom
The top part of the device holds the On/Off key only, which can also be used for fast switching between the ringing profiles.
Power button on the top
The right side of the Sony Ericsson K850 immediately got our attention, as things there surely look like a regular digicam. Very close to the end key is a three-position button for switching between the camera modes – camera, video recorder, and preview mode. Right above it is the shutter key, and the adjacent smaller on/off camera key. There is no other mobile phone of the other leading manufacturers, except for the LG KU990 Viewty, which comes with such a bunch of dedicated camera keys. A convenient feature is that the on/off camera key is independent of the key lock. At the upper part of the right side we find the elevated V-shaped volume rocker, which also can be used for zooming when taking or browsing pictures.
Talking Cyber-shot: shutter key, three-position camera button and volume/zoom key
Turning the phone over reveals an entirely flat monolith surface, only broken by the xenon flash and the camera lens ring, as well as the elongated grill of the loudspeaker. All of them are placed beneath the panel surface, so if you look at the phone sideways you will see no dimples or bulges on the back panel. Next to the lens cover stand two essential symbols – the Cyber-shot logo and the 5.0 megapixel sign. Below the lens is the Sony Ericsson logo. Where the monolith surface ends, you will see the tiny battery cover, with its rubber-like finishing, that is supposed to keep the phone firmly in your arm, or if laid on a tilted surface. Where the back panel ends, two delicate curves that slightly lift the phone can be spotted, a resourceful way to protect the sleek surface from scratches and dust. Another probable reason, given they’re level with the loudspeaker, is an attempt to ensure some kind of a sound-screen.
Glossy back: lens cap, flash, loudspeaker, Sony Ericsson and Cyber-shot logo
The Sony Ericsson K850 is powered by a Li-Poly BST-38 battery with a capacity of 930 mAh, a substitute for the standard BST-33 Li-Poly battery used in the other Cyber-shot handsets K550, K800 and K810. According to the manufacturer, the battery is capable of up to 400 hours of standby mode and up to 9 hours of talk time in GSM networks. Under very intensive usage, i.e. Bluetooth always on, 3G network, an hour of calls, an hour of media player, a good deal of trying the camera, gaming, browsing, etc., the battery hardly lasts for 36 hours. However, if used only in GSM networks and not excessively strained, the phone will last for a good 3, even 4 days.
K850 battery, memory card slot and SIM card holder
Generally, we’re quite pleased with the ergonomics of the Sony Ericsson K850. It feels nice when held in hand and fits perfectly in your palm. The three soft keys, the dual Call and End keys, the D-pad do take the phone handling to a higher level. However, after due examination, a few shortcomings get exposed. The excellent response of the three sensor-like soft keys is in great contrasts with the angular hard-to-push D-pad, which but ruins the navigation experience. The confirming center soft key is too close to the D-pad up key. Simultaneous keypresses occur now and then, resulting in undesired confirmation of a function – for example in a delete contact dialog window, the center soft key corresponds to YES.
K850 hands-on
Display enhanced
We were delighted with the Sony Ericsson K850 crystal clear display. It is a 262K-color TFT display with a QVGA resolution and has grown from 2″ (in K810) to a 2.2″ diagonal. In the world of numbers this is not a big deal, but it does matter in terms of display real estate. Furthermore, the display quality is tangibly improved in terms of both contrast and brightness. Dark colors are really dark. And that’s verified: we compared it to the display of the same K810 we used in the previous review. Legibility in bright light conditions is another improvement, in comparison to the forerunner, going close to T650’s level.
The K850 display in the dark
The keypad of the Sony Ericsson K850 offers square keys set sufficiently apart from each other, reminding of the keys of T650. This time they are made of rubber-like soft plastic and need more pressure when typing. You can hardly make any typos since the keys are wide apart. In our case, the keypad was evenly illuminated in blue as we were testing the Velvet Blue variety. With the added wave-like light effects it gains points on both usability and looks. Nicely, the D-pad is also illuminated in blue. The quality of the keyboard backlighting is just the same as in Sony Ericsson T650, again comparing with the handset we used in a recent review.
Keypad backlighting
High level telephony
Sony Ericsson K850 is great at making and receiving calls. The loudspeaker is one of the loudest and crispest we’ve tested in a Sony Ericsson and you certainly wouldn’t miss an incoming call even in noisy surroundings. It’s excellent at bass and treble. This shouldn’t surprise though, as the phone is media oriented too, featuring a Media Center with interface similar to Walkman 3.0.
Calling Dexter
Cool user interface
The user interface in K850 is the well known Sony Ericsson standard non-smartphone one, yet livened up with some refreshments and applications. The most important ones are the Media Center and the Flash Lite theme support, as well as the stylish light effects for incoming calls and the video ringtone support. As most previous models, the Sony Ericsson K850 comes with a dedicated Flight mode. When turning on the phone, you may opt to start it directly into Flight mode. Unlike its Nokia S40 rivals, the Sony Ericsson handsets cannot work in Flight mode unless a SIM card is inserted.
| The most important ones are the Media Center and the Flash Lite theme support, as well as the stylish light effects for incoming calls and the video ringtone support. | // <
Standby view • the main menu • a listed sub menu
Like Sony Ericsson T650, the K850 also supports Flash Lite themes, even some of the preinstalled themes are Flash-based. They change not only the color scheme and the wallpaper, but also the menu icons themselves. We tested K850 with the default theme from T650 and sadly found out that the home screen animations didn’t affect the keypad lighting in any way. We came to miss the captivating lighting effects of the T650. It is possible however that the lack of this functionality is only due to our handset being a pre-release unit.
Three of the preinstalled themes
There is an Activity menu which has a dedicated shortcut key on the keypad. The Running Apps tab of the menu offers multi-tasking – for example you can run two Java applications and listen to the radio or to the music player simultaneously. A new feature allows minimizing the dialog window when you receive a file via Bluetooth and opening the window on demand through the Running Apps tab on the Activity menu. This is really convenient, as now you can explore the phone in the meanwhile, as opposed to other Sony Ericsson phones, where you have to wait until the transfer completes. Strangely, this is not the case if you’re sending files from K850 to another Bluetooth device. The two available options are “cancel” and “back” and both result in interrupting the file transfer. The Activity menu also offers quick access to recent events, the web menu and the My Shortcuts menu which contains a list of favorite features and can be modified to the user liking. The TrackID service is present here too, and is found in the My Shortcuts menu, in addition to its original location in the radio options menu.
The only change in Activity menu is the added TrackID feature
TrackID at work
Phonebook: thank you soft keys
The phonebook interface has undergone several changes with the introduction of the three soft keys. Now, in contacts you can directly open any contact with the center soft key. The old More key is renamed Options and is now on the left side, while in old models, it was inevitably stuck in the right. The third soft key corresponds to “back”. Another practical use of the middle soft key is the Send Message option, available when a contact is open and a number is highlighted. A new feature is the Smart Search, which lists all available contacts in the phonebook starting with the digits typed in the standby screen. The search engine looks for both a combination of letters in names and a phone number that starts with exactly the same digits entered. This function is well known in Windows Mobile based devices, and we even saw it in Samsung E950. Here in K850 it can also be switched off if not needed. Also present is the Send All Contacts option, that transfers the entire phonebook to another compatible Sony Ericsson device. Now, apart from sending the phonebook via Bluetooth, it is supposedly possible to transfer “as text message”, “as picture”, and “as email” too. However, we were unable to test these options, as they were “currently unavailable”. We managed to successfully transfer a phone book of about 500 entries, each one with multiple numbers, emails and other data to a Sony Ericsson T650 in 7 minutes.
Contacts list • Smart search located in the Calls submenu
As usual, you can choose whether the SIM contacts or the phone contacts should be default for the phonebook. Displaying both lists simultaneously is impossible. Otherwise, a nice option allows you to auto save to SIM any new contacts that you’re saving in the phone memory. The maximum capacity of the phonebook is 1000 contacts but you can save up to 5000 phone numbers. Contacts can be ordered by First or Last name. They are searched by gradual typing of the desired name.
When adding a new contact, there are several phone number fields available: Mobile, Mobile (private), Mobile (work), Home, Work, Fax and Other. This is the first tab of fields for the new contact. The second one is for email and web addresses. The third is for assigning a picture, a custom ringtone and a voice command. The fourth goes for Title, Company, Street, City, State, ZIP, Country information. The last, fifth tab, is for additional information and birth date. When you add the birth date, the phone asks you whether you would like to add it to the calendar and set a reminder for it, which we found out to be a handy feature.
Contact details
Call management
The Calls log is divided into four different tabs. They are: All, Answered (Received), Dialed and Missed. The maximum number of records is 30 altogether, shared between the separate tabs. When there are several calls made to a single contact, only the last call gets recorded.
No news in Calls log
Messaging is improved
Among the new enhancements are Manage Messages, Manage Email, plenty of settings for accounts, and assigning categories to messages. All messages, except emails, use one Inbox. No matter what kind of message has been received, it goes to the shared Inbox. Only email messages have their own dedicated Inbox.
Messaging menu
However, you may opt to sort messages to category list, if you previously had defined a specific category for each message. Six of them come preinstalled: Business, Favorites, Follow Up, Fun, Holiday, Important, but categories are fully customizable as well. If sorted by category, a big icon with an Inbox By Category tag appears instead of the standard small Inbox icon. Under it the categories are displayed, but only the ones with messages are shown, which is convenient. You can also delete all messages in a given category. However, there is a glitch in the system – in the general inbox there is no indication if a message has been assigned a category. The same holds true for messages that are opened. In an open message the applied category can be viewed or changed by pressing options -> category.
How Categories work
Another new thing is the Manage Messages application located in the Messaging section. It consists of three tabs. The first one is All Items, There’s also an On Mem. Card and an In Phone tab, each including Drafts, Inbox, Outbox, Saved messages, and Sent messages folders. The options menu allows messages to be moved to memory card or phone memory, arranged by categories, date, size, and contact as well as other functions. Generally Manage Messages, together with Categories, offers wide-ranging customization options and improved message handling.
Manage text messages
When typing a message, there is a character counter, which would alert you when you get close to the 160-symbol limit. The T9 dictionary goes without saying. Although the K850 has a standard phone keypad, its email client supports dozens of settings and all types of encodings, inherent to more complicated messaging devices. Again, for the email there is a separate Manage email application, with the same structure and features as the one for SMS, we’ve already discussed.
Standard email interface
Variety of customization options
Setting protocols
Multimedia: High five
If we have to pinpoint the major novelty in the phone, it should be the Media Center. It is important enough to have a dedicated shortcut on the left soft key in standby. The interface, with its totally renovated dark-blue design, reminds of Sony PSP.
| If we have to pinpoint the major novelty in the phone, it should be the Media Center. It is important enough to have a dedicated shortcut on the left soft key in standby. The interface, with its totally renovated dark-blue design, reminds of Sony PSP. | // <
Media center step-by-step structure
Sony Ericsson K850 is equipped with Music Player 3.0, which is almost the same as the newly announced version 3.0 of the Walkman player to be seen in Sony Ericsson W910. The player supports MP3, AAC, and AAC+, E-AAC +, WAV, WMA, M4A and MIDI file formats and sports the MegaBass equalizer preset. The player can naturally be set to run in the background. Sound is audible, crisp and even – as long you’re using the player with a good headset, that is. Further on, the K850 comes with stylish light effects to make listening to music on the handset even more enjoyable. If you are not willing to use the media player step-by-step structure, you can directly play a file through the file manager with its classic flat tree structure.
The revamped player now has mega bass
The video player, previously found in the entertainment sector, is now accommodated in the media center as well. This time it supports fast-forwarding. The interface is simple but stylish, although it fails to impress from a functional point of view. Much like the W910, the Sony Ericsson K850 has a built-in motion sensor allowing the video player to auto rotate. Again, the video files are accessible via the file manager, but there you cannot opt to auto rotate the file according to the screen orientation, which we found a bit odd.
Video player in Media center
Using the video player in landscape mode is much more comfortable
The third application in the Media Center is the Photo gallery. It consists of: Latest Photo, Camera Album, Photo Tags, Photo Feeds, and Pictures. Latest Photo provides quick access to most recent photos. Camera Album is a thumb list for each month of the year. When a month is open, it reveals a 4×3 grid of thumbs of photos. Scrolling down shows all the photos taken in the corresponding month. The highlighted photo is a bit larger for a better browsing experience. The Pictures section opens again as a 4×3 grid of thumbs with non-camera images, as the preinstalled wallpapers. When exiting the full screen view of a picture, it smoothly zooms out to thumb view.
Photo viewer in Media center
Generally, the Photo gallery is a powerful tool for conveniently managing a vast collection of camera photos with great customization capabilities. Photo Tags is a new feature for displaying previously marked favorite photos. The Up key on the D-pad offers quick access to sending options like: send as Picture Msg, as email, to blog, via Bluetooth. Other than that, you can set a photo as wallpaper, screen saver, startup screen, and contact picture straight from the gallery. There is a new option called Pan and Zoom and an amazing slideshow revealed when you further scroll down the submenu. Pan and zoom is a menu shortcut to the familiar zoom view mode in other Sony Ericsson phones. Slideshows in K850 are just amazing – before they start you are asked to pick a mood and the handset plays the animated slide shows with background music to suit the chosen mood. The transition style of the slideshow also varies according to the mood.
An open photo • favorites dubbed photo tags • quick send as key • options menu
Accordingly, picture browsing via the classic file manager is still possible, but kind of pushed aside with the timeline view missing. This is quite a pity, having in mind, that T650 and K810 have it.
Picture browsing through file manager is also available
Editing a photo in PhotoDJ is just the same nice experience with the available rich options.
PhotoDJ is the same nice piece of software
You can zoom in to the actual size of the picture or even beyond. That would be useless though, especially given the available megapixel count. Extreme zooming in won’t really reveal more details. All you’d get are smudged spots as a result of the interpolation. We were pleased to find that viewing images one by one didn’t involve any lags at all. The high-res photo loaded immediately, which was not the case with picture browsing in K810 or T650. However, when you are zooming in your pictures the phone preloads a lower quality preview.
Zooming in on a photo
The integrated FM radio of the Sony Ericsson K850 has memory for 20 preset stations and supports RDS.
Tuning in a station • options menu with TrackID • channels Auto save is convenient
Camera: 5 megapixel Cyber-shot monster
The Sony Ericsson K850 has a thrilling 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a powerful xenon flash and automatic lens cover. Upgrades are serious in both interface and ergonomics. There’s only one thing the Cyber-shot logo, the 5 megapixel sign and the digicam-like design and keys can’t make up for. And that’s a common drawback of all cameraphones: the lack of real quality optics. As the megapixel count in cameraphones will continue to go up, developing quality optics should be the first thing to address to give cameraphones some competitive edge against low and mid-end digicams. As to the interface, Sony Ericsson K850 is the first Sony Ericsson cameraphone to offer Cyber-shot SE v2.0, inspired by Sony’s T series digital cameras. The major amendments are the pop-up sub-menus enhanced with icons, or even embedded color photos, for even more intuitive performance, and the Multi Menu packing all the available settings. Autofocus mode automatically changes to macro, when a close object is chosen to shoot at and that’s another handy option.
Holding the K850 • dedicated camera keys • camera open
The camera has a toolbar with options, including shooting mode, scenes, picture size, focus, flash, self-timer, ISO, metering mode, white balance, effects, and settings Multi Menu.
Some camera menu options
As most of the options are well known since K810, let’s highlight the novelties only – the ISO sensitivity setting and the settings multi menu. The ISO setting is offered for the first time in a Cyber-shot handset. It allows the user to choose among four light sensitivity settings: auto, ISO 100, 200 and 400.
The Settings multi menu is the second new feature. It looks pretty much the same as in standard digicam menus. All the camera settings are displayed in two menu columns: the left displays the features and the right shows which setting is in use. Pressing the Down key of the D-pad lists all options of a certain feature. The settings on the menu are: Picture Quality, AF light, BestPic, Review, Stabilizer, Save to, Auto rotate, Shutter sound and Reset counter. Thankfully, taking photos with our K850 with the shutter sound switched off is possible. However, autofocusing is still marked by a confirmation beep, but as you already know, it can be muted by turning on silent mode.
Multi menu and some of its options
The Sony Ericsson K850 comes with a Photo Fix application, that provides quick remedy for some defects in the pictures. It is integrated into the camera interface, so a picture can be fixed right after it was taken.
Judging the camera quality of a beta unit is a risky business. Even so, it’s clear the K850 camera is a match for the release version of the camera in Nokia N95. This conclusion is based on our recently published in-depth shootout.
Sony Ericsson K850 sample photos
This 5 megapixel head-to-head covered different shooting conditions for a thorough comparison. We welcome you to read it. We suppose the final version of the camera may perform better and we’re ready to update the shootout if we see considerable improvements in its quality.
| The Sony Ericsson K850 has a thrilling 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a powerful xenon flash and automatic lens cover. Upgrades are serious in both interface and ergonomics. There’s only one thing the Cyber-shot logo, the 5 megapixel sign and the digicam-like design and keys can’t make up for. | // <
Video interface
Settings menu
The functionality of the secondary VGA camera is adequate. The other party’s video feed is viewed in a large frame in the middle of the screen, while you view your own image in a small frame in the lower left corner. You can also have your image in mirror-like view, which is much more natural. 2x digital zoom in on your image is also available, as well as the option to replace your live video feed with a picture of your preference. You can also do that during an actual video call, and it’s handy when, for example, you want to show the other party an interesting picture you’ve taken. The options don’t end here. You can further control the exposure compensation of the camera or even switch it into night mode. There are 3 different video quality modes: Smooth, Sharp and Normal. Smooth delivers a smoother picture, while Sharp provides more detailed images.
Video-call camera and options menu
Browsing
Besides the full HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), 3G, EDGE and GPRS for fast data transfers, video calls and content-streaming, the handset offers the usual connectivity capabilities such as USB and Bluetooth with A2DP support.
As we tested, the integrated HTML Access NetFront Internet browser is good enough and does more than an all-right job. It has plenty of options – you can view the pages fullscreen with no menus showing and you can even browse your Web pages in landscape mode. It has WAP and picture modes. It supports content created for HTML 4.01, xHTML 1.0, CSS and Java script, WAP 2.0. The supported security protocols are SSL/TLS. A new option for browsing sites is to use the pan & zoom view mode, and it works much like zooming photos. There’s a connectivity sub-menu added, where you can set the preferred connection, default page, or local connection. The NetFront web browser offers an RSS-feed reader.
Browsing GSMArena.com • some of the browser options • browsing in landscape mode
Generally, the Smart-fit function of the browser does well fitting the web content onto the screen. Scrolling is fast once the page has loaded completely. Our impression is that the Smart-fit function has got an upgrade and does a better job than the one in previous Sony Ericsson models. Other view options are shown below, as well.
Browsing in pan-and-zoom mode • full screen mode • normal screen mode with Smart-Fit off
The Sony Ericsson K850 supports Bluetooth 2.0 with the Human Interface Device (HID) profile, which allows the phone to be used as a remote control for PC and other Bluetooth-enabled devices. Furthermore, the phone could be used as a Bluetooth modem for accessing the Internet on a PC or notebook computer. Bluetooth support also includes the A2DP profile, allowing listening to music on a stereo Bluetooth headset. The K850 supports local and remote synchronization of contacts and calendar events. The local one is with Outlook and a PC, while the remote synchronization works with remote servers. The USB connectivity of the phone has three modes – one for file transfers and one for USB Internet – to put it simply, the second one is for using the phone as a modem. The new one is the media transfer, which directly connects to the Windows media player, and gives full access to tracks placed on your phone, synchronization, play or sorting in playlists.
USB modes and remote control list of options
Tasks & more
The Sony Ericsson K850 offers many time-management features. There is an Organizer icon in the main menu and it contains several applications: File manager, Applications, Video call, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Synchronization, Timer, Stopwatch, Light, Calculator, and Code memo. The Calendar offers monthly, weekly and daily views. When you add a birth date in the phonebook, the phone prompts adding it to the calendar. Tasks can be two types: simple Tasks and Phone calls. Notes are written similar to messages; T9 dictionary can be used here as well. The Light application let’s you control the LED video light and use it as a flashlight.
The Alarms are part of the main menu. There are five alarm slots available. Each one offers a lot of options – you can choose to repeat the alarm on chosen days of the week or everyday. Text and a picture can be added to the alarm. Furthermore, the alarm’s behavior can be defined in case the time it is due to go off comes while the phone is in silent mode.
Organizer menu • Calendar • Alarms
The Voice recorder has no limit to recording length, making the free memory available the only restriction. The Calculator is the regular Sony Ericsson one, which you should have already seen. It offers the basic functions, no bells and whistles. The stopwatch and countdown timer are also the well known basic applications.
Voice recorder • Calculator • Stopwatch • Timer
Some other applications include the MusicDJ and VideoDJ. VideoDJ is for making your own video clips by mixing already existing ones with still pictures, text and a variety of effects or for making basic cuts using special transitions and adding background music. This can be a very entertaining, indeed. MusicDJ is a very simple application for creating custom polyphonic melodies.
List of applications • MusicDJ main view • MusicDJ options
As for additional applications, the Sony Ericsson K850 comes with HP Print preinstalled.
| We believe the Sony Ericsson K850 lives up to the responsibility of being a landmark product in the company portfolio. With rich camera settings, the K850 comes incredibly close to stand-alone digital cameras. | // <
Marble Madness 3D game
Final Words
We believe the Sony Ericsson K850 lives up to the responsibility of being a landmark product in the company portfolio. With rich camera settings, the K850 comes incredibly close to stand-alone digital cameras. The novelties in navigation suggest the K850 will not resort to simply being an upgrade to older Cyber-shot handsets and will be aiming beyond the brand-loyal consumers. However, the first 5 megapixel Cyber-shot will be forced to handle a lot of pressure. It’s been a year since Nokia N95 was introduced, which indisputably outruns K850 in non-cam features. Other tempting 5 megapixel mobiles as LG KU990, Samsung G600, Samsung F700, and Nokia N95 8GB will soon be crowding the cameraphone market. With an expected price tag of about 430 Euro, some users will think twice before buying a K850 at its very release. If the mentioned rival phones get launched at the same time, the domination of Sony Ericsson K850 will be put to a serious test.
Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_k850-review-165p6.php
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