Coming from the top-class mobile phones with its predecessors Sony Ericsson T630, Sony Ericsson T610, Sony Ericsson T68i; the Sony Ericsson K700 is also a high-class mobile phone. K700 does carry similar features of the T630 but the price is almost near to the T630 model. Technology news brings you its review.
The users must have seen k700i somewhere and k700c somewhere but the "c" refers to the Chinese version of the model catering to the Chinese usage with the keypad and the text holding less memory, etc. But what we are discussing here is the simplified version of the k700 and it refers to k700i model by default.
Sony Ericsson k700 is the most reviewed mobile for mobile users on par with Nokia 6230 and Siemens s65.
Affordably smaller in size
Sony Ericsson K700 is small (99 x 46 x 19 mm) and lightweight (93g), but you cannot term it to be very small or very light, if we have the comparison chart:-
Phone Size, Volume, Weight
Sony Ericsson K700 (99 × 46 × 19 mm), 93cm3, 93g
Sony Ericsson T630 (102 × 43 × 17 mm), 75cm3, 93g
Nokia 6230 (103 × 44 × 20 mm), 97cm3, 97g
Siemens S65 (109 × 48 × 18 mm), 94cm3, 98g
Motorola V600 (88 × 48 × 24 mm), 101cm3, 116g
Sony Ericsson k700 can be a remarkable example for the expensive high-class phones. It is made perfectly solid with no replaceable covers. With its made in Japanese angular and technical design, the phone is kind of jagged with silver matte all around and the black in the middle. The frontal view looks to be like a rectangle with round edges interlinked with each other.
High quality display
The display is excellent which has undergone a radiant change from the earlier models, with active 65k colors, and the resolution higher with more concentration on the display's width than the display's height unlike previous models.
The k700 doesn't boast of the larger display but puts out some finest images for the user to go for.
A comparison chart on resolution is here for one to differentiate the models:-
Phone,Display size, Display resolution, Density
Sony Ericsson K700 29 × 36 mm, 176 × 220, 3 709 pixels/cm2
Sony Ericsson T630 28 × 35 mm, 128 × 160, 2 090 pixels/cm2
Nokia 6230 27 × 27 mm, 128 × 128, 2 247 pixels/cm2
Siemens S65 31 × 42 mm, 132 × 176, 1 784 pixels/cm2
Motorola V600 30 × 38 mm, 176 × 220, 3 396 pixels/cm2
You cannot adjust the settings for brightness or contrast. The only feature you could opt for is a type of illumination: On, Off, Automatic or Eco mode (in which display turns off after a while).
Keypad in Japanese style
The numerical keys are made in hard plastic, solid in structure, rectangular in shape and organized in a grid form.
The joystick is the main control of the phone and has the four-navigation way and when pressed it means a confirmation of the selected action.It is not raising much over the surface but it's sensitive enough to be used.
The joystick is not set for WAP browser as default but needs to be done manually by moving the joystick in the different directions. That can be done by selecting the desired function directly from the main menu.
Numerical keys are transparent. The four function keys around the joystick are at your disposal of which two keys are correction key and "one level back" key . There are no separate keys for calls, these two keys serve the purpose.
Keys are large enough to make the user type comfortably, but they do make a click sound while being pressed, especially the last row.
The keypad can be locked manually or by an automatic lock function (that does the job after 20 seconds).
The Phone's surroundings
On the front part of the phone you can only find the display and the keypad, but at the top edge is the speaker slot hidden and a Quick Share plastic label down the phone.
On the left side of the phone, you can find a rock switch to control the volume, but in photo mode it is used for exposure compensation setting. You can also put the incoming call to silence or can just simply reject the call. On the left side, holding the round button activates the camera and the release is done in the same way.
On the right side, a small embedded button activates the WAP browser.
The main switch is on the upper side. To switch on/off the mobile, you have to hold this switch a little longer. The infrared port is somewhere hidden in the shiny black stripe. So the missed call or the incoming message info is displayed only on the display but when the display back light is off, the relevant icons appear just before the digital clock on the display.
The bottom part has the data port and the charger connector protected by a rubber cover.
Then there is an eyelet for neck string under the battery cover.
On the back side of the phone, you can find the lens of the integrated camera, a small mirror for self-portraits, a light diode for flash purpose, an external antenna connector (protected by a small rubber), and a loudspeaker slot.
The battery appears to be made of metal but it is actually made of plastic. It is a Li-Ion battery with has a capacity of 700 mAh. The SIM card just slides under that at its slot and is easily removable. The battery life is up to 300 minutes in normal usage and up to 300 hours in a standby mode. Charging time takes around one and a half hour. When the battery is low it gives you several beeps and switches off after a grating sound.
Fake Megapixel Camera
The build-in camera features 640 x 480 pixel resolution. You can also take pictures with 1280 x 960 pixel resolution. This format is just an interpolation and you will make out that it is not a megapixel camera phone. The k700 is the only first model developed with a "two side" marketing idea- mobile phone on one side and camera on the opposite, so that you can take pictures horizontally as well.
Sony Ericsson k700 has one of the best VGA cameras. Apart from the standard and the computed resolution, two more levels of quality can be there. The 640 x 480 pixel resolution save the pictures for 3 seconds and the megapixel format saves pictures for 8 seconds.
You can have black&white, negative or sepia pictures as well as images with solar effects. There can be funny frames too for your pictures.
Pictures in night mode are not recommended but you can turn on the lighting diode.
A unique function of this phone is panorama. You can call it a panoramic photo. Three connecting pictures can be aligned as a single panoramic image.
K700 also becomes a Camcorder
k700 shoots videos with a low resolution of either 176 x 144 or 128 x 96 pixels. Digital zoom and exposure compensation are available too.
Videos are in 3GP format, suitable with advanced handsets like these. The quality is something one has to let go but its pretty enough for the phone display only. There are two resolutions- Higher resolution (155 kB) and a Lower resolution (119 kB).
Memory Capacity
Sony Ericsson k700 has a memory capacity of 41 MB which is huge of which 2 MB is allotted to the items in the basic set. The allotment of such a huge memory to a mobile phone remains confusing as it cannot play MP3 files which require a separate data card and this much capacity is huge for storing pictures.
A file manager coordinates all the multi-media files. The folders are sorted according to types- pictures, sounds, video files, schemes, games, applications, etc. The inner contents displayed in a text list form. Only a picture folder has a graphical list form (4 per display) but it comes very slow.
Images can be viewed in full-display mode and in slide shows as well, but zoom-in feature is not supported here.
Pictures can be sent through MMS or email and can be transferred to a PC via infrared port or bluetooth. And bluetooth uses a new feature called Remote Screen. This Remote Control function is a Bluetooth Dev HID for mouse and keyboard and it works simple. By installing Windows XP Service Pack 2, the bluetooth is automatically activated to connect to the PC. The system detects the mobile, adds to the bluetooth modem and HID device on the system and here one gets a msg (prompt) on the phone to activate the remote. It is just so simple.
New User environment
Sony Ericsson uses graphic themes. There are hardly any changes in the graphical interface compared to the earlier models but you can make out with the presence of some new icons on the main menu. They are done very beautifully with animated, lovely shades aligned in a matrix form by moving vertically or horizontally. These graphic themes are already in the basic set or can be downloaded from outside. You can go for wallpaper animation and it is just marvelous.
A noticeable change is the installation of the bookmarks to the next menu levels, in settings menu and in phonebook.
One can assign different functions to all the four controls of the joystick. For instance, when you run the phone for the first time, a setting wizard appears. It asks you about the time, date, correction and cancel key functions. No font size for the phone but only while texting messages. Keys have the same function and k700 is quite fast in speed but photo gallery will surely take your time.
Small Phonebook
The phonebook contains only 510 entries in spite of a huge memory of 41 MB available in the memory. These 510 entries are not names of contacts but numbers of the contacts. For ex., if you are storing 3 numbers under one name then it is said to be 3 entries out of the available 510. And somebody with huge phone data would get disappointed by this miserable allotment of the memory to the phonebook.
By moving the joystick downwards the phonebook can be reached. With new firmware, the contacts can be searched with multiple characters. One new feature in the phonebook is, while you select a contact the phone number is shown below it automatically and when you scroll the joystick to the left and right, it takes you to all numbers and email-ids assigned to the respective name. And just a simple press to the joystick, you make a call, MMS or email.
The contacts can be assigned multiple numbers (upto 5), email addresses, postal addresses, etc. You can also assign picture or a photo to the contact and keep individual ring tones to the individual contacts, and can also set caller groups. Then there is some kind of filtering the numbers which are not in your phonebook and you dont want them. You can also record the call in progress through joystick.
Synchronization only for a small directory
Now another phonebook related feature is the data synchronization. It is called "Sync Station" and it is found on a CD or can be downloaded from internet. One can synchronize a calender, notes or tasks apart from the phonebook. You can actually transfer phone numbers, Internet and web address, title, company and address, also text notes to the phone, depending on the field length. Windows Address Book can be used for synchronizing data.
Messaging
SMS, EMS, MMS or email browser or instant messaging with "My friends" function, is all what you ask for. Its all there.
T9 dictionary is already there to support fast writing, but k700 supports fast writing also with a side rock switch button. By holding upper part, the second letter comes up directly, then by holding the bottom part, the third letter comes up directly. This kind of feature is supported by Ericsson phones only and gets to be faster than T9.
SMS writing is just comfortable and easy. Characters are counted down from the last rather than from the beginning. Upto 100 text messages can be saved. Then you have Multimedia messages with pictures, sounds, and video files. The total size cannot exceed 100KB.
Email Client
K700 supports email client, accessing upto 10 email boxes, but no requirement of SMTP verification anymore. A required change is the email attachment. You can send a picture, a ringtone or any other file through email but even if this is not supported, another innovation in k700 is that it can save in the memory or forward it. But you can find trouble while sending TXT files.
You can type upto 1000 characters here, nothing special about it but it is surely 3 times more than its predecessors.
Music
As with other Sony Ericsson mobile phones, k700 being a more developed model is also not a fully multimedia capable mobile phone. k700 uses stereo headphones for standard Sony Ericsson phones connector.
The phone does not support memory cards, and even if one downloads music files it will not be of much help, as files are downloaded into memory through bluetooth, infrared port or a cable and not a memory card reader.
One of the finest innovations in Sony Ericsson k700 is the integrated radio that can be worked with the help of headphones as antenna to it. You can tune frequencies from 87.5 up to 108.0 MHz. Tuning can be done manually or automatically. Favorite stations can be stored as a frequency number and not by a name, unfortunately.
Music files can be listened via headphones or loudspeaker. But radio songs cant be recorded. The voice recorder records the voice normally as how other mobiles function. The record length perhaps depend on the free memory length.
Ringing tones
k700 has ring tones set in profiles. You can find 23 sounds and melodies present in the memory, and can also download from MID or MP3 files or from a voice recorder. The Music DJ application can give the ring tones a multiple sound track to a single ring tone.
Message ring tone is poorer in quality.
Organizer
A task organizer, a calender, an alarm clock, a calculator, etc are the things you find here obviously as usual.
Calender has a daily, weekly and monthly views, where in daily view events look like a text list. It also has reminders to set in accordingly.
Alarm has two types- regular and repetitive, where not just time you can also set particular weekdays you want your alarm to work on.
Nothing novel about task manager. The tasks can be entered by selecting between task and call, by entering a subject or a contact number, and if you want you can also add a reminder to it.
Undoubtedly a very useful feature in k700 is the writing of notes, which are synchronized with Microsoft Outlook and you can save it as a reminder on the main display.
Then comes the calculator, the countdown timer, the stopwatch, Code memo with secret password is a useful feature again- to hold the secret data.
All about fun and games
As Sony Ericsson k700 supports Java, this Java inturn supports the Mascot Capsule Engine Micro3d Edition, which is a 3D technology. You can feel the edge in the Super Real Tennis game, or Darts, etc.
RiverRiders game is a well known game on K700. Though Sony Ericsson is not the fastest Jave phone but it still takes on its predecessors pretty well in this area, with considerable jBenchmark test results.
Internet connection
Sony Ericsson K700 supports GPRS 10 class (4+2 timeslots), circuit switched data and HSCSD as well. As mentioned earlier, it can be connected to PC via a cable, infrared port or a Bluetooth (through Remote Control function, already explained earlier in the "Memory capacity" how one accesses the "Remote Control function").
Web pages are displayed by WAP browser.
Data profile settings is not simple to allocate in K700 as they support WAP and TCP/IP connection at one time. A tool is available on the Sony Ericsson website for WAP and MMS setting.
Inference
It's just not any other normal phone next door. It has really made a place in the market by the many number of points, achieved by the editorial comparative method. A very attractive phone with elegant design, shiny appearance, solid look and well-equipped with latest features and functions, but then, not everybody needs to be satisfied with it as there are pros and cons to it as well in spite of being the winner ahead of Nokia 6230.
You can pinpoint on the availability of so much memory of about 40 MB of which the user would not know how to use it; plus a very low phone book capacity, and then no memory card support.
But yeah, overall, as mentioned just above, the solid construction, perfect display, integrated radio, huge memory space and so much on the communication front, Sony Ericsson K700 is still the classic phone from the top-class brand with top-class quality.