Sony Ericsson K550i Reviewed.

Sony Ericsson K550i: A Cyber-Shot for the pockets.

The phone represents a Cyber-shot photo line and refers to the middle class. Some of the design features were inherited from the elder products, however the body is relatively thick - 14 mm. Offers a expandable m2 memory, 2.0 mp camera and a very nice radio with RDS support. And all that at a reasonable price that may attract your attention.

Class: Candybar, Mid Range
Brothers: Sony Ericsson W610.
Rivals: Nokia 6233
Prices: $230-$300 USD.

Key Features:
-Fesh and slim design
-Good Camera
-Loud Speakerphone

-A very fast response

-Active lens cover

-Multitasking

-FM radio with RDS
-Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support

Main Disadvantages:

-Low display resolution

-The camera is not good as the Cybershot series suggests

-Record Video in ancient Qcif resolution

-Kinda unfortable keypad

A white phone, finally? i just got tired of every single people handling some Black gadget anywhere. black iPods (also black iPhones), black razrs, black samsung cellphones, black psp, black notebooks... thats little depressing for me. A 64Mb m2 memory and standars earphones came with the set.

I got this phone just few days ago, and i had been using w810i before. The first difference i noticed is that the phone has a side locking system for the back panel, so it wont came out easily even with a fall. They used this design because of the camera lens protector switch. The whole construction is very solid and feels really slim and handy, easily goes onto your pocket.

Design

This is one of the firsts phones that has a connection on the side instead located on the botton. this is made for convenience when using earphones. Has very male looking aluminium parts that would make you thing the phone is heavy and tough, but actually it is very light. In the back, theres a little camera lens protector switch that is also used to turn on/off the camera, and behind it there are two leds bright enought to take pictures at total darkness. When you take out the back panel you will see the m2 slot and the battery. unlike his brother, the w610 the memory is not that easily hot swapable.

Performance

This phone is amazingly fast, i tested it with some 3d java games and they ran perfectly, even with some oversized QVGA resolution games. the manu has a very good response, unlike some motorola phones. You can run several java apps on this mobile, i tested with 5 games, and this is a new feature comparing to old models of SE which can only run two java apps at same time.

Camera

My first though about this cellphone was "since it is a Cybershot branded phone, the camera should be outstanding". i was wrong. Altrough the camera has good light balance and rich colors, pictures arent good as my old w810i (This may be due to the camera lens size: 4.8mm in w810i and 3.8mm on k550i). Pictures where little bit of blurry and pixelate if taken from a very far distance, and the focus is not set well in very closes ranges (even with macro mode). i found that the perfect range was 2-5 m., so the phone will take nice shots. The k550i comes with autofocus, what means that once set the af the images will be more clearly and prevent blurry shots with hand shake. the output size of the pictures was 350-500 kb in the best quality setting. Also records video in QCIF format, which is a little ancient. Exept for some details, the camera is Good and offered almost everything i need. Have in mind that u cant compare a cellphone with a Digital Camera.

Screen

The resolution of the screen is not QVGA, but images, text and videos displays well on the screen. It is very bright and stills 80% visible under direct sunlight (which benefits taking outdoor photos). The font size is BIG and easily readable. i had to set the brightness to the lowest to be able to use it at night without blinding myself.*User Interface*has evrything u need from a user interface: animation, fast response, easy access to menus and submenus and loads folders fast enough. A good thing about this phone is that it shows thumbnails very quickly after opened a image folder, unlike my w810. Vieving pictures can be done on portrait and landscape mode. I wish i had some flash menus. The photo DJ is changed completly, and now its a photo editing application where u can set brightness, contrats, effects and others without using the pc.

Sound, image and video

This phone reads all the basic mobile formats: mp3, wav, arm, jpg, gif, png, bmp, mp4, 3gp and more. The loudspeaker did a great job and sounds loud enough even on a noisy classroom, with the correct equalizer settings (low bass and high trebble), u can make it sound very good. With the incluided earphones playing music is just normal, nothing special since i use dedicated mp3 player to listed music. The photos are displayed well and u can play a lil bit with them using the photodj unlike my w810, images loads very fast in thumbnail and fullscreen mode. Videos... i discovered that this phone plays QVGA videos @30fps unlike QCIF@28fps in olders models. u can set it in fullscreen or normal viewing mode.

Internet & Connectivity

It was easy to get acces to my email and msn with this phone, it is pretty fast altrough doesnt offer 3g connection. anyway, who needs 3g when your country ONLY offers 850mhz GSM network? (thats here, panama) 3g techniology is like 10-20 years far away.. i dont use the internet too much since it will drain my battery in a day. The Bluetooth and IRda features are good as all other SE phones. Plus this phones has AD2P technology which sends stereo audio via BT.

Final words:

K550i is a mid range phone which offers nice features at a very reasonable launching price: $250 USD. This fresh design feels slim and solid, with a new D-pad shape and dedicated buttons for internet and multitasking. Combines the ability to takes photos and enjoy media files in a compact device.

Photos Taken with the K550i.