Sony Ericsson K850i Cell Phone Camera Review

The past little while I mentioned how I owned a Sony Ericsson W580i and that it had a 2 megapixel camera built into it. The digital aspect of today’s cellphone cameras are not meant to replace those of an actual digital camera are they? The Sony Ericsson K850i has built in Cyber-shot technology with a resolution of 5 megapixels, but does that mean you can use this particular cellphone to replace a regular digital camera? I would like to find out.

Now normally people would review the entire cellphone and all its features but I received this particular model because I mentioned how I did not think there could be a cellphone out there that could out-do a regular digital camera. I will primarily be reviewing the camera features and mainly the quality of photos it produces, the rest of the Sony Ericsson K850i’s features are pretty standard to other Sony Ericsson phones on the current market.

The Features:

Cyber-shot – Sony boasts that the K850i can take crisp, high-resolution images (5 megapixels) that are more common with standalone digital cameras. The photos I took with the K850i proved otherwise and left me a tad disappointed. I was expected clear pictures similar to that of my Canon SD750 and not the somewhat pixelated snaps that the K850i took.

Blogging with Video and without – The K850 supports the ability to upload video clips to the web as well upload photos to Blogger. This is a nice feature for those who like to take quick snaps and upload them but if you don’t have a data plan this isn’t a free feature.

Auto-rotate – A feature I liked about my Canon SD750 is that it will auto-rotate the images on the screen which makes viewing of landscape to portrait photos much easier. The Sony Ericsson K850i does the same.

PictBridge Support – Have a PictBridge [wiki] capable printer? All you need to do is connect the phone to the printer and send it. Voila the photo will print without the need of a computer.

3G Network – The Sony Ericsson K850i supports the 3G standard which allows for improved data transmission rates to support broadband wireless and is capable of speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s [wiki].

Because the Sony Ericsson K850i has support for the 3G standard it will also allow for a better Video Call experience, you know see who’s on the other end you’re talking too?

With the above features and more the Sony Ericsson K850i can deliver a decent performance but at a price. Though at retail price of about $300 CDN it is something I personally would not purchase.

Performance Camera Wise:

I had an extra SIM card kicking around so I could use the phone without being attached to any network. To test out the features I comparing it to that of my Sony Ericsson W580i and quality of my Canon SD750. Really the only feature I wanted to try out was the camera side of the phone and with the included 512Mb mini memory stick I was able to take it out for a test spin on a somewhat sunny day.

The navigation of the menu system for the camera is mediocre and with some practice you can figure out how to get around the various options you can set for the camera. The heat-touch sensitive buttons at the top of the key pad are alright, can be a bit quirky but are more like eye-candy. Another note is that when taking pictures notice in the above photo how keys 3, 6, 9 and # are illuminated to tell you what function they perform.

Now I mentioned previously that I wondered if there was a cellphone out there that could replace my Canon SD750 and playing with the Sony Ericsson K850i for a few days has proven to me that even if its photo quality is alright, I do not believe it will ever replace a digital camera, especially at the price point of the K850i (at the time of this review about $399). The photos that I did take were set to 5MP, Fine quality and everything else on auto. Surprisingly it the Sony Ericsson K850i did not do as poor as I thought it was going to, but it definitely did not blow me out of the water either. For some examples I have uploaded a few photos to Flickr and left them untouched for your viewing pleasure.

An issue that bugged me when taking photos with the Sony Ericsson K850i was that there is no optical zoom. Should I be disappointed that this particular cellphone did not come with an optical zoom? Yes, I was disappointed as the K850i is based on the Cyber-shot series. It does come with a digital zoom and when you use it you can see how badly the image (via the view screen) pixelates when you zoom in close. I choose not to upload a sample because I really though it was that poor.

A couple of things I do like about the Sony Ericsson K850i as a cellphone with a camera is that it has a few good features included.

A Xenon flash for those times when light is at a minimum. I was quite surprised how well the low-light sensitivity of the camera performs without the flash. You can see the sample photo above to the left how without the flash the image isn’t nearly has horrible or blurry as one might expect. The Sony Ericsson K850i has a built in image stabilizer and that is another great feature this camera has (hence how it does better in low-light). The photo to the right of it was taken with the flash, it seemed to be grainy when I displayed it as a full photo on my computer prior to uploading.

The other feature I like is that the K850i does have a macro mode. It didn’t even occur to me that a cellphone would have a macro mode but being a Cyber-shot I guess they did not want to leave this option out.

Other features the Sony Ericsson as a Cyber-shot has things such as White-balance settings (auto, or pre-set), Artistic (black and white, sepia etc), ISO settings (auto, 100-400), light-metering (normal and spot), self timer and more.

My Final Conclusion

I know this hasn’t been most in depth review but as I mentioned in the beginning I wanted to see what photo quality of the Sony Ericsson K850i and how it might stack up against my Canon SD750. I could also, for comparison sake, take the same photos with relatively the same settings on my Canon SD750 to help show that the K850i cannot replace the use of a digital camera, but it does to a pretty good job and better than those other cellphones with the simple point and shoot 2 Megapixel resolutions such as my Sony Ericsson W580i.

One thing that I did not mention above while taking photos it the time it takes to process each photo. I waited anywhere between 5-8 seconds per photo. Now that might not seem like much but when you take a photo and have to wait for it to be processed and saved to the memory card, you might miss that opportunity to capture some other great photo because of this. In fact I missed some cool shots because I had to wait for the previous photo to be processed and saved. So prior to snapping that shot, are you sure you won’t miss a great photo opt after you’ve clicked the button?

The Sony Ericsson K850i does have features similar to the Cyber-shot series by Sony but being a cellphone it does lack the same sort of image quality and an optical zoom. If you’re looking for a cellphone that can do video conferencing and take the place of a compact digital camera you might want for quick web shots then the Sony Ericsson K850i can fit the bill. If you’re like me and like to print out your photos, or share them with good sharp quality to those who are interested, then perhaps this cellphone is not for you. Besides with the price of a compact digital camera these days, you can get a better quality photo if you’re willing to carry multiple gadgets on you, like I do.

Pros:

• Xenon Flash
• Image Stabilization
• Macro Settings
• Great low-light sensitivity

Cons:

• Grainy photos for a 5MP camera
• Hard to navigate menu options
• 5-8 sec processing time after each photo
• No optical zoom