Sony Ericsson K810i

There's no doubt that Sony Ericsson phones are the new in-thing. From being just another mobile manufacturer, it has risen to be a formidable competitor to Nokia and others. Perhaps the only problem with SE phones is that you can’t always trust them to be consistent.

Take the K810i for instance. As an upgrade for the K800i, it's a sorry attempt. But as a standalone device it’s brilliant, at least in certain aspects. Before anything else, let’s talk about the form factor.

Speaking of the design of the K810i, SE has taken big strides in making its phones look like no other. In many instances, they managed this by compromising on ergonomics. The K810i, for one, has tiny rounded keys that look uncomfortable. (I, however, liked them.) They are evenly spaced and are big enough to hit accurately with only one eye open. Having said that, I won't deny the keys look rather ugly.

At 106 x 48 x 17 mm, the phone is quite bulky and causes a rather alarming looking bulge in your pocket. I feel the 3.2 MP camera is one of the reasons for this excess flab. So you need to decide what is it you really need before you pick up this handset.

If you look closely, you will see two keys just above the 2-inch TFT screen on either side of the earpiece. These are camera shortcuts that enable direct access to the pictures clicked. For navigation the phone is equipped with a five-way joystick, which is quite responsive.

My fat fingers had a bit of a problem using the two open keys (Call and Menu) and the Back and Cancel buttons. On several occasions I ended up hitting the Shortcut key. The screen supports 240 x 320 pixels with up to 256k colors and is adequate to the task.