The K300i delivers multimedia on the cheap; Editor-in-Chief Jørgen Sundgot has a quick play with Sony Ericsson's new budget candybar.
It's getting crowded in the nether regions of Sony Ericsson's K line-up of handsets: first, there was the K700i, then the K500i, and now finally there's the K300i - not to mention the K750i, also unveiled today. That's five handsets all in all, but unlike the K750, which does its best to stand out from the crowd, the K300i is eerily similar feature-wise to the K500i and K700i.
Not that that's a bad thing, however. A few features shorter and likely to be quite a bit cheaper than the two aforementioned siblings, the K300i is a rather nicely designed handset which, unlike some other budget Sony Ericsson models of yore, one would be embarassed to pull out in public.
 | | Sony Ericsson K300i |
A 65K colour STN display graces the front of the unit, and although it's not bad for using STN technology it's rather mediocre compared to TFT displays found in higher end units from Sony Ericsson. It's joined by a rather nice keypad with distinctly separate keys and good tactile feedback, which sadly sees its overall impression ruined by an orange backlight that scatters so easily it obfuscates navigation more than it does to improve it. On the upside, the joystick isn't among the best, but by no means uncomfortable.
Light and comfortable to hold at 100 x 45 x 20 mm and a mere 85 g, the K300i also encompasses a fairly average digital camera with 0.3 MP resolution and 4x digital zoom, producing images of comparable quality to that of the K700i. Light sensitivity was a tad on the low side, but the viewfinder frame rate was fluid. Worse is it then that there's no camera lens protection, but at least there's a slight ridge to keep the lens off flat surfaces.
 | | Sony Ericsson K300i |
With a talk time of up to 7 hours and standby time of up to 300 hours, the K300i also boasts a few other noteworthy features such as support for Infrared and USB, up to 12 MB of memory and a MP3/AAC music player. All in all a modest offering, with its success depending entirely on keeping the price down.
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