At CTIA, we spend time with Sony Ericsson's K790, a camera phone extraordinaire with a 3.2 Megapixel camera and photo blogging. Also: tune in to the Sony Ericson W300i clamshell music phone.
Sony Ericsson K790 hands-on impression
Bloggers’ delight? With its ability to create and post images to personal blogs, snap razor-sharp pictures with its 3.2-megapixel camera and zero in on your best shots, the K790 makes for an impressive blogging companion – oh, and it plays music, too.
Design
Like many other handsets in Sony Ericsson’s lineup, the enabled K790 looks a bit boxy, although it scores points with its slick-looking keypad and detailing. The 262,000-color, 240 x 320 pixel display is predictably gorgeous, with plenty of detail, and we’re still smitten with Sony Ericsson’s smooth, animated menus. The back of the phone is styled to look like your garden-variety Instamatic, complete with the Sony Ericsson logo and a lens cover. Unfortunately, our thumbs had a tough time with the smallish, shim-shaped keys and the tiny joystick. Still, at 4.1 by 1.8 by 0.9 inches, the phone fit snugly in the palm of our hand, and felt solid but not unreasonably heavy at 4.1 ounces.
Features
Like its bigger (and faster) 3G brother, the K800, the EDGE-enabled K790 lets you create and post images to blogs created on Blogger.com; while we couldn’t test the actual blog functionality on the show floor, we saw the familiar “Blog this” option in the camera drop-down menu. Also impressive was the 3.2-megapixel camera’s BestPic feature, which takes a total of nine pictures in quick succession; when reviewing your images, you nudge the joystick to switch from one image to another, the click the one you want to keep. The camera is also armed with a Xenon flash, an image stabilizer and autofocus, all the better for taking on-the-go snapshots. Finished snapping photos? The K790 also includes an on-board MP3/AAC player, Bluetooth, a Memory Stick Micro expansion slot, and PictBridge functionality.
Price and availability
The Sony Ericsson K790 is slated to arrive in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2006, with a retail price of $499 (which will likely drop to about $250 once it’s offered by a stateside carrier.
Sony Ericsson W300 hands-on impression
The ever-popular Walkman phone morphs into a clamshell handset; does it measure up to its candy-bar brethren? We take a first look on the CTIA show floor.
Design
Sony Ericsson’s first clamshell Walkman certainly looks the part, what with its smooth, molded silver case, mirrored buttons and black-and-gold color scheme (a white model will also be available). The 262,000-color TFT display looked sharp and vibrant to our eyes, although the monochrome external LCD was a disappointment. The phone’s keypad is especially impressive; the smooth, perfectly round and overlapping keys are so striking, they almost made us forgive their slippery feel – so slippery, in fact, that you can barely feel whether you’re pressing the right key. At 3.5 by 1.8 by 1 inches and 3.3 ounces, the W300 felt light and comfortable in our hands, and it easily fits in a jeans pocket.
Features
Walkmans are all about the music, and the W300 doesn’t disappoint. Our sample tunes sounded great, and we were especially pleased that the music player has an on-board equalizer with five presets. That said, the W300 lacks controls on the front of the phone, which means you can’t pause or skip tracks while the phone is closed. The EDGE-enabled phone also comes with an FM radio, a 256MB Memory Stick Micro card, Bluetooth, and an IrDA port.
Pricing and availability
Expect the Sony Ericsson W300 to arrive in the U.S. in summer 2006, with a retail price of about $250 (or about $100 with rebates once a carrier picks it up).
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