Bringing video calls and streaming to Three customers in a small and good-looking package; Sindre Lia reviews the 3G-enabled Sony Ericsson K608i.
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson K608i:
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Pros:
Cons:
| Poor |
Mediocre |
70%
GOOD |
Very good |
Excellent |
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Full review of the Sony Ericsson K608i:
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Smaller than most any smartphone and not much larger than your average GSM handset, the Three
(Hutchison 3G) exclusive Sony Ericsson K608i makes its entrance as one of the first 3G
handsets capable of sitting unnoticed in one's pocket. Sindre Lia takes the K608i for a ride,
truly excited about its mission to provide 3G to the masses.
The Sony Ericsson K608i weighs 105 g and measures 104 x 45 x 19 mm, yet despite its petite
size manages to support GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks as well as WCDMA 2100 MHz networks for
high-speed data connectivity. A 0.3 MP camera placed in the upper right corner is the only
hint of this being a video call handset, with a dedicated hard button on the left side of the
phone providing a simple, yet well-working, interface.
The K608i's recessing keypad, unfortunately, didn't perform nearly as well as expected, which
was rather surprising given Sony Ericsson's high usability scores in recent years. While the
5-way navigation and action buttons worked well, the numerical keys were outright useless with
regard to text input. The user interface and the icon based menu system of the K608i, on the
other hand, is of the same caliber as that of recent models including the K750i and W800i; very good indeed.
Sporting a bright and clear 1.8" 262K colour screen with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, the
image quality of video calls were significantly better as compared to Sony Ericsson's only
other video call-enabled handset, the bulky Z800i. As a consequence of the
relatively small size of the screen, however, we found ourselves forced to dedicate the entire
screen to the incoming caller's video stream. Further on a visual note, the 1.3 MP camera of
the K608i finally delivers the goods in a small package with excellent colour reproduction and
lower noise levels than previous attempts.
With a non-volatile internal memory of only 30 MB and no memory card slot, the K608i's audio
offerings are in reality limited to its FM radio despite the inclusion of an media player
supporting the MP3 file format. On the other hand, the media player works great when streaming
video content offered by the Three 3G network. Furthermore, the K608i features Infrared,
Bluetooth and mini-USB Type B connectivity, polyphonic and MP3 ringtones, SMS and MMS, instant
messaging and e-mail, and lastly Java MIDP 2.0 as well as WAP 2.0 support.
Reception and voice quality for the Sony Ericsson K608i both proved excellent, while its
battery offered approximately 4 hours of talktime and 5 days of standby time as compared to
the claimed 8 hours of talktime and 15 days of standby time operating on a GSM network. As for
video calls, our test maxed out at one hours as opposed to the claimed one and a half hours.
Availability
The Sony Ericsson K608i is at the time of writing exclusively available to Three customers in
Europe, Australia and Hong Kong.
Price and availability
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