[cerberus]

looking to get a new phone, one with a decent enough camera.

sony-ericsson has two models, can't remember the numbers, one with auto focus, the other without.

from your experiences, does that even make a noticable difference?

thanks!

[KnowItAll]

Other than Sony I have two more for you to consider.

http://www.devlib.org/blog/2006/03/2...310-announced/

http://www.devlib.org/blog/2006/07/2...pies-ecstatic/

[jaykay]

The Sony Ericsson K800i has a 3.2mp camera and auto focus. I've been playing with one for the past few weeks. Photo quality is superb and the phone itself is simplicity to use. Certainly better than any of the offerings Nokia has been rushing out this year.

There's also the K610i which has a 2mp camera and I blagged one for my wife to mess around with. The picture quality on this phone is also very good although obviously not as sharp as the K800 which also stabilises images. So for price go with the K610, for quality the K800.

I await the release of the new Samsung and LG phones. Samsung need to iron out some software bugs and user inteface before having a world beating phone. Their current E908 is a good phone that is held back by silly mistakes in the user interface design.

[KnowItAll]

jaykay : how did you get hold of the K610i?

We're able to get stuff to test from the manufacturers in the US / UK .. but not here in HK.

[jaykay]

KIA, one of our friends is a journalist for a mobile phone reviewer in HK so we regularly get phones to play around with for a while and I write short reviews on them. The ones we have at the moment are actually the 3 branded items for HK market and come with a memory card as standard, something which isn't included for the UK market.

[Asian1]

The problem with the Sony phones is they suffer from a loose battery cover?

[jimbo]

I have the k610 too and its highly recommended bar the measly 64mb memory stick that comes with it.

Its very easy to use and comes with a decent interface, Don't think I'd ever change to another brand anytime soon.

They shouldn't suffer from loose battery covers as theres no real need for anybody to remove the battery and sim etc on a regular basis in the first place.

[jaykay]

Originally Posted by Asian1

The problem with the Sony phones is they suffer from a loose battery cover?

The new Sony Ericssons are very sturdy and the battery covers are a very tight fit and click into place nicely. If you campare them to the plastic Nokia's you can see and feel the difference in quality. The K800 has a thick battery cover and the material is rubberised to prevent slip. The K610 has a a similar battery cover, although not rubberised.

Out of all the phones I've had a play around with this year these are actually ones I would spend my hard earned on. I personally have had an indifference to SE phones, but these have really changed my perception of the brand.

[cerberus]

thanks for the responses everyone.

KIA: those two phones sound awesome, but they're gonna be total bankbusters for the next year or so.
also, the K610i's readily available at all service providers.

jaykay and jimbo: the main question here, since both of you use this model - is the camera on the K610i workable? if the pic quality is dubious, then i'd rather spend the extra thou and get the K800.

if you can, give me some feedback on actual image quality. how does it compare (on both the 610 and 800) with a regular 2mp digital camera?

Thank you!

[jimmyssmak]

I totally agreed that SE K00i probably is the best camera mobile phone in the market so far..some people may argue that Sharp 903SH would have better photo than SEk800i, however, the volume of the ringtone on Sharp is too low, esp when you are catching the bus and MTR, you always miss out important phone calls.

Sharp 903SH is brick-like phone, too thick to carry tho.