Okay, what’s a “true digital camera?you say? 

Well, my definition of a true digital camera is a megapixel count that will produce at least a print in one of the popular sizes at the local photo shop and a real flash ?not a bright LED, but a bright xenon flash that will illuminate further than half a foot. 

Well, this is what the K800i has and I really have to admit that it is a true digital camera. 

The phone  

In terms of looks, the K800i looks pretty good, though it’s certainly not the best-looking phone in the Sony Ericsson stable ?finished in black and silver, the phone is a little thicker but lighter than you would expect. 

The front of the phone is largely dominated by the gorgeous 240 x 320pixel screen, with most of the buttons concentrated in the bottom third of the phone. 

In fact, I initially thought that the alphanumeric keypad was placed a little too low down on the phone, but in practice, they actually worked quite well, as Sony Ericsson has compensated for it somewhat by making the buttons a wee bit bigger and angled for easier tapping. 

As I said before, the K800i isn’t a one-trick pony ?its phone features are actually pretty mature. 

In fact, each subsequent generation of Sony Ericsson mobile phone shows an improvement in the interface which makes it that much better. 

There’s of course no point in spelling out each and every feature of the phone but instead, I’ll just highlight the interesting improvements. 

For one thing, while previous models could only search contacts by the first letter of a name, the new improved search allows you to search by tapping out the letters of a name. 

The T9 input method has also been updated ?it now not only predicts the word you are currently tapping out but also suggests words after that, based on your previous messages. 

Sony Ericsson has also included a pretty good Web browser right into the phone ?not just a WAP browser, mind you, but a true browser which can view almost all HTML pages with graphics intact. 

However, in terms of surfing speed, even though 3G is supposed to be faster and while it’s theoretically true, what we’re getting in this country is not much faster than GPRS or EDGE. 

Also notable is the RSS reader ?this is truly a very useful feature on the phone because you can subscribe to RSS news feeds and set it so that the news is automatically downloaded to your phone on a schedule. 

Having been a long time user of AvantGo (a similar service which downloads news to your Pocket PC or PalmOS device every time you synchronise with a PC) I found the RSS reader on the K800i to be an even better alternative to AvantGo. 

Battery life on the K800i is pretty typical for a modern phone ?about two days with moderate use (including using the camera), and about one day with heavy use. 

The camera  

Overall, the camera performed quite well for a mobile phone camera ?in fact it’s probably one of the best compared to other phones. 

However, if you compare it to a purpose-built megapixel camera of yesteryear, it’s not quite there yet ?while the autofocus, exposure and flash all work pretty well, the phone is performing quite a bit of heavy-handed noise reduction to remove the inherent noise caused by the relatively small image sensor of this phone. 

Having said that, however, at 2,048 x 1,536pixels, which will allow you to produce prints up to 5R or 6R, the noise reduction will not be visible at all allowing you to produce very usable prints at these sizes. 

Since the K800i is the first mobile phone to bear the Cyber-shot name, it comes with loads of features worthy of a consumer digicam ?Scene modes, flash on/off options, macro mode, etc. 

The Scene modes can be accessed via two tiny buttons at the top of the phone ?in fact it took me a while to realise that they were actually buttons, since they look for all the world like two tiny rubber nubs to protect the screen from scratches. 

These two tiny buttons only work in camera mode, by the way, and have no effect when pressed in any other mode. 

Built-in memory is around 64MB which is actually not too bad for a 3-megapixel camera.  

Of course, you should probably get a Memory Stick Micro (M2) card if you’re going to store music and photos ?and the M2 slot on this K800i is accessible via a little flap on the side of the phone, without having to remove the battery. 

The only real problem I found with the K800i is that the slider that covers the camera lens is a little too large and the design is such that the cover is likely to slide open when you put it in your pocket. 

Conclusion  

Overall, the K800i is a very nice phone to use and I’m not talking about just the camera functions, although having that is a major bonus, IMHO. 

In fact, although a little on the expensive side at a list price of RM1,999, the phone can be had for quite a bit less after the usual discounts, which makes it quite an attractive buy for what it offers. 

Pros: Relatively lightweight; digital camera is one of the best in a mobile phone; good software bundle. 

Cons: Pretty strong noise reduction system.