Camera:


The Sony Ericsson K850 is a dedicated cameraphone with 5-megapixel auto-focus lens, Xenon flash and additional tri-LED for assistance of the auto-focus system. The K850 enters into the 5-megapixel market as one of the most advanced cameraphones, and the only thing that seems to be missing is the optical zoom. In order to bring more and more features, the camera interface of the Cyber-Shot is an upgraded version of the one on the previous models of the line, the K800/K810 and K770 phones.



Still, the changes are not major and you won’t be surprised by the rather familiar landscape interface, you would expect to see in a Cyber-shot device. As before, the left software key opens the options menu, where you can set the various options including the mode (normal, “Best Pic”, panorama, frames), scenes, resolution, and other settings like night mode, self timer, white balance, and even ISO. Unlike Nokia N95, where it is displayed as “low-high” levels, here it is with real options as on a regular camera – Auto, 100, 200, 400. Additional settings which you will change rarely are packed into an “edit” submenu.



The redesign includes small icons next to every option and the Scenes menu even has color pictures for visualizing their idea. If you are a novice user, this is the easiest way to understand the meaning of the regime while those who know the idea will find this feature of no use but giving modern and more advanced look of the menus.

We are happy with the fast reactions of the K850, which is an important thing for such hi-end cameraphone. Even in average indoor light, the auto-focus locks for 3 seconds while in bright outdoor light it needs just one second. Taking and saving a picture with the best possible quality takes 5 seconds. As a whole, the camera acts very rapidly, faster than the “smart” N95.

When it comes to image quality, we are rather disappointed by the results of the K850. Considering its specifications, it should deliver super quality for a phone, but that really isn’t the case. Similar to the K810, there is something like a grey filter over the image, which results in unsaturated colors and low contrast. The images are sharp and have good detail when compared to the competition, but noise is noted even when shooting in bright environment. When it gets darker, the higher amount of noise is compensated with noise-reduction system which significantly decreases the detail. When the flash of the phone is used as main source of light, the K850 repeats the success of the K800/K810 with its Xenon flash and is way more powerful than the LED-equipped cameraphones.

During the test period we had some problems with the camera. In a few situations where flash was required, it didn’t flash and the result was a dark photo, due to the shutter speed settings being the same as if the flash was on (1/250sec, f2.8). The other bug is that sometimes after the on/off key is pressed the interface starts and the blue LEDs on the back glow, but the lens cover doesn’t open. We informed Sony Ericsson about those problems but they didn’t confirmed that this is something common for the model.

The video camcorder of the K850 now records in QVGA resolution at 30fps, which is definitely an improvement when compared to earlier models of the brand, but is nothing spectacular when put next to the N95 with its VGA, which is 4 times more. Still, the QVGA (320x240) must be enough for online usage, like posting in YouTube for example.

 Multimedia:

The new generation software brings improved multimedia menu. We first met this one in the W910, but it is also available in the Cyber-shot K850. This media menu houses Photo, Music and Video options and has flash interface, which is different than the other submenus but changes (its background) with the change of themes. Over the background can be noted small animations, which similar to the visualizations of the W960’s music player help for greater look.

In the Photo menu you will find the latest photos on the phone, camera album sorting the captured pictures by months. You preview their thumbnails in flash interface and can start a slide show with music, choosing from Silent, Sad, Romantic, Happy, Energy moods. The feature is called x-Pict Story. You can put tags to the photos, like Favorites for example, so they will be more organized. You can add Tags, choosing a name and a small icon.


In the Music menu, you can sort the tracks by Artist, Albums, Tracks (list of all), Playlists, Audio books and Podcasts. This is very similar to the Walkman 3.0 player on the W910 but lacks some filtering options (SenseMe, Year). You can create and edit playlist directly on the phone, and there are two by default. The interface during a playback is exactly the same as on the W910’s Walkman 3 and will display small album art cover and information on the song, artist and album.