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The lead up to the K700 really started with the T610. It was
the T610 which gave us the taste for something better. The K700 was
everything the T610 should have been, but the K750 pulls out all stops and adds
memory expansion and the first auto-focus digital camera to the mix
In a sense, the K750 is not revolutionary, so much as the
natural conclusion of a revolution started with the T610. Of course
cameras will get more megapixels, memory size will increase, and smartphones
will become common. But the K750 will remain the first SonyEricsson handset to
truly meet the needs of a basic convergent device.
All in one package you get;
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A capable digital camera whose images can print up to 8x10,
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an mp3 player with memory space up to 2GB (and 4GB coming)
or more if you don't mind swapping cards,
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comprehensive PDA functions and synchronisation,
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pocket sized games console,
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Email and xHTML web surfing (or full html using opera mini),
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USB Drive (although drivers must be installed, as they must
for any memory stick reader),
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and many other useful features. (oh yeah, and it's not a bad
phone also).
The K750 interface is very similar to all the SE
non-smartphone range. No hidden surprises. The layout is logical and
intuitive, no item is buried in deeply nested menus.
The ergonomics of the phone are good, but then a candybar format is easy to get
right. Joystick works well (Alpha Zone 3D is awesome). Key layout is
traditional for SonyEricsson but I think they have fine tuned the layout and to
change it would be a backward step. Screen is viewable in most light
situations except the brightest of sunny days, when it washes out a little.
The ergonomics of the camera aspect of the K750 however is totally new.
Apart from the 'two fronts' design idea established with the K700, this camera
shares nothing in common with the K700 camera.
Camera ergonomics are covered more in the camera section below.
For fans of customising the user interface, you have the option of assigning
menu shortcuts to the four directions of the joystick. In standby mode you
can then access those menus with a push of the joystick. However now it
gets interesting. The K750 has a button that is new to SonyEricsson
handsets. This button is called the Activity button, and is located
between the left and right softkeys.
The activity button opens a list that can contain shortcuts to any menu on
your phone. You can add and remove shortcuts
as you wish.
However what's so revolutionary about this button is the way it allows you to
task-switch between different functions of the phone. While not an actual
time slicing technique (true multi-tasking as is possible on smartphone
platforms), the K750 is able to run different hardware functions (example mp3
playing and internet browsing) simultaneously. This taskswitching ability
gives the phone a semi-smartphone feel.
For example, you can start the music player, then minimise to the main menu and
from there browse the web, to the accompaniment of your music. Or listen
to the radio while taking photos. Or minimise a game to make a phone call,
then go back to the game once the call is over.
Using the activity button, you can also access your shortcuts, bookmarks and
missed calls from within any function of the phone except the Camera (you can't
minimise the camera, but you can minimise other functions to use the
camera)
Not everything can be taskswitched. For example you can't minimize a web
session all the way to the standby screen, and pda functions (calendar etc)
close if you switch to another task.
The Camera
The first obvious difference is the lense cover. The
K750 has an active lense cover that turns the camera on when opened. The
really neat thing about this is that it does it regardless of whether the phone
is locked or not. All camera features are accessible while the lense cover
is open. Close it, and the phone return to it's previous state (locked or
unlocked).
Of course the best thing about the Lense cover is the
protection it affords the camera.
The camera layout emulates traditional digital camera ergonomics. The
camera is designed to be used in the landscape position. The shutter
button, which is on the lower side when in portrait orientation, becomes top
right (as is standard for "real" cameras). The joystick up/down
(left/right in landscape) allows exposure adjustment, and the volume +/- becomes
the digital 4X zoom control. Toggling macro, night mode and light,
switching between view and shoot mode, deleting current picture, and switching
between movie and photo mode are all available via a single press of the keypad
or joystick.
All other camera functions are available through an on-screen dedicated camera
menu. This menu offers white balance control, picture resolution,
special affects, self-timer, quality, and date display choices.
The quality of the camera itself is comparable to even good quality 2mp digital
cameras. The Auto focus is exceptionally accurate for such a small device.
You can also hold the shutter halfway to hold the focus, just as in a "real"
camera. At night time in the dark, the focussing can vacillate and take
time to lock on.
Automatic white balance is perfect in most situations, however I've found in
cloudy or dusk/dawn the colours can be too blue. Manually selecting the
correct white balance gets around this problem. Overall I'd have to say
the colour reproduction of the K750 is superb.
Detail and image clarity are also excellent, with NO radial blurring (a huge
problem in the K700). White noise bars are evident in lowlight situations.
Night mode helps prevent this, but resizing the pictures by 10% with a computer
also eliminates this noise. This noise is no worse than you would expect
of any CMOS based 2MP camera.
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