I trudged to the station yesterday carrying 2 heavy bags, which surprisingly contained absolutely nothing! 3 tshirts, some makeup (I don’t own THAT much so no snide remarks about plaster) and a jumper in one and my laptop in the other, It must be my weak and feeble nature. I walked to the station, a 10 minute walk normally though it took me half an hour with the bags I’m glad I left 40 minutes before the train went else I wouldn’t have made it! An hour and a half to london then a further half an hour crammed under sweaty business mens armpits to get home. The price I pay for being short. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of my k800i, sitting in a little box waiting for me! Unfortunately it didn’t help with breathing!

When I got home I immediately put in the sim card and battery and charged it up for 2 hours. (remember when new phones needed overnight charging!) Once I’d turned it on however I realised I needed a different sim in the phone so I tried to get the back cover off, oh my god is it difficult, I tried unsuccessfully with all my strength to get it off as did my mum and dad. None of us could do it! So to open the back heres a tip for you - Wear marigolds! (rubber gloves) first time opened when I wore them!

The phone itself is pretty big, I’m comparing this to the samsung d500. It feels pretty chunky but at the same time very secure in your hands. The lens cover on the back was the only thing that made me feel a bit insecure because it feels somewhat flimsy, no the cover itself, but the sliding mechanism, I can imaging many people loosing the back cover of the phone, which could probably affect it in some way as the lens cover has some control over the phone. You can take photos without unlocking the phone too, which could be a potential battery waster.

But enough pessimism, time to get to grips with the beast!

There it is. I find it very easy to text with, I had quite small hands. My parents (who have normal sized hands) did find it a bit of a challenge to hit the right keys, as do I when I try to hit the two soft keys the back and cancel buttons I accidently hit the ‘connect’ button or the ‘actions’ button. Though I’d imaging thats something you’d get used to in time.

The general phone interface is very similar to any other ericssons you may have tried, with plenty of themes to try - you can also download more via the internet and even make your own - if your running windows of course!

One thing (other than the camera) thats vital to know is how well the phone syncs with your PC. I cant tell you for the PC but it does come with software that does everything the mac does without the software. When I plug in my phone iphoto opens and recognises the phone as a camera allowing me to download photos into Iphoto. Then If you go to the macintosh HD you can explore the phones other folders such as videos, music and photos. You can install programs by copying and pasting a .jar file into the video folder for example and when you run it on the phone you can install it to the applications or games folder.

Onto the camera I suppose! 3mp sony cybershot camera, I somehow feel inclined to turn all ‘photogeeky’ on you here as I’ve had experience with a wide range of digital cameras and I can tell you for a fact the quality of sony pictures, is by far not the best you can get. In my personal opinion Canon cameras give far greater clarity, but we’re talking mobile phones here, not dslr’s! For a phone the quality is certainly adequate and you could easily print off 6 by 4 photos without any immediately visible flaws in the image. (I wouldn’t recommend bigger than that)

I’m a bit of a ‘macro whore’ as my friend would say, which for those who dont know macro is taking close up pictures, I was pretty impressed with the macro and I managed to get some pretty decent macros using an old slr lens (which you could get cheaply off ebay) attached to the back of the phone. (I used a 49mm f2.5 with a hoya filter)

I’ve yet to test it with people in clubs say but I will do as soon as I get back to uni. The flash is also very good. One other feature is ‘best shot’ which takes 10 photos and you can choose which ones are the best and delete the rest, I found this invaluable trying to photograph my cat!

The shutter speed is also very good especially for a phone camera with only a few seconds lag, its less than my old canon A80.

And now, onto the photos!

This was taken using the lens held against the back of the camera.

Without the lens on the back. Macro focus set.