Sony Ericsson K660i
source : techtree
The K660i marks another addition to the sub-10k phones from Sony Ericsson. The competition is so stiff that manufacturers are forced to release at least a phone in this price range every month. The K660i is a feature-packed phone that is all set to provide an all-round package rather than cater to just audio/video or camera aspect of the multimedia. Can it win the hearts of prospective buyers with its bevy of features or should Sony Ericsson concentrate on a single aspect of multimedia? Let’s see.
Bundle
Sony Ericsson K660i
Stereo headset
Charger
USB Cable
1GB M2 memory card
PC Suite & manual
Specifications
Build & Design
The Sony Ericsson K660i has a very trendy-looking candy-bar form factor. The phone we received was a lime-on-white option. There are a couple of other color options, all of which look really good. The phone is sleek and fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. The face of the phone features a large 2-inch bright and sharp display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The navigation keys, including the 5-way D-Pad and the answering keys, are placed on a thick lime-colored band. However, the keys are a bit cramped and you could end up punching two keys at once. The alphanumeric keypad is made up of round buttons which are tiny but tactile. The buttons have numbers printed on them while the alphabets sit just beside it. The entire keypad is well lit, which makes it very readable even in the dark.
The memory card slot is on the left, hidden behind a neat dust cover; the volume control and the camera button are on the right. The fastport retains its previous placement at the end of the phone and the space is shared with a lanyard loop hole. The top of the phone sees the power ON/OFF/profile key.
The rear of the K660i plainly flaunts its 2.0 MP camera. The camera has a self-portrait mirror, which is helpful to those who like to capture their own picture.
User Interface
The Sony Ericsson K660i is a smooth operating phone. It seems that though it is of a lower price segment, it incorporates the processor of a higher price band phone. The menus of the phone are smooth like those seen in the W890i. The K660i has animated themes. Since all of this has been possible after continuous optimization, I wished the previous models also received those much-anticipated firmware updates. The K660i has a new Media Manager which helps you enjoy all your multimedia collections.
An all-rounder phone, the K660i comes loaded with lots of other applications such as TrackID (for music recognition), Picture Blogging, PhotoDj, VideoDj, MusicDj, a new browser, a collection of applications for GPS, and Location Services from Sony Ericsson.
The Location Services has Google Maps as part of its package of applications; it connects to a GPS satellites via a Bluetooth GPS module.
In a sense, the USP of the K660i is its browser. The phone has a Web-browser shortcut and Web-browsing shortcut keys. The right key of the D-Pad is an un-customizable shortcut to the browser of the phone. As for the shortcut keys, there is a row of keys, which all along since the K810i, has seen the camera shortcut LEDs light up when in camera mode; in the K660i, these LEDs light up for the browser. The shortcuts consist of Pen (either to type a URL or a search string — Google as default search engine), Favorites, Home, and Pan Scan. The Pan Scan option comes with the use of the latest version of the NetFront Browser (Sony Ericsson’s mobile phone browser), version 3.4. There is a magnetic mouse as well in the browser which makes it easy to get to links. The browser loads images, zooms, pans, and scrolls very smoothly, giving a very rich browsing experience. The inclusion of HSCSD helps faster data transfer, enabling you to download attachments quickly.
Overall, the K660i is a smooth customer even with its rich feature pack and coming from a sub-10k price bracket.
As earlier mentioned, the K660i uses the new Media Manager released with the Walkman 3.0. Media is sorted as Photos (Camera and Phone), Music, and Video. The music player is like your Walkman 3.0 — sans the SensMe. The quality of music playback is pretty good. You get standard stereo headsets which don’t really do the magic; however, with the HPM-70 headsets, the results are good. The video player lets you watch videos in landscape and also has forward and reverse options. The video playback is at 15 fps, making videos look as if they were framing.
The K660i has an FM Tuner as well. The quality of the reception is pretty decent, with the headphones (acting antenna) doing the job well.
The K660i has a 2.0MP camera. It is a non-autofocus and doesn’t even have LED flash assistance. The image quality of the pictures we took was average. There is no zoom when in the 2MP mode; zoom is available only when shifted to 1MP or VGA. The video recording capability is not up to the mark. Videos are captured at 15 fps and are good only as bits from the past — else not worth cherishing them as collections.
Battery Life
The battery of the K660i is a 950mAh Li-Ion with 9 hours of specified talk time. The battery life of the phone is brilliant. It lasted me 3 days without the need for a charge. The 3 days included around 4-5 hours of talk time and around 2 hours of music. I did lots of surfing through my GPRS-activated SIM and even then phone lasted me for 3 days. Overall, the battery life is pretty good; someone looking to really utilize the phones capabilities will be happy with its performance.
Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson K660i sells for around Rs. 10,000 with a one year warranty. The phone provides quite a package. It will appeal more to those who are oriented to multiple aspects (music, camera, etc.). However, its performance in both cases is just average and it’s the overall feature package that will draw one to opt for the K660i. If you are looking for a camera phone in this price range, the K790i is a great choice. As for music, there is the W580i or the Nokia XpressMusic 5310. But as an all-round feature packed update, the K660i almost doesn’t have competitors.
