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August 19, 2005
[ FIRST IMPRESSIONS—SonyEricsson K750i ]
To paraphrase the great Samuel Johnson: “Sir, a telephone camera is like a dog’s walking on its hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
With just such low expectations dpexpert approached the Sony Ericsson K750i camera phone. This little device sports a 2 megapixel camera within the body of the phone. The lens is fixed focal length f2.8 with a 3x digital zoom. The camera screen doubles as the viewfinder and image viewer and does it well enough.
There are no manual controls for aperture or shutter speed but there is an exposure compensation control using the phone’s navigation joystick.
We were inspired to take a serious look at the K750i by the photographs taken by Melbourne photographer Laurie Davis on his trip to Europe. Laurie carried two Sony Ericsson phones and he took some beautiful pictures that are now displayed on his web site.
So far we are impressed with the K750i. Images are reasonably well exposed with decent colour rendition. They are a little soft. The camera excels at close-ups of faces or objects and is at its limits with landscapes.
Sony Ericsson acknowledge that this phone will be mainly used for self-portraits by providing a tiny concave mirror alongside the lens for framing the photographer’s face. Very clever!
The K750i’s weakness is in the lens. The digital zoom is unimpressive, so an optical zoom is needed to make the camera a serious contender as a photographic tool. No doubt a 2 megapixel sensor is an interim device which will be quickly superseded.
Watch here for a full review of the Sony Ericsson K750i phone camera. Or is it camera phone? Interestingly Sony Ericsson do not commit themselves to a preferred terminology anywhere in the documentation.
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Posted by cw at August 19, 2005 10:15 AM
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