Sony Ericsson K700

Forums › Mobile handsets › Sony Ericsson K700 - News

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

38 posts

Geek

#7318 21-Jul-2004 17:05

Mobileguy

I dont understand what you mean.

Sony Ericsson make their phones with their own User Interface, and features. The design of the phone allows phone operators like Vodafone to come and customise it with their stuff.

That doesnt overly worry me (well apart from the hideous icons and colour scheme that VF use, ruins the SE interface). What bothers me is how Vodafone disable features on the phones or only make certain things usable if you purchase them off the VF Live site, MP3 as ring tones springs to mind (in that you cant use any MP3 file as a ring tone on a VF Live K700 only Vodafone sanctioned ones, unbranded K700s allow you to use ANY MP3 file, basically its a moneymaking exercise).

If its Vodafone thats crippling the phones then it should be them we are complaining to, not Sony Ericsson.

Personally if I pay good money for a phone, I want the phone to do all that its supposed to do, not have a phone operator dictate the terms (not counting network specific functions).

PS....you should visit some of the mobilephone forums, ESATO, MOBILE REVIEW.COM, MOBILEBURN etv and you will see there are ALOT of people unhappy with Vodafone Live.

Ambrose_1

252 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#7319 21-Jul-2004 18:44

Mobileguy, dont buy a Holden then :P

I've actually got quite interested in this phone, whats the picture quality like? its pretty expensive for a camera phone thats only takes 640x480 pics...

teresa

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#7321 21-Jul-2004 18:58

Hi Ambrose

I have found the picture quality to be quite superior to the T610 (my previous phone). One of the big bonuses is the light which you can switch on when taking either still or video pics. The screen resolution is much better than the T610 also!

peteremcc

250 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#7322 21-Jul-2004 20:07

Teresa is it possible to turn the light on when not taking a picture (or go into the 'take a picture menu' and turn it without taking one) because ive heard its actually quite a bright light and could be handy as a "middle of the night, can't find the right key/pen/button to turn alarm off" light. :D

Just to clear things up a but Mobileguy and others...

Sony Ericsson make a beautiful phone and send it to the New Zealand distributor...

Vodafone buy the phones off the distributor, flash the phones with thier own software [which is causing all the problems and limitations] and then sell the phones to the shops (like 'First Mobile' etc...). Therefore Vodafone are actually acting as a middleman, increasing the price, but that is another problem for another complaints letter. ;)

The online stores like i mentioned earlier simply buy the phones off the distributor and then sell them to us, minus the cr*p software and the middleman price.

Clearly it IS vodafone that is the problem and don't get me started on their prices :O :P :S :D.

Peter

Ambrose_1

252 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#7323 21-Jul-2004 21:30

Someone asked me what the ringing volume is like on it, he has a T630 and wasnt loud enough for him, is the k700 louder?

SNicolle

543 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#7329 21-Jul-2004 23:09

From SE NZ
--------------------
Hi Sam

All stock is live! at this stage though we are hoping to import some generic stock soon.
To make matters worse, the s/w is locked to the extent that we cannot remove the live! on this model.
Hence - it's live! or live! I'm afraid.
-------------------------------------------------------

live refers to vodafone live.
Gutted.. but thats life, generic stock sounds promising. so SE nz the official distributor doesnt have generic stock i think the main hope is a parallel importer. Aus is probably a good bet, I'm unsure about simfree phone prices but there are a handful or so of competing phone companies and that helps the demand for unbranded phones.

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

koffee

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#7340 22-Jul-2004 16:29

Dear Folks,

I too was interested in K700i, until I discovered a very grevious issue with the Bluetooth feature.

Here is something you all should be aware: Bluetooth will reboot your phone.

I used K700i with HP220 PDA. Being in Hong Kong, the primary method of accessing the Internet is through bluetooth and Sunday's GPRS.

There is no problem connecting to the Internet. The problem is when you disconnect from the internet, the K700i will reboot.

When i went to the Sony Ericsson service centre, I also noticed that far too MANY people brought back that device for maintenance. This left a very disturbance impression of the quality of the product. Even after having upgraded the firmware, the device will still reboot. The service centre people claimed surprise. I even took the same device to the SE showroom in Causeway Bay, and they observed the exact behaviour.

Fortunately, I have been able to return that poor quality product. And took the trusty T630 instead.

SO never consider K700i unless you do not use bloetooth. And this is also important: LOW battery capacity/life. You will want to consider more than one spare battery.

And so far, T39mc, T68i, T610 and T630 proved to be the best all-round product.

Just a though for you folks ... if you have observed something similar...let me know.

Thank you for reading this.

Cheers....Koffee

peteremcc

250 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#7341 22-Jul-2004 17:20

Interesting... i'll look into this.

BTW, k700 now available in certain DSE stores, unfortunately not my local one yet so i can't check out a working version. Deffinately has VF though, the picture on DSE site has been updated and now has the logo :(

Peter

peteremcc

250 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#7342 22-Jul-2004 18:25

Ok i think i have found more information on this problem.

On some firmware versions bluetooth doesn't de-activate itself and if you don't manually do it before turning the phone off your computer can reboot.

I think this has been fixed in new firmware version but not sure... solution is to manually turn it off when you have finished, no big deal.

There have been some other bugs but i think that this is going to happen as phones get more complex. As long as they are fixed in firmware updates (that users can do themselves) then that should be ok.

Peter

mike

307 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 20

Trusted

#7343 22-Jul-2004 21:05

I bought my K700i from Vodafone today, coming from a trusty T68i it's a truely amazing phone!

There is a real nice blue theme (Blub) on the phone that gets rid of all the ghastly Live! redness.

Only downsides so far:
1. won't work with iSync, bluetooth file transfer with my powerbook works no problem. I'll keep trying, tips I've found on the net haven't worked for me so far.
2. no MP3 ringtones - this sux as MP3/AACs sound excellent both through the speaker and headset but doesn't really bother me.

Apart from iSync that I'm sure I'll work out I couldn't be happier with the phone.

peteremcc

250 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#7350 23-Jul-2004 08:40

Don't know whether you noticed but vodafone got rid of all the fancy new graphics and effects that sony ericsson developed for the menu. Just out of interested, did vodafone let you see the phone working before you bought it??

Geekzone

Want to support Geekzone and browse the site without the ads? Subscribe to Geekzone now (monthly, annual and lifetime options).

mike

307 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 20

Trusted

#7354 23-Jul-2004 11:16

Of course they let me see the phone working before I bought it.

And they didn't get rid of all the fancy new graphics and effects on the menus. All the icons and effects look brilliant. They look a hell of a lot better than these ones I think you're talking about.

What are you talking about?

There's definitely a lot of hooks into vodafone live! on the phone though.

mike

307 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 20

Trusted

#7356 23-Jul-2004 14:13

update:
I got all my calendars/tasks/addresses synced with iSync (pair from the phone - "bluetooth > my devices > more > computer" and don't use 0000 as a passkey). It syncs really fast compared to my T68i.

I transferred about an hour of music to the phone (re-encoded 64kbps in itunes to keep files small), each song took about a minute to transfer over bluetooth.

MP3s as ringtones seems like a stupid idea to me now, like having the radio turn on when your phone rings. I downloaded some free polyphonic ring tones and they sound sweet. It's a pity you can't use MP3s for alarms either (on vodafone handsets).

So I have on the phone 8 weeks of daily appointments, a few hundred contacts, a 1 hour playlist, a handful of ringtones and still 12MB left over for taking pictures (room for 200 more) and more games/apps, etc.

Can't fault this phone so far, you need a PC with bluetooth (preferably a Mac) to take full advantage of it though.

alasta

6894 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3368

Trusted

Subscriber

#7359 23-Jul-2004 17:24

Thanks for the detailed feedback, Mike. I also use iSync with my T610 and I find that it works briliantly, although I have found that it's important to ensure that the time zone set on the T610 matches that set on the Mac in order for dates and times on calendar items to be transferred accurately.

Anyway, back on topic, is the display on the K700 much better than the T610? I noticed a huge improvement from the T68i to the T610 due to the increase in the number of colours, so I would be interested to know how much the T610 differs from the K700 in this regard.

Also, do you find that the K700 renders WAP pages reasonably quickly? Because I have found poor WAP performance to be the T610's biggest drawback.

teresa

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#7371 24-Jul-2004 10:11

Hi guys

Some responses:

Peteremcc: Yes it is possible to turn the light on without taking a picture, it's quite a process though eg. turn camera on -> More -> scroll down to light which is 3rd from bottom -> then toggle on or off. I actually find the screen bright enough for emergencies! doesn't stay bright for long though!

Ambrose1: The ringing volume is definitely louder than T610 and more volume options too - 8 levels where I think the T610 only had 5.

Still loving the phone however I have to fess up to having had it replaced already - was changing themes one night & it reset itself (which it had done before) but then just continually reset itself until I took the battery out, turned it on again only to have the same thing happen. Was gutted - had downloaded so much!

The replacement is much better - hasn't frozen once. Think I mighta had a dud the 1st time!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7