Sony Ericsson K660i
Maxabout Review
Functional & Basic
Friday, February 06, 2009
Photos
Sony Ericsson K660i
Sony Ericsson is keen to make its K660i stand out from its other mid-range handsets by emphasising its web-friendly set-up. The K660i isn't all about web browsing though; as is becoming standard for Sony Ericssons, you get a decent spread of functionality and applications to play with.
Although not Walkman-branded, the K660i has a re-skinned Walkman-style built in music player inside, with an FM radio too. A 2-megapixel camera is included on the back panel, while the 3G capability means you get a secondary video calling camera perched above the display on the front.
With the latest high-speed HSDPA 3G connectivity, browsing the internet or downloading content over the air is a short and sweet business - full music tracks or videos from a mobile operator's portal take just a few seconds to purchase and download (or stream) to your phone.
The design of the Sony Ericsson K660i gives it a certain stand-out quality. It's a regular candy-bar shaped phone, with a fairly average 104 x 47 x 15mm build, but it comes in striking colour combinations. The more sober version is black with a 'wine' coloured band across its control key-studded midriff, while another option is white with lime trimming across the front and sides. A touch of chrome edging sets the black version off nicely.
The glossy plastic surface though is a real finger-print and grease magnet. The numberpad is akin to the K810i's, with round keys well spaced and easily pressable. The control panel is similar to the recent W890i in basic layout, with conventional call and end keys on either side of the phone, and a main navigation D-pad surrounded by two softkeys, a clear key and a typical Sony Ericsson Activity Menu fast access button for useful functions and apps. The D-pad is labelled up for quick key access to the web browser, although you can also program in other function shortcuts. Again, the buttons are nicely sized and responsive, giving standard menu navigation a smooth flow.
You get a fine music player on this phone, capable of a performance on a par with its Walkman phone stablemates. The supplied earphones provide a reasonable performance, but switch in some Walkman earphones or a higher quality headset via an adapter lead, and you get a noticeable improvement and a better balanced sound. Unlike Walkman earphones, there's no adapter included in the box, which is shame. You can though add Bluetooth stereo headsets.
The player interface on here is similar to the Walkman, with tunes organised in familiar categories - artists, albums, tracks, playlists, audio books and podcasts. An FM radio is also part of the spec, and Sony Ericsson's clever TrackID application is included too, helping you identify tracks you hear around you or on the radio by recording short samples and interrogating a database automatically to give you the answer.
Supplied Media Manager software and a USB cable help you manage tracks and sync with a PC, although drag and drop copying in mass storage mode is another option.
A 256MB Memory Stick Micro memory card is packaged with the phone, boosting the modest 32MB internal storage.
There's a dedicated camera button on the side for switching on the camera and capturing images in landscape mode. The 2MP is one of Sony Ericsson's more average efforts, with no flash or autofocus system to boost performance. Pictures are acceptable though the detail is limited. Colour rendition is good on well-lit subjects but suffers in dark environments, where images are noisy and grainy. The camera system can struggle too in sharply differentiating subtle colour tone changes.
Sony Ericsson claims the K660i will keep running between charges for up to 330 hours on standby or with 9 hours talktime on GSM networks or 4.5 hours on 3G, which is comparable to other mid-range Sony Ericssons. And getting back to basics, call quality on the phone is consistently high quality. Sony Ericsson is obviously keen to differentiate its mid-tier handsets to appeal to targeted types of user, whether it be Walkman phones for music fans or Cyber-shot moblles for those who value high-quality imaging.
Main Features of Sony Ericsson K660i:
- 2MP camera with 4x digital zoom
- Video recording & video calling
- TFT LCD, 262,144 colours, 240 x 320 pixels
- Music player with MegaBass
- FM radio RDS
- SMS, MMS, email
- 3D Java games
- 32 MB internal memory + Memory Stick Micro support (up to 4 Gbytes)
- Bluetooth, USB, modem
- WAP, EDGE, HSDPA, web browser, RSS feeds