Sony Ericsson K500i Review

Sony Ericsson designed this sweet little mobile to be ideal for gaming, music playing, and picture sharing. The K500i lies somewhere between the K300i, with its lower price but more limited features, and the K700i, with its higher price but increased memory for picture, video, and game downloads.

With the capacity to hold up to 170 2D and 45 3D games on its somewhat-below-adequate 12 MB of memory, the Sony Ericsson K500i is truly a gamers phone. But with one click camera access, and just one more click to take a spontaneous picture on the mobile’s .3 megapixel, 4X zoom, digital camera, this phone can be used just like any stand alone digital camera—with the added bonus being that you are then able to send your pics to all your friends via MMS or E-mail using QuickshareÔ technology.

Surprisingly, the K500i is actually slightly smaller than the K700i (depth: 14mm. vs. 19mm.), but the K700i makes up for this with a much larger screen size, 40 MB of memory (vs. 12 in the K500i), and features such as Bluetooth and an FM Radio, both of which the K500i does not have. Both phones have a limited video capturing capability.

With up to 7 hours of Talktime and almost 2 weeks of Standbytime, you will not find yourself in many desperate battery situations with this mobile, but if gameplay is what you are after (and many K500i users will be after just that), it may be a good idea to watch your battery life, or even to go so far as to plug your mobile in while game playing.

The K500i is superior to the K300i in a number of respects, most glaringly are the K500i’s MP3 player, its larger screen size, and its smaller weight. The MP3 player, which comes standard, allows you to upload your favorite music and then listen to it on the go. But with the K500i’s 12 MB of memory, it may become a bit of a squeeze when you consider all the pictures, games, songs, and videos that you will want to keep on your phone.

All in all, this phone is probably worth the extra money over the K300i, especially for gaming junkies, but in terms of memory size you may find yourself pining after the one that got away—the K700i, with it’s 28 MB of extra memory. Not a bad phone, however, and it is certainly the top of the line in its range.

The main features of the Sony Ericsson K500i:

Tri Band: GSM 900/1800/1900
JavaÔ Games
Animated Display
Speaker Phone
E-mail
SMS
MMS
Infrared Link
.3 Megapixel Digital Camera
MP3 Player
Organizer

Technical Specifications of the Sony Ericsson K500i:

Weight: 80 g.
Talktime: 7 h.
Standby time: 300 h.
12 MB Memory
65,536 color display
Height: 102 pixels.
Width: 46 pixels.
Depth: 14 pixels.
Display Width: 128 pixels.
Display Height: 160 pixels.
Battery: 750 mAh

The features that the Sony Ericsson K500i is missing:

Bluetooth
FM Radio
Touchscreen

Accessories available for the Sony Ericsson K500i:

Gameboard EGB-10
Hands free device
Alternate covers
New wallpaper
New ringtones