RishiGuru

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sony Ericsson K550i : The One

Dec 27, 2008

Rating: 10 out of 10 (Perfect)
Pros: Every aspect of the mobile is excellent
Cons: Nothing
Opinion:
Truly excellent mobile phone! I have one since January 2008 & man it rocks and beat's the Nokia 6300 by miles in every area except the display, Nokia has 2 million versus 256K colors of Sony Ericsson K550i.

Positive Features :

- The best 2MP camera with Autofocus currently available in the market. It has an active lens cover which is helpful in protecting the lens from scratches, stains & smudges. There are also two powerful LEDÂ’s to help taking photos in dark which also act as torchlight when required. The software part that handles the camera is very intuitive and provides a number of options that suits in different environments in taking pictures.

- Great music player with 5 band graphic equalizer that allows custom settings providing a crystal clear sound with thumping bass when used with walkman series headsets like HPM-75. Of course there is no MegaBass in K series but you do not need one if you know how to set up the equalizer to provide a similar effect. Many people forget MegaBass is a default equalizer preset not a piece of hardware which will greatly enhance the lower audio frequencies (Bass).

- FM radio with RDS facility provides clear sound & good reception quality. No recording facility though.

- Lightning fast response time with a 220 Mhz ARM9 processor & 77 MB inbuilt shared memory. Its predecessor K750i which happens to be the highest selling mobile phone of SE and one to beat had a 110Mhz ARM9 processor & 38 MB inbuilt shared memory. So you get two times processing power & two times inbuilt memory. Need to say more!

- This mobile runs on Sony Ericsson A100 platform(software). This software is very stable, very fast to operate with no snags and is built in Java which is THE ULTIMATE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. Believe me because I am a computer engineer. It uses Ahead of Time (AOT) Java Virtual Machine(JVM) which very good but Jazelle JVM is even better .

- Powerful processor and good inbuilt memory lends to Java games running smoothly with no jitter or lag.

- The best battery in its category (Li Poly, 950mAh) with which I can listen 24 hrs of nonstop music at full volume with a full battery charge.

- Small, thin at just 14mm & light, I sometimes forget it's in my pocket.

- Connectivity wise offers not only Bluetooth but also Infra-red port which is helpful to communicate with older mobile phones for data transfer.

- No need to install driver CD's, just connect to the computer with the USB cable that comes with it & transfer music, videos, pictures etc to the phone & visa versa.

- Lastly, it does very well for what it is primarily built for, excellent call reception, loud & clear.

Deep technical details :

- Sony Ericsson K550i has (Thin Film Diode) TFD screen instead of TFT. TFD consumes less power than TFT so better battery life and are brighter. It also provides higher contrast and colors appear more vivid & brighter and do not appear washed out under direct sunlight.

- It uses Sony's patented M2 memory card rather than miniSD cards. Both are of nearly same size but M2 cards have much higher data transfer speed so the phone has faster response to user input.

- It uses Lithium Polymer ion battery rather than Lithium ion, Li Poly is a superior technology (better safety, thinner) & will ultimately replace Lithium ion in near future.

- K550i comes with Bluetooth supporting A2DP, a very important feature for music fans as it allows STEREO Bluetooth transmission to Bluetooth headsets.

- Sony Ericsson was able to use such a powerful processor (220 Mhz) for K550i which draws a lot of power because it uses a TFD screen which sucks less power than TFT and at the same time uses a much bigger battery (BST-33) which is found in its top range models like C702i managing to provide an exceptional standby time. For example, C702i uses the same battery but it has a much bigger TFT display drawing more power so to maintain a descent standby time Sony Ericsson had to use a less powerful processor running at 180 Mhz.

Steal this mobile (Sony Ericsson K550i) if you can (pun intended), but those looking for similar features at an even tighter budget look for Samsung J210 as it has all the features of this phone but pricewise comes 20% cheaper.