When it comes to cameraphones, the words K800 Cyber-shot always seem to come to mind. The time has come to finally forget it since the famous cameraphone has received a successor in the face of the spanking new Sony Ericsson K810. The same exciting 3.2 megapixel camera packed into a slimmer body and a brand new design. That's enough to start with, we think. Read on for our detailed review on the Sony Ericsson K810.

Sony Ericsson K810 official pictures

Key features

• Excellent 3.2 megapixel Cyber-shot™ camera with autofocus
• Xenon flash
• 64MB internal memory
• Memory card slot with hot swap functionality
• 3G support with video calls
• FM radio with RDS
• Bluetooth (with A2DP) and Infrared port
• Multi-tasking support

Main disadvantages

• Uncomfortable joystick and soft keys
• No EDGE (K818 has EDGE, but no 3G)
• Records video in the inadequate QCIF (176 x 144 pixels) resolution only

In February 2007 Sony Ericsson announced several new mobiles as an addition to their product line. Two of them are Cyber-shot cameraphones that would try to build on the success of the Sony Ericsson K800 model. We already reviewed the budget one - the Sony Ericsson K550 which didn't manage to impress. The Sony Ericsson K810 though is entirely a different story. It comes as an update to the K800. The upgrades over the previous version include a slimmer design due to the smaller active camera cover and dedicated camera options keys that allow for easier picture taking. While those upgrades don't seem much on paper, we are prepared to see whether the K810 really makes it worthwhile to dump your current K800 and go get a hold on the latest Sony Ericsson top-of-the-line cameraphone.

In much the same way that K800 had its twin EDGE brother in the face of K790, now the K810 model also has an EDGE twin - the Sony Ericsson K818 which will be targeted at the Chinese market. The Sony Ericsson K810 and the K818 will be available within Q2 2007 in two colors: Noble Blue and Golden Ivory.

Bear in mind that the test unit we got is a pre-release one and some bugs are really acceptable at this product development stage. Some options and applications may vary in the final retail version.

Heads on

Visually Sony Ericsson K810 doesn't differ much from the K800. It has the same form factor and pretty much the same color and size. It is several millimeters thinner than K800 and the most significant design change is the new keypad which is unusual for the recent Sony Ericsson line of phones as a whole.

Sony Ericsson K810

The TFT display takes up the most part of the front panel. It has a mirror-like finish much like the K800 does and in much the same way it catches fingerprints rather easy. Above it there is the secondary VGA camera, the in-call speaker and two multimedia shortcut keys. Those were present in K800 too but here they are more prominent. Now they even have blue icons marking their functions. When the camera is on, the left one can be used to change the camera shoot mode, while the right one changes the Scene setting. When the camera is off, the left one opens the last picture you've browsed in fullscreen mode, while the right one opens the camera pictures in thumbnail mode.

Sony Ericsson K810 - speaker, secondary camera and multimedia shortcut key