Sony Ericsson S700i review

Finally, the part about the S700i that seperates it from every other camera/phone on the market wtih the exception of Japan. This is the primary feature of the S700i that brings it all of the attention. A 1.3 MegaPixel Camera!! The S700i was actually designed to look like a Digital Camera and I was told by Sony/Ericsson personnel that it was placed in a lineup by Sony/Ericsson Designers with other Sony Digital cameras and then presented to individuals in a market survey to see which one they would choose as being a phone. The S700i was very successful in fooling those test subjects who rarely picked it as the phone. In fact, the unit I've been using is always greeted with suprise when I tell people its a phone. It looks like a camera from every angle, there is nothing in its styling, size, or appearance that would give away its phone abilities with the exception of the speaker holes..

The S700i contains the guts of a real Sony/CyberShot camera. It uses a CCD sensor as already mentioned which is the preferred capture sensor for most high-end cameras. The camera operation is commenced by the user in 3 different ways.

1. By simply opening the shutter.
2. By pressing and holding the shutter release button for 2 seconds.
3. By accessing the menu through the D-pad.

Menus of the S700i are more extensive than the K700i. It has "Spot Photometry" as an additional option as well as others. Menus....

The Viewfinder ready to shoot...
Press D-pad left to right for selecting Camera/Video
Press D-pad up/down to Zoom in/out.
Press Upper Left button to view photos.
Press Lower Left button to open settings menu...

Move D-pad up/down and left/right to move through menus. Press the Center Stick in to "Select"....

Spot Photometry....

Select the storage area for Photos and Video...

You can frame photos with 10 different special effect frames..

an example.....

Maximum Resolution is 1280 X 960....

Night Mode, Timer, and Special Effects...

Select Video Capture by toggling from Camera icon to Video icon

Finally, take the shot by pressing the camera button...

Shutter Response is immediate and the image is written to the storage card in less than a second. Extremely fast writing of the data. The image is held in the viewfinder and the camera is reset by pressing the shutter release button once...

Your photos can be stored internally on the S700i's 40mb memory or externally on a Memory Stick Duo. Maximum storage supported is 128mb which is several hundred megapixel photos.


View your photos using the S700i's excellent screen...

Now, using the D-pad, press Up to activate Zoom and then use it to move your "Red Zoom Box" to the selected area of the photo you want to enlarge...

It really is impressive and the screen makes it so vivid and entertaining. Most people I showed this feature to couldn't believe the quality of the photo...

With a 262K Color Screen and a 240 X 320 resolution, stereo sound, and external storage....I was really looking forward to playing some of my encoded movies on it in full screenand comparing them to playback on a P900. Alas....it was not meant to be. The S700i will not support the resolution of the P800/900 series phones and will only playback a 177 X 144 resolution video. I tried everything...but a Nokia 7650 encoded movie played just fine with sound.....a P800/900 device specific movie would only play the sound,,,,,no video. So, until a player that will support the great resolution of this device is added....the screen's potential is just wasted in my opinion.... I'm really shocked that this is the case with this phone. It could come to market with a player that will do this...but I kind of doubt it...

View in Wide Screen...

Regular playback....

This is what a movie "COULD" look like....

That pretty much explains the operation of the camera/video capture and viewers on this phone. All in all, exceptional camera abilities and features, disappointing video playback support. Hopefully this will be fixed in the production models.