Sony Ericsson K790a Cell Phone
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- Installed Memory: 64 MB
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB
- Design: Mobile
- Style: Candy Bar
- Network Type: GSM 850 GSM 1800 GSM 1900 EDGE
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Great Phone
Pros
Camera, QVGA Screen, Earpiece Volume, Speed, High Construction Quality
Cons
No Walkman Feature, Bulky, No Flash Lite, only 2" Screen
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
I highly recommend this phone. Besides a few missing features, it does everything else with excellence.
This review is primarily for North America but most of it also applies to Europe's K800 which is nearly identical to the K790 except for the reception bands.
Features
The Sony-Ericsson k790 is a tri-band GSM phone. This means that if your cellular service uses SIM chips, you can probably use this phone. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Rogers are 3 North American GSM carriers that immediately come to mind. It has a 2" screen with a 240x320 resolution screen. The camera is 3.2 megapixels, 5.2mm, with a Xenon flash. It has Java 7.3 which is one of the latest versions for cell phones. And finally, it has Bluetooth 2.0 with a2dp (stereo Bluetooth) and all the goodies. Now I'll get into the specifics.
Reception
The reception is typical Sony-Ericsson. That's a good thing. My reception wasn't any different from using a Samsung T629 or Sony-Ericsson W810. Reception will largely depend on your carrier. For North America, this phone will cover all your reception needs. Unfortunately for those who travel overseas, the K790 is not a quad-band phone. The omission of the European band is an odd omission. Europe's version of this phone is the K800.
Software
This phone has the typical Sony-Ericsson user interface. If you've used an SE phone in the past 10 years, then you are familiar with how it looks. Unfortunately, SE decided to omit flash lite support. No flash lite support means that the K790 isn'6t capable of using SE's terrific flash themes. Another omission is the lack of the Walkman player. It has a good audio player but it's not as capable as the Walkman branded phones. It's not a big deal but it's something that SE should have added instead of removing it to separate this cybershot phone from the walkman series.
The included netbrowser (for web browsing) is v 3.3 and it's nice. It's on the better half of native web browsers and doesn't suffer from running out of memory like the W810. However, I would recommend installing Opera Mini for browsing.
It doesn't have GPS but with using Google Maps, it can estimate your location. I was in New York recently and used this combination to find my way around. It worked much better than my Mio GPS unit.
The E-Mail client on the K790 is fantastic. I have it set up with my gmail account under a "push" setup. This means that it notifies me immediately when I get mail in my gmail account. You can also set it to check at specific intervals for those who need to watch their data usage.
Physical Aspects
This phone is a little chubby and has a hump for the lens cover on the back. I think the screen is a little too small for the case, 2.2" or 2.4" would have been much better than the 2.0" screen on it. However, the 240x320 resolution of the screen is great! The buttons are rubber and they are OK. The feel extremely nice but I have already seen my "#5" button start to wear and pressing the "7" button feels mushy. The joystick in the middle of the phone is ok and I don't have any problems with it but I much rather prefer the flat pad available on the W810 and the like. Just so you know, there are people who have had joystick problems. It was a frequent issue when the phone came out but the newer ones are supposed to be better. After 4 months with my phone, I've yet to experience any issues under heavy use.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is fantastic. It works great over my car's Bluetooth system and works great when interfacing with my computer. It's not crippled in any way.
Camera
The camera on here is a 3.2 megapixel camera and has a 5.2mm lens which is one of the largest available for phones. For comparison's sake, the N95 is 5.6mm and the K850 is 5.2mm. It has a proper Xenon flash which is good for close distances but not as powerful as a regular camera. I don't think there is any other phone out there with a Xenon flash as good as this one has. The picture quality is very good. I would rate it a step below the N95 and a step above the K850. Yes, that's right. Right in between 2 - 5.0 megapixel phone cameras. The camera is a top 3 cell phone camera. Software wise, it has some editing abilities on the phone itself and you can take themed pictures if you would like. IT doesn't have face tracking like some of the newer phones but it's not necessary. OH and one of the biggest things is that this camera has auto-focus. I have printed a few photos from the phone and they look great, it's good enough to do that which is a huge plus in my book. Another really cool thing about the phone is that if you have it locked and slide down the lens to take a quick snapshot, it will let you do that and won't stay locked. This is definitely a phone for people who like to take snapshots.
Audio
Unfortunately, it doesn't have the walkman branded player and is missing some of the functionality that the walkman series offers (track id, cd covers, very basic equalizer adjustments). But the quality is better than other phones and it still retains the ability to play music through its loudspeaker.
The earpiece volume is nicer compared to other SE phones. Compared to my W810, it's definitely louder. The loudspeaker (where you can play mp3s and ringing) can get loud but it doesn't have the dynamic range of the Walkman series phones.
Final Thoughts
This is a great phone. It is missing some features I would have liked but it also has features that I love. For me, the higher resolution screen and camera outweighed the lack of Walkman functions and flash lite.
If you can find this phone at a good price then get it. There aren't many better phones available.
Features
The Sony-Ericsson k790 is a tri-band GSM phone. This means that if your cellular service uses SIM chips, you can probably use this phone. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Rogers are 3 North American GSM carriers that immediately come to mind. It has a 2" screen with a 240x320 resolution screen. The camera is 3.2 megapixels, 5.2mm, with a Xenon flash. It has Java 7.3 which is one of the latest versions for cell phones. And finally, it has Bluetooth 2.0 with a2dp (stereo Bluetooth) and all the goodies. Now I'll get into the specifics.
Reception
The reception is typical Sony-Ericsson. That's a good thing. My reception wasn't any different from using a Samsung T629 or Sony-Ericsson W810. Reception will largely depend on your carrier. For North America, this phone will cover all your reception needs. Unfortunately for those who travel overseas, the K790 is not a quad-band phone. The omission of the European band is an odd omission. Europe's version of this phone is the K800.
Software
This phone has the typical Sony-Ericsson user interface. If you've used an SE phone in the past 10 years, then you are familiar with how it looks. Unfortunately, SE decided to omit flash lite support. No flash lite support means that the K790 isn'6t capable of using SE's terrific flash themes. Another omission is the lack of the Walkman player. It has a good audio player but it's not as capable as the Walkman branded phones. It's not a big deal but it's something that SE should have added instead of removing it to separate this cybershot phone from the walkman series.
The included netbrowser (for web browsing) is v 3.3 and it's nice. It's on the better half of native web browsers and doesn't suffer from running out of memory like the W810. However, I would recommend installing Opera Mini for browsing.
It doesn't have GPS but with using Google Maps, it can estimate your location. I was in New York recently and used this combination to find my way around. It worked much better than my Mio GPS unit.
The E-Mail client on the K790 is fantastic. I have it set up with my gmail account under a "push" setup. This means that it notifies me immediately when I get mail in my gmail account. You can also set it to check at specific intervals for those who need to watch their data usage.
Physical Aspects
This phone is a little chubby and has a hump for the lens cover on the back. I think the screen is a little too small for the case, 2.2" or 2.4" would have been much better than the 2.0" screen on it. However, the 240x320 resolution of the screen is great! The buttons are rubber and they are OK. The feel extremely nice but I have already seen my "#5" button start to wear and pressing the "7" button feels mushy. The joystick in the middle of the phone is ok and I don't have any problems with it but I much rather prefer the flat pad available on the W810 and the like. Just so you know, there are people who have had joystick problems. It was a frequent issue when the phone came out but the newer ones are supposed to be better. After 4 months with my phone, I've yet to experience any issues under heavy use.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is fantastic. It works great over my car's Bluetooth system and works great when interfacing with my computer. It's not crippled in any way.
Camera
The camera on here is a 3.2 megapixel camera and has a 5.2mm lens which is one of the largest available for phones. For comparison's sake, the N95 is 5.6mm and the K850 is 5.2mm. It has a proper Xenon flash which is good for close distances but not as powerful as a regular camera. I don't think there is any other phone out there with a Xenon flash as good as this one has. The picture quality is very good. I would rate it a step below the N95 and a step above the K850. Yes, that's right. Right in between 2 - 5.0 megapixel phone cameras. The camera is a top 3 cell phone camera. Software wise, it has some editing abilities on the phone itself and you can take themed pictures if you would like. IT doesn't have face tracking like some of the newer phones but it's not necessary. OH and one of the biggest things is that this camera has auto-focus. I have printed a few photos from the phone and they look great, it's good enough to do that which is a huge plus in my book. Another really cool thing about the phone is that if you have it locked and slide down the lens to take a quick snapshot, it will let you do that and won't stay locked. This is definitely a phone for people who like to take snapshots.
Audio
Unfortunately, it doesn't have the walkman branded player and is missing some of the functionality that the walkman series offers (track id, cd covers, very basic equalizer adjustments). But the quality is better than other phones and it still retains the ability to play music through its loudspeaker.
The earpiece volume is nicer compared to other SE phones. Compared to my W810, it's definitely louder. The loudspeaker (where you can play mp3s and ringing) can get loud but it doesn't have the dynamic range of the Walkman series phones.
Final Thoughts
This is a great phone. It is missing some features I would have liked but it also has features that I love. For me, the higher resolution screen and camera outweighed the lack of Walkman functions and flash lite.
If you can find this phone at a good price then get it. There aren't many better phones available.
