Sony Ericsson K660i internet phone

@Jerome

Hi, Reality here. Just called to say that we appreciate your input, but we've found that the sheep will keep buying junk at a high price instead of decent products at a higher price.

Seriously, though, what do you expect from a device which is a bastard offspring of an MP3 Player, Internet Tablet, Telephone, Email platform, games machine, and digital camera? It will never be as good as any of these devices, and the battery life will suffer.

Better to get a couple of devices dedicated to doing a specific task decently than one device doing them all poorly and paying through the nose for it.

@ Jerome

It's called the N95

@Ash

Spot on with the sheep comment, I've no doubt that's the real reason why these companies continue to churn out this poorly conceived rubbish.

But there's bugger all reason why a hybrid device couldn't be just as good as separate gadgets (other than profit motive). Most of these devices have an LCD screen, a battery, a processor, an audio subsystem etc. Putting them all together would hardly need to be any bigger or costlier then any individual one.

As for battery life, who cares? I'd much rather carry around a little spare battery (or have my phone slightly bulkier) than try to cram a separate phone, camera, MP3 player and net tablet into my pocket.

Have one

I have one of these phones and it's pretty good by and large. There are a few annoyances. Email and web feeds will only download to the phones 32mb internal memory (not much use when you have a 60mb podcast to download). The 4gb memory card is completely ignored except when used as a camera. The web browser is surprisingly good - with a zoom facility (which is surprisingly quick) and with the capability to change to landscape. Navigation is quick and the shortcut keys on the 3, 6, 9, # keys help a lot.

As a audio/video device it has taken a step back from the w660i (which is a walkman phone but that's no excuse) because for some reason it needs to re-index the files each time - something the w660i didn't do. It has a higher resolution than the w600i but doesn't have the processing power to deal with it. So while you can put media at 320x240 on it - it's struggles and you usually end up with the audio and video out of sync.

As a phone it functions pretty well and the addition of skype (on three) is a nice option and seems to work reasonably well - though switching back is a bit of pain but I guess that's because it's a java application on the phone rather than a build in function.

Since I've owned both the w660i and the k660i I can agree whole heartedly that the headphones are a huge disappointment. The w660i headphone (ear plug) was much more comfortable but too quiet and I gave up on it because it was too quiet on the train. The in ear headphones (supplied with the k660i) give a reasonable enough quality sound but I must have big ears because they keep falling out! I'm guessing this has something to do with the weight of the mic attached to the headphones. I was disappointed to find that the headphone mic didn't have a 3.5mm jack socket like the w660i which means you have to replace the whole thing with another set of sony ericsson headphones.

My verdict is that as a phone it's pretty good (7/10) but I would just bin the headset and get another if you plan on using it as a mp3/radio device.

mobile browser prowess?

You may like to tell us which complex sites you pointed the Sony browser so we know if anyone will use this for trying to read El Reg, and then never use it again. My sense is that loading Opera Mini as soon as you get the phone may be the best choice.

Having said that, I'm certain everyone that read this in Cupertino are having a howling, bellyaching laugh. Google is seeing 70% of searches from phones coming from mSafari in iPhone, I think. An "internet" phone with no wifi, 4.5 hours talk time, 2", 240x320 screen? Who's the product manager? Is this The Onion?

And the big deal is?

So actually this phone does everything my K850i does except it has internet specific keys and comes with Google Maps already installed plus the landscape mode for internet set as default. Wow, saves a whole 10 seconds of changing the settings there!

Still, I wish Sony would have phones that do everything, Walkman phones with flash, or Kamera phones with a standard headphone socket instead of forking the devices the way they have for marketing purposes. Do they expect us to run three different mobiles or something?

Get a grip.

If you want and all in one phone Sony Ericsson does have one. Its called the P1i. Oh yeah it does Wifi too!

My advice:

the K770 does pretty much everything that this does. And more, as it has a 3.2mp camera with autofocus, flash plus very nifty sliding cover.

The only "feature" the K660 introduces is a few different presets and the slimline form factor compared with SE phones from 1 or 2 years ago.

The K770 is a tidy and good-looking slimline. Top phone in it's range (i.e. mid-market: free w/ £15-20pm contract), if you ask me. I got it on '3' for £22.50pm with unlimited data plenty o mins and txts. Only thing missing is WiFi (as per most new mid-range phones coming out). An upgrade from the K770 would take you into N95 territory (and it's associated costs).