An affair with the K700i

A recent report by research firm Gartner Inc. showed that the world’s top five mobile phone manufacturers sold 156.4 million units in the second quarter of 2004, pushing sales for the year to over 300 million so far.

Industry watchers agree that the robust sales in many parts of the world were buoyed partly by very competitive product offerings from leading phone brands.

In the Philippines, more and more phones featuring rich multimedia functionalities such as color screens, MMS capability, photo and video cameras, Bluetooth wireless technology and Internet access are being introduced in the market, making it hard for ordinary people to choose from an array of brands.

Even with a sizable budget for a new phone, the choices can be astounding. But more than the price tag or the brand, the key to buying the perfect phone is to find a perfect match for one’s lifestyle. Do you use MMS a lot? Do you really need a camera? Do you love music? Do you need to constantly check your e-mail? How about WAP?

When Sony Ericsson launched the K700 series last summer, it was a welcome addition to the local cellphone community. As a relative newcomer in the cellphone market, both internationally and locally, the company doesn’t have as many products to offer but it makes up for it by launching only the best that the latest technology can offer, making its phones instant standouts in the market.

Color screens, high-resolution cameras and video recorders, photo editors, wallpapers and ringtones – I thought I’ve seen them all. But when Avril Lavigne started crooning in her trademark angst-filled voice on my K700i headset in full stereo surround sound, I was instantly blown away. "I cannot find a way to describe it/ It’s there inside; all I do is hide/ I wish that it would just go away/What would you do" – Avril’s voice seemed to claw at my ears. It was the start of a week-long romance with the radio (on my cellphone).

With the K700i, you don’t have to leave your music at home. The phone comes equipped with a Media Player, allowing you to listen to FM radio or play your own MP3s and even streamed or downloaded video clips.

The K700i supports a 20-FM radio format, which means you can save up to 20 FM radio channels on your phone. Depending on your mood, you can switch from mellow music, jazz and rhythm and blues to rock and roll stations, without having to manually search for channels. You also have the option to turn the mono sound on.

While tuned in to you favorite radio station, you can still use the phone’s other functionalities such as making and receiving calls, sending or receiving messages or playing games, if you minimize the radio display. But because it’s still a phone, your musical trip can get interrupted for a few seconds if you receive a call or a text message.

In addition to radio, you can stream music from websites if you have properly configured your phone for Internet use. However, when streaming, a link compatible to 3GPP must be found. Links to streams can be bookmarked for easy retrieval just as you bookmark links on a PC Internet browser. The phone’s Media Player also comes in very handy when you want to play music or video from your existing music or video files.

Don’t get it wrong, phone radio may not compare with the quality of music on your iPod or on your notebook’s or desktop PC’s Media Player. But then you don’t have to lug around these devices everywhere you go. There’s also nothing like listening to Kevyn Lettau’s Color of Love or David Benoit’s Song for a Stranger while waiting for a call or a text message on a dark, rainy evening.

The Bluetooth advantage

A lot has been said about the Bluetooth wireless technology. But what is the hype really all about? As a Bluetooth-enabled device, the K700i brings you the best in short-range wireless mobility.

Since most high-end handsets already supports synchronization of content such as mobile phone contacts, appointments, tasks and notes with desktop PCs, notebooks or PDAs and other handhelds via USB cable or infrared port, Bluetooth-enabled phones can be synchronized with other Bluetooth devices within a 10-meter (30-feet) radius.

Fact is your phone can "intelligently" communicate with other devices such as a wireless handset or another Bluetooth phone. You can, for example, exchange business cards, calendar entries or pictures and facilitate other forms of data transfer with a handheld or another phone. If you already have other Bluetooth-enabled devices such as a printer, you can print e-mail or text messages directly from your phone. But unlike IrDA or infrared, which requires that for devices to communicate with each other, they should be within the line of sight, Bluetooth is omni-directional and can transmit signals through walls or barriers, provided it is within the specified radius.

They say Bluetooth is the wave of the future and as its uses are increasingly realized in the digital world, its possibilities are still huge and wide open. Incidentally, Ericsson is one of the founders of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which developed Bluetooth as an open standard for short-range transmission of digital voice and data between mobile devices. Ericsson was also one of the first to take an interest in developing this evolving wireless personal area network (PAN).

Camera and video recorder

For a phone measuring only 99 x 46.5 x 19.5 mm, it has both a VGA camera and a video recorder. The phone makes it easy to switch to camera and video using the five-way joystick. Picture size can be the standard 160 x 120 or as large as 640 x 480. In the same way, video size can be as small as 128 x 96 or as large as 176 x 144. Frames and effects can enhance your digital photos. In addition to lighting and night mode, you can also opt to take your still shots and video clips in black and white, panorama, negative, sepia or solarized mode.

While relatively a newcomer in the mobile phone industry (Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications was established only in 2001 by telecommunications giant Ericsson and consumer electronics powerhouse Sony Corp.), Sony Ericsson camera phones draw their strength from Sony’s experience in digital photography, notably its powerful line of digital cameras – the top-selling Cyber-shot series. Sony is also a leader in the camcorder market and recently introduced a new line of handy DVD camcorders that can play back on most home PC DVD players and recent releases of Playstation2 game consoles.

Built to last

When your phone is new, you always think that it could last forever. But as by other digital gadgets, truth is, it could be eclipsed in a few month’s time by funkier models or bow out even before its time. But even in the fast-paced digital world, some things are made to last a little longer. You look at today’s fragile-looking mobile phones and you get a funny feeling that they wouldn’t survive your feisty two-year-old son or the rigors of your fast-paced, hectic life. Who can prevent cellphones, as extensions of our personalities, from joining the rat race if their owners are in the super-fast lane themselves?

I never had fears that my borrowed K700i would suffer this fate. My kids are past the stage when they can mistake my phone as a toy, and I really live a very mild and placid lifestyle to cause any trouble to my phone. And then one afternoon, while I was listening to Dionne Warwick’s I Say A Little Prayer, I accidentally tossed my phone into a bowl of water.

The headset still dangling from my ears, the phone went swimming into the water, rudely interrupting Warwick’s music and triggering all my panic buttons. It could have been the kiss of death for my K700i. Fortunately, my techie instincts got the better of me. I’ve had no real formal technical training but at least I do remember from reading techie books that "water plus battery equals short circuit." So, I opened the phone, removed the battery and took apart the phone as far as I could without any special tools and air-dried its electronic parts. For 48 hours, my K700i looked so miserably disentangled from its self and spread out under a desk lamp. My goal was to completely dry its tiniest components before I assembled them back.

This was complemented by a series of calls to the Sony Ericsson hotline for instructions on preventive techniques and more technical solutions for my trouble. Fortunately, customer service support for Sony Ericsson products in the Philippines is very strong. All service centers are also listed on the Sony Ericsson website, complete with addresses and contact numbers.

Kudos to the lady who had to take my first call and had to calm me down and give assurances that there was hope for my phone. Two days later, my phone was back to its former self and there were no traces at all of its brief swimming career.

In my last two days with my adopted K700i, I tried to maximize the use of my favorite feature – the radio. And I can’t help reflecting on Tamia’s popular tune Officially Missing You. "Hmmmmm....all I hear is raindrops...falling on the rooftop...Ooh baby tell me why do you have to go‚ cause this pain of leaving won’t go away and today I’m officially missing you..."

Yes, I’ll be missing this phone – its rich multimedia features, the camera and video recorder, and most especially, the music. "But I guess it is safe to say... safe to say... that (I’ll be) officially missing you."