Sony Ericsson's 5MP K850 Cyber-shot Cameraphone

Sony Ericsson K850

Sony Ericsson K850

Sony Ericsson K850

Today Sony Ericsson announced its latest, and very much greatest, cameraphone: the new Cyber-shot K850. The K850 brings even more true camera functionality to the world of cameraphones. The new 5 megapixel auto-focus camera has a real xenon flash and a lens cover that automatically retracts when the camera is activated with the dedicated shutter button. Another camera related boon is the QVGA resolution, 30 frame per second video clip recording capability.

Other camera features include Sony Ericsson's BestPic multi-shot capability and the new Photo Fix system for adjusting photo brightness levels with a single click. When the K850 is in camera mode, a number of icons on the keypad light up that quickly let the user know which keys access which functions in the camera, preventing unneeded menu navigation. The new pocket album application lets K850 owners quickly find photos based on when they were shot, as well as let them browse via thumbnails or full screen images like other devices.

Of course there is much more to the K850 than its camera functions. For starters, this world travelling phone supports not only supports quad-band GSM/EDGE, but it also can connect to UMTS and HSDPA data networks on all three bands used throughout the world: 850MHz, 1900MHz, and 2100MHz. That should let the device connect to pretty much any GSM or UMTS network in the world. Other network related goodies include the support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync over the air synchronization of data.

Like most of the current Sony Ericsson devices, the K850 supports stereo music playback and ships with a wired stereo headset. MP3 and other formats of music files can be stored in the 40MB of internal memory or in an external memory card. Amazingly, the K850 supports both Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards as well as the industry standard microSD memory cards. This should make a lot of people happy.

The K850 will be available in two color schemes when it ships in Q4 of this year: luminous green, and velvet blue. No information on pricing has been provided yet.