[Eug]

Final Fantasy Bluetooth transfer and playback on K790i

Monty Python video playback on K790i

[ghporter]

Damn, Eug! Now if my eyes were up to watching stuff on that size screen...

How much storage does that thing have, anyway? A kazillion gigabytes?

[Apfhex]

Originally Posted by Eug

Monty Python video playback on K790i

Aweeesome. The 240x320 screen looks nice and playback looks smooth. What settings did you encode the video with? I've found playback on my W810i to be kind of choppy (of course the K790 probably has more power for this sort of thing).

Originally Posted by ghporter

How much storage does that thing have, anyway? A kazillion gigabytes?

LOL. 64MB internal and the biggest M2 (memory stick micro) I've seen is 1GB.

BTW if you get a K790 and want to use Front Row, you can do the same thing I did here using the Front Row enabler and a simple HID file created with SE's Bluetooth Remote Control Tool

[Timo]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Now I'm considering the Nokia N73:

I bought this phone last week after I misplaced my old 6600. It's pretty nice. I think the consensus I saw on howard is that SE phones are better with pictures, but perhaps the nokia has the edge otherwise.

[Timo]

Hmm...maybe it was your posts at HoFo.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ghporter

Damn, Eug! Now if my eyes were up to watching stuff on that size screen...

How much storage does that thing have, anyway? A kazillion gigabytes?

It comes with a near useless 64 MB Memory Stick Micro M2 card, plus it has 70ish MB built-in free.

I'm still waiting for my 1 GB M2 to arrive.

Originally Posted by Timo

Hmm...maybe it was your posts at HoFo.

Yeah, I had some N73 vs. K790 posts there.

Originally Posted by Apfhex

Aweeesome. The 240x320 screen looks nice and playback looks smooth. What settings did you encode the video with? I've found playback on my W810i to be kind of choppy (of course the K790 probably has more power for this sort of thing).

Yeah, one of the big reasons I got the K790 was because the screen rez on the W810 is too low, and the playback capabilities aren't quite there yet.

I just used Handbrake set at a max width of 320. The height just depends on the aspect ratio of the movie.

I used Handbrake's Constant Bitrate setting with MPEG4. It's a bit of trial and error, since different movies encode at different bitrates, but the setting is usually between 80 and 92 percent. Including 96 Kbps audio, I try to keep the total bitrate between 325 and 425 Kbps. Above that video will sometimes stutter when played on the phone.

The bitrate for the Monty Python stuff is low though, because of my memory limitation. I needed to keep it under 60 MB, for half an hour. Ideally it should be about 80+ MB for half an hour for better quality, but that won't fit on either my phone's built-in memory or my memory stick.

When that 1 GB stick arrives, I'll be putting whole movies on it. It's about 300 MB for a 100-120 minute movie. Or at least I'll put tons of Monty Python episodes on it. There are a bunch I haven't seen in a very long time, but haven't had time to watch. This will be perfect when I'm waiting for people in the car or whatever.

BTW if you get a K790 and want to use Front Row, you can do the same thing I did here using the Front Row enabler and a simple HID file created with SE's Bluetooth Remote Control Tool

Interesting, but I gave up on Front Row Enabler, because it wreaked havoc with the menubar icons. Is it better now?

[Eug Wanker]

Came across this today and took a pic at 1 MP for a picture message. The rope I set up for rock climbing just happened to fall right over this plaque.

Click to enlarge:



The original 1280x960 288 MB pic is unaltered, straight from the camera.

[Apfhex]

Originally Posted by Eug

Interesting, but I gave up on Front Row Enabler, because it wreaked havoc with the menubar icons. Is it better now?

No problems at all for me. Can't tell I ever used it (except that I have Front Row now).

[slugslugslug]

2 questions for K790 owners:

1) Can you use the camera while a Java app is running? (answer is no on my K750i)
2) Eug, how's the keypad treating you?

[Hornet]

The K790 love continues in this forum hey Just wanted to add a quick note - I've been using the blogger functionality on our phones and damn its cool. Very quick uploads too via my K800 (3g, so naturally quick speeds). Viewing on the phone is pretty cool. I wouldnt say the browser is SUPER fast, but in comparison to everything else phone related I've seen it is. I'd like safari 2.x speeds on my phone but hey maybe another year!

As Eug has pointed out, the image sensor on the K790/800 *loves* good lighting. While I find the flash beefy and great for lighting up dark places, it still makese much much better looking pictures when there is a lot of available light.

My 1gb M2 should be in tomorrow - friggin store quoted me 2 days... tomorrow will be nearly 2 weeks! bleh

Oh and on ebay I bought a car charger, 3.5mm headphone socket breakout, and case for the low low price of ~$10 USD inc shipping from HK (to sydney). The case sucked, but the car charger is appreciated. Though the phone seems to lie when being charged by it - it'll charge way to quickly (5 minutes it'll go from 8% to 51%), but upon being removed the phone will update to a more reasonable 23% charge. Hence dont believe what it says when powered by a cheapo charger.

[Eug Wanker]

The phone charges super slowly via USB too.

It charges quickly with the standard AC charger though.

P.S. I can cause my iMac to kernel panic if I plug the phone in via USB, set the phone to phone mode, and then unplug it. How do I eject the phone in phone mode?

If I put the phone in file transfer mode, a drive icon shows up for me, which I can then eject, but that doesn't show up in phone mode. What's annoying though is for file transfer mode, if I do eject the phone, the phone will reappear after a few seconds. So to unplug it, I have to eject it, and then unplug it within a second before the icon reappears. Strange.

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

2 questions for K790 owners:

1) Can you use the camera while a Java app is running? (answer is no on my K750i)
2) Eug, how's the keypad treating you?

1) Not sure, but the photo button is nonfunctional in the the few Java apps I tried.

2) The buttons are not quite as bad as I feared because the tops of the buttons are more raised than the bottoms, making it easier to differentiate the buttons from one another. However, it still is a far cry from the buttons on my T610. I much prefer the T610's keypad layout.

[ghporter]

Apparently the phone has a low power-draw mode for charging from a computer, and will pull whatever the AC adapter provides for charging that way. Interesting, if not completely user friendly.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

P.S. I can cause my iMac to kernel panic if I plug the phone in via USB, set the phone to phone mode, and then unplug it. How do I eject the phone in phone mode?

If I put the phone in file transfer mode, a drive icon shows up for me, which I can then eject, but that doesn't show up in phone mode. What's annoying though is for file transfer mode, if I do eject the phone, the phone will reappear after a few seconds. So to unplug it, I have to eject it, and then unplug it within a second before the icon reappears. Strange.

Those modes are new, at least compared to K750i. Is Phone Mode intended for allowing you to use the phone as a modem? Or is there more to it?

Also have you tried K750iGrabber? It's a kext that prevents unplugging a K750i from KPing a Mac by disabling some USB driver (I think the modem one). If you don't use Phone Mode, K750iGrabber may rescue you.

Of course I'm too lazy to look it up, since I don't have a K790 to test it with..

1) Not sure, but the photo button is nonfunctional in the the few Java apps I tried...

What happens if you have a Java app running and you just slide open the lens cover? Does it say something like "currently unavailable"?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

What happens if you have a Java app running and you just slide open the lens cover?

Nothing.

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

Is Phone Mode intended for allowing you to use the phone as a modem?

Not sure actually. I guess it's time to read the instructions.

[Eug Wanker]

Review: SE K800i better than Nokia N73, Nokia N93, and LG KG920

[Eug]

I now have the K790a, with the 850 band.

For voice here in Toronto, it makes no difference in reception. However, it seems more consistent for EDGE. The K790a stays on EDGE, whereas the K790i may drop to GPRS depending on the location.

Otherwise the phones are identical.

[workerbee]

I've been using my K800i for a week now, and it really is a great phone.
I have to wonder if the firmware is already stable, though, as the first K800 crashed irrevocably within two hours -- it's been exchanged without any questions by the shop, as no-one was able to bring it back to life (it continually rebooted into a white screen, probably what seems to be known as "white screen of death").
Apart from that, and a short frightful moment when I crashed my second K800 into a white screen (removing the battery cured it), I'm really happy with it: I really like the UI, the address book has all the entries I always wished for, bluetooth works just fine, photo quality is acceptable... and I'll probably even eventually understand iTuneMyWalkman and get it to work.

[Eug]

My K790i crashed once in 3 weeks, but it was fine afterwards. I haven't had my K790a long enough to know.

There are rumours of a firmware upgrade coming very soon.

[hungrycheetah]

I've been reading alot about the k790 and want it realllyy bad. If i was to buy one off the internet then can cingular be my provider even though they don't offer the phone yet? if not then is there some provider that would? Also where can i buy one off the internet? I've been looking around on the net deperately for this info and can't find it anywhere!!! So if anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated. oh yeah and one last question. If i was to get the k790a then would i be able to use it in europe? i travel to finland and sweden every summer so it would be nice to use my own phone. thanks

[slugslugslug]

mobileplanet.com tends to have decent prices for all sorts of phones, considering we're talking about phones that are insanely expensive in the first place. I think mobilebee.com will sell you a phone with service if you don't have a provider, meaning you get a subsidized price on the phone. I'm under the impression that the K790a would be a bad idea in Europe because of the lack of the 900 MHz band. On the other hand, the K790i could work OK in the U.S. because at least T-Mo seems to have enough 1900 coverage to make up for the phone's lack of 850. Some folks have said the same for Cingular.

At any rate, it'd be a good idea to read a lot on Howardforums.com to make sure you know what frequencies you need before getting a phone.

[Landos Mustache]

Originally Posted by workerbee

Apart from that, and a short frightful moment when I crashed my second K800 into a white screen (removing the battery cured it), I'm really happy with it.

I'm getting a bit worried with first gen ROMS from Sony.

my brand new w600 had a white screen 5 hours after I bought it and it was DEAD. I exchanged it and 2 months later the next one has another white screen. It had to get serviced and that fixed it but it took 3 weeks.

With the new ROM update that recently came out it hasn't had a problem yet but I am not holding my breath.

I remember the 700 series also had poor battery life when they shipped and slow menues which seems to be the norm with 1.0 ROMS.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by hungrycheetah

I've been reading alot about the k790 and want it realllyy bad. If i was to buy one off the internet then can cingular be my provider even though they don't offer the phone yet? if not then is there some provider that would? Also where can i buy one off the internet? I've been looking around on the net deperately for this info and can't find it anywhere!!! So if anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated. oh yeah and one last question. If i was to get the k790a then would i be able to use it in europe? i travel to finland and sweden every summer so it would be nice to use my own phone. thanks

Yes, everyone says the K790 works great with Cingular.

The K790a is the best phone to get for Cingular. Cingular relies heavily on the 850 band in some areas.

However, for Europe, the K790i is preferred, since it has the 900 band. Certain countries in Europe depend heavily on the 900 band. There's also the K800i which supports UMTS (but not EDGE).

Originally Posted by Landos Mustache

I'm getting a bit worried with first gen ROMS from Sony.

my brand new w600 had a white screen 5 hours after I bought it and it was DEAD. I exchanged it and 2 months later the next one has another white screen. It had to get serviced and that fixed it but it took 3 weeks.

With the new ROM update that recently came out it hasn't had a problem yet but I am not holding my breath.

I remember the 700 series also had poor battery life when they shipped and slow menues which seems to be the norm with 1.0 ROMS.

The new K790 MR1 release (maintenance release 1) is due out in less than 2 weeks, and it is said to address most of the major bugs with the R1CC003 firmware in current K790 units.

However, I must say this phone is pretty good as is. Its firmware is certainly more mature than my K700i's was when it came out.

I have no issues with slow menus on this phone, but then again it's got a MUCH faster CPU than the K750 from what I gather.

[slugslugslug]

Are you gonna run SEUS on your MacBook? I keep thinking about putting the latest firmware on my K750i, but I'm afraid to run SEUS via VPC on my G5 iMac (I've heard stories), and I never feel like borrowing someone else's computer for such nonsense.

Also, few more things I forgot to ask: Salling Clicker? USB 2.0 transfer speeds via data cable?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

Are you gonna run SEUS on your MacBook?

Maybe, unless I use my PC at work. The update should be out in a couple of weeks. I may have to use my PC, because currently my MacBook has Vista installed.

Also, few more things I forgot to ask: Salling Clicker?

Haven't tried it.

USB 2.0 transfer speeds via data cable?

I don't remember. I use a memory card reader for the M2 card, and Bluetooth for the phone. Bluetooth is about 55+ KB/s.

Using the USB cable is annoying, because when I eject the phone, it comes back within 2 seconds. I have to unplug the phone right in that 2 second window. Once when I just unplugged the phone without ejecting it first in OS X, it caused a kernel panic.

[workerbee]

Originally Posted by Eug

Using the USB cable is annoying, because when I eject the phone, it comes back within 2 seconds. I have to unplug the phone right in that 2 second window. Once when I just unplugged the phone without ejecting it first in OS X, it caused a kernel panic.

Hmmm... hoping to find a solution (as usual on this great board), I just arrived here after a reboot (Finder crash), having used USB to transfer MP3 files to the K800.
USB connections in file transfer mode used to work fine until today. Now there's a new 1GB MC2 card inside the phone that appears as a separate volume on my desktop. This volume could not be unmounted, even after logging out, so I guess there's some .kext activity going on somewhere. Probably time to try out K750iGrabber.

Edit: a second time around, I was able to eject the 1GB card volume, but not the mounted phone volume. This did not crash the Finder, although it did complain about "not unmounted properly" blabla.

[Eug]

I just use a memory card reader for my 1 GB M2 card. I've good luck with the Apacer Mega Steno readers. They go for about US$15.

My SanDisk reader doesn't seem to like M2, and my Lexar is hit and miss depending on what Mac I use.

P.S. There is a new R1EB004 firmware coming soon for the K790. It's the first major maintenance release (MR1). Hopefully it will address this issue. I'm not sure what the new K800i firmware will be though.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by damiensmunki

Does anyone here have any experience with the SE K790a? Looks like a great phone. It's not listed on the iSync compatibility list, but I'm hoping it's because the phone is so new. I thought all SE phones were compatible with iSync. Also...cnet.com says it can be used as a bluetooth modem and has a stereo bluetooth profile. The only problem is that it's tri-band, not quad-band. Operates at 850/1800/1900 MHz. Don't really know what this will affect, but Cingular is supposed to begin carrying it soon, so I guess it'll work for me. Any thoughts? Experience?

http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_Ericsso...6.html?tag=sub

If you're staying in North America, then triband 850/1800/1900 is perfectly fine, since North America is strictly 850 and 1900. It becomes problematic it certain areas of Europe and Asia, since some carriers make a lot of use of the 900 band. Most do support the 1800 band however.

As for iSync, you can use 3rd party plugins:

Here's one that costs 1.49 UK Pounds.

Here's one that is free.

[workerbee]

[deleted... finally looked at the manual]

[allexsimmons]

Finally Got my k790a from amazon.





more pics on my Flickr acount.

[callous]

Few days back I bought a Sony Ericsson K790i but I couldn't connect it to computer using USB cable. The driver in the CD doesn't work. Where can I find a driver for the USB cable?

[asodamiac]

This phone has been out for a couple of months now, so is there any chance that a carrier will pick it up? I've been looking for a new phone recently and once I saw the K790a, I fell in love almost instantly! I'd definitely pick one up if it wasn't for the hefty $400 + price tag. If a carrier picked it up, I'm sure a 2 year plan would drop down the price significantly. Is there any chance of Cingular or another carrier adding this phone to their line up?

I'm willing to wait until early next year, but I'm tired of my phone now

[Dark Helmet]

I saw the copper colour k790a and it looks really nice.

[asodamiac]

Is it likely that the k790a will be available with a carrier sometime soon?

[Mastrap]

I got one today - I am ditching the Blackberry. Too bulky and I don't need access to all of my emails all of the time.
So far I am really impressed.