Simple and functional, with a stylish design and affordable price tag, the Sony Ericsson K510i is the ideal phone for budget mobile users who need an affordable handset with all the basic features. The K510i is a great looking mobile phone with a little of everything. Unfortunately, this handset doesn't really excel in any area.



At first glance, the K510i could easily be mistaken for a high end mobile phone. The handset is available in two colours, a sophisticated and sleek midnight black or a trendsetting, stylish polished purple. The K510i is a compact candybar phone that is lightweight and quite comfortable to use. The large TFT display screen provides full colour resolution and the keypad is evenly spaced and easily distinguishable. The keys are somewhat small, which could be troublesome for users with large fingers and Sony has continued to use the fidgety joystick navigation found in earlier Ericsson handsets.

The Sony Ericsson K510i may look like a cutting edge mobile phone and it is loaded with features, but the feature line up is extremely basic. The camera, a 1.3 megapixel, is great for photo caller ID and capturing images and video for multimedia messaging, but there is no flash so photos in low light are useless. The camera does include a variety of fun imaging functions, including image warp and a picture editor.

The music player built into the K510i is typical of Sony Ericsson mobiles. It supports most common file types and sounds terrific. The K510i is not going to take the place of a dedicated mp3 player, however, because of the unfortunate lack of expandable memory. With only 28 Mb of internal memory and no card slots, you will be lucky to store more than 5 or 6 songs on the phone.

All the common productivity and personal organization tools are included on the K510i. A calendar, alarm clock with snooze, support for conference calling and email, and java games are all part of the feature line up. The K510i also features a wide range of connectivity options, including Bluetooth, USB, infrared, and fast port. Battery life is average and call clarity is quite clear.

It's quite clear that Sony Ericsson did not go all out with this model, but they have reached a level of comfort with their handset production where they can quickly produce a quality phone without too much sweat expended. In this case good enough is still good enough, but the competition is getting stiffer and Sony needs to look out.

Those looking for a superb camera phone or searching for a mobile with extended media capabilities should probably look elsewhere. If you want a great looking handset that is fun and easy to use, the K510i could be the phone for you. The Sony Ericsson K510i is stylish and compact and it is quite affordable. It may not have the best camera, memory is too limited for the K510i to be a very useful music player, but it is a terrific handset for those in need of the basics in a durable, quality mobile phone.