Experineces of a new owner

[Guest Kippax]

OK I've had my Vario II for 3 or 4 months now and though I might pass on my opinions as a first time user of this device. (I'll keep it short)

Good points:

• Full Horizontal QWERTY keyboard
  
• MSN Messenger on it
  
• WMP as a mp3 player
  
• Ease of use/set up of email and all message services
  
  • The camera is bloody awful
    
  • Using the phone facility isn't exactly intuitive
    
  • Long connection time after dialling
    

  The good points are VV good, the bad points are just niggles really. So on balance I quite like it.

  With one exception..... the camera.... serious let down.

  The images are very dark and the contrast seems very high. It may be 2MP, but the quality doesn't even approach that of my previous 1.3MP SE. The most annoying thing is the processing software has some sort of edge enhancer. So if you take wider, longish range photos the image appears almost animated as it has a line drawn around it and the high contrats removes any subtleties in colour differences. For close up stuff, in anything other than really good daylight the images are always underexposed. I've played around with the exposure settings and it is possible to improve things slightly, but still far from impressive.

  Has anybody got any tips about these problems ? Like I said, I'm new to it so there might be improvements I've not heard of.

  The one thing I'm not sure I could live with out after having had a Vario II is the horizontal operation combined with the keyboard. Absolute genius of an idea fro SMSing and MSNing.

  Appreciate any tips....

[Guest llch_81]

[*]Full Horizontal QWERTY keyboard

[*]MSN Messenger on it

[*]WMP as a mp3 player

[*]Ease of use/set up of email and all message services

You should try the core media player... it's even better! :)

Bad Point:

• The camera is bloody awful
  
• Using the phone facility isn't exactly intuitive
  
• Long connection time after dialling
  

The good points are VV good, the bad points are just niggles really. So on balance I quite like it.

With one exception..... the camera.... serious let down.

The camera is actually quite good you know, you need to set the quality to "fine" and voila it is quite nice. Seems abit unfair to compare it to SE as you know, sony manufactures cybershots, HTC don't... =) One of the few phone cameras with Macro mode! =)

Check out my pic taken on the macro mode... It's reasonably decent if you ask me...

Pic

I've updated to AKU 3.3 Rom and the long connection time is more or less settled...

[Guest Kippax]

You should try the core media player... it's even better! ;)

The camera is actually quite good you know, you need to set the quality to "fine" and voila it is quite nice. Seems abit unfair to compare it to SE as you know, sony manufactures cybershots, HTC don't... =) One of the few phone cameras with Macro mode! =)

Check out my pic taken on the macro mode... It's reasonably decent if you ask me...

Pic

I've updated to AKU 3.3 Rom and the long connection time is more or less settled...

Why should it be an unfair comparison.... at the end of the day... its a mobile devise with a camera and comparing one particular feature with that on a SE W900, which is another mobile device with a camera, is perfectly valid if you ask me.

Trust me, having had both, the camera on the Vario II is pretty pants. (And I haven't even mentioned the shutter lag.... its more like "time slip"). I would show you comparative shots, but not sure I have piccies in similar enough circumstances for it to be worthwhile. The edge enhancer really is bad, whoever had that idea wants shooting.

As for the core media player, where might I check it out ? What advantages does it have over WMP, which to be honest I am now starting to find a little clumsy ?

Edited February 21, 2007 by Kippax

[Guest richard_d]

OK I've had my Vario II for 3 or 4 months now and though I might pass on my opinions as a first time user of this device. (I'll keep it short)

...

With one exception..... the camera.... serious let down.

The images are very dark and the contrast seems very high. It may be 2MP, but the quality doesn't even approach that of my previous 1.3MP SE. The most annoying thing is the processing software has some sort of edge enhancer. So if you take wider, longish range photos the image appears almost animated as it has a line drawn around it and the high contrats removes any subtleties in colour differences. For close up stuff, in anything other than really good daylight the images are always underexposed. I've played around with the exposure settings and it is possible to improve things slightly, but still far from impressive.

Has anybody got any tips about these problems ? Like I said, I'm new to it so there might be improvements I've not heard of.

The one thing I'm not sure I could live with out after having had a Vario II is the horizontal operation combined with the keyboard. Absolute genius of an idea fro SMSing and MSNing.

Appreciate any tips....

If you set the sharpness and contrast to 1 you do get a marked improvement - not perfect but far better. Irritatingy though both settings are lost after a soft reset, reverting to the hideous over-sharpening and too much contrast.

Richard