Should probably add that I upgraded my K700i firmware again; this time to R2AE033, and took advantage of the opportunity to flash it with an EU firmware (instead of Taiwan, which it came with). Naturally, you can’t do this via SonyEriccson’s online update service, but Davinci team‘s client did the trick nicely; did have to fork out just over 6 quid, but that’s ok.
Best of all, it’s got rid of the horrid **crrunch** noise that’s supposed to be a shutter. Just turn the ring volume down to 0, and the shutter noise goes away. It turns out that this is a function of ‘finalising’ the firmware upgrade, and not to do with the firmware version (this means you can also just do this without a firmware upgrade if you so desire).
The only downside is that it the process completely zaps the phone’s memory – all your settings, messages, music, pictures, phonebook, etc. get cleared. This was a shame as I hadn’t backed up some piccies I’d taken. Ah well – should’ve known better.
The new firmware feels a bit more responsive, and apparantly the battery life and bluetooth performance have improved, although I can’t say I’ve particularly noticed much change. Oh yes, and the camera software is meant to save less noisy images…