I’ve been using a Nokia 6020 for the past two years, but since it reached it’s expiration date about a month ago, I immediately grabbed the opportunity to become a Sony Ericsson owner – an aspiration of mine for quite a while now.

After thorough research and many comparisions, I got myself the K800i through an online shop – my first experience with online shopping. The K800i is marketed as a camera phone (with its 3.2 megapixel camera), but in fact it’s a brilliant, truly versatile smartphone. Except for occasional lagging (mostly when exititing some applications), the phone astounds me with its stability and wide range of features. Even more impressive is the phone’s ability to be extended – something that immediately got me playing around. In my search for the best ways to extend the phone’s capabilities (without hacking the firmware), I discovered quite a few interesting and handy tools for the K800i. I’m going to list them here, so, if you’re a K800i newbie, (hopefully) this will also be a great value to you.

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1. Syncronize your phone’s built-in calendar with your Google Calendar with GCalSync.

GCalSync is a really handy downloadable application for keeping your phone’s built-in calendar syncronized with your Google Calendar, or vice versa. It’s very easy to use and takes only a minute to configure. There are two things that still have room for improvement:

• GCalSync can only work with one Google Calendar. You can either enter your username and password (which is then automatically used to get your calendar), or you can manually enter the address of a Google Calendar. When making use of the former, GCalSync syncronizes with your Google account’s default calendar, so you’ll have to make sure that all the events (that you’d like syncronized with your phone’s calendar) are in your default calendar.

• All-day events (that start at 00:00 and end at 00:00) show up on the next day’s summary on your phone’s calendar as well. This is not a mayor problem, but it causes days that actually contain no events to display bold (indication that there are events) on the calendar screen, which can be a bit irratating.

Find out more about GCalSync on your computer at http://www.gcalsync.com. Visit http://wap.gcalsync.com from your phone to download the application.

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2. Turn your phone into a pocket measurement converter.

I was quite astounded to see that the phone didn’t come with a built-in converter. Maybe this was an isolated issue on my phone. If you too don’t have a converter by default, download the free one by Sony Ericsson. It features a nice graphical interface with a wide range of conversions, excluding currency. For details and download instructions, visit http://www.sonyericsson.com/fun/portal/#ts=1225789470094;promotionId=0;applstate=contentlisting.contentdetails;contentCategoryId=613;filterId=0;genreId=-1;startIndex=0;phoneId=10407;contentItemId=6143 from your computer.

Tip: To convert currency, simply Google ‘convert 1000 ZAR to USD’ (replacing the values with your own) from your phone to tap into Google’s brilliance.

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3. Manage your GMail from your phone with the GMail Mobile Application.

If you’re a GMail user, this is a must-have for mobile communication. Version 2 of the GMail Mobile Application was released recently. It allows you to write, read and manage your e-mail while travelling. The new version also supports checking e-mail from multiple accounts, which means that you can also check your Google Apps e-mail with the GMail Mobile Application. As part of the easy-to-use interface, you can also switch instantly between accounts.

Download the application from your phone at http://m.google.com/mail.

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4. Skype from your phone.

Skype has released a Beta of its Skype for Mobile application. Although phoning isn’t (yet) supported in South Africa, you can chat with online contacts, using the stylish interface.

Download the application from your phone at http://mobiledownload.skype.com.

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5. Use your phone as a mobile movie player.

If you’ve got a big enough memory card, you can convert movies to play them on your phone. Although watching Casino Royale on the small display doesn’t compare to watching it in the cinema, it’s better than nothing. Make sure you convert your movies to the 3GP format with a resolution of 320×240. You can do this using the SUPER converter – a brilliant piece of software – which comes with a built-in mode for Sony Ericsson conversions. Make sure you select the ‘3GP (Sony Ericsson)’ output mode. Also make sure that you set the output framerate to the same as the framerate of the movie you are converting (you can see this by double-clicking the movie in the file list in SUPER). Experiment with different settings to find the best quality/lowest filesize combination.

Download SUPER for your computer at http://www.erightsoft.net/S6Kg1.html (click the link near the bottom).

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These are, of course, only a few extensions. Feel free to add to the list.