[Review] Sony Ericsson C905, The “Cameraphone”

Posted at December 27th, 2008 under Mobile Companies, Review, Sony Ericson | 1 Comment »

Currently considered to be the best camera phone from Sony Ericsson, C905 is a perfect music phone that comes loaded with Cyber-Shot Full Pack 8.0 MP Camera. Sure, it is more of a camera than a phone. Put in short, here is Sony Ericsson C905 for you!

Pros: 8-Megapixel camera with sharp camera performance and bright Xenon flash, excellent web browser, High speed connectivity options, Enhanced user interface with basic multi-tasking

Cons: 2.4” display is felt small for a cameraphone, Video recording feature isn’t amenable, No 3.5mm headphone socket, No front facing video call camera, No office document viewer

Peripheral Design

It is a slider intended to be used closed as a camera and opened as a phone (it can still act as a camera when opened). On the front, there are two shortcuts for Scenes and Shooting Modes (upper part) and two columns of three buttons on each side of the 5-way D-pad (bottom).

A 2.4″ scratch-resistant TFT display dominates the front panel. Above it, an ambient light sensor shares a stylish silvery rack with the earpiece. (No camera in the front). Above the display a pair of shortcut keys encloses the earpiece frame. The manufacturer calls them gaming/photo keys but they have more of an imaging application. The right key starts the image gallery, while the left one is used for opening the latest image. Alternatively, in camera mode they light in blue and are used for toggling Scene and Shoot modes.

The right side of the handset is the top side in digicam terms. It hosts the elevated volume rocker, which doubles as zoom lever when taking or browsing pictures, and all the camera controls.Halfway up the right side there are another couple of camera keys the dedicated camera mode switch and the Gallery button.

The left side of Sony Ericsson C905 hosts the regular Fast Port and the M2 memory card slot with protective cover.

The ‘Camera’ of the phone

The C905 is capable of maximum image resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels with average file size of about 2.5 MB. As a CyberShot phone, Sony Ericsson have borrowed technology and features extensively from their range of market leading digital cameras. The 8 MP AF camera in the C905 offers a wide range of features like

* face detection
* camera images geotagging
* smart contrast
* exposure metering
* image and video stabilizer
* auto-rotation
* red-eye reduction,
* Xenon and Photo Flash, etc.

Not only is this the first CyberShot phone with an 8 megapixel camera, it also brings back the xenon flash, which disappointingly was missing from its predecessor, the C902. Xenon flashes are considerably more powerful than LED flashes, and are used on “real” digital cameras

For more enhanced image viewing capability, the Media Center is also loaded with great number of features to use it as the best gallery. The first section in the Media Center is the Photo gallery. It consists of: Latest Photo, Camera Album, Photo Tags, Photo Feeds, and Pictures.

Latest Photo provides quick access to most recent photos. Camera Album is a thumb list for each month of the year. When a month is open, it reveals a 4×3 grid of thumbs of photos. Scrolling down shows all the photos taken in the corresponding month. The highlighted photo is a bit larger for better viewing. The Pictures section opens again as a 4×3 grid of thumbs with non-camera images, such as the preinstalled wallpapers. When exiting the full screen view of a picture, it smoothly zooms out to thumb view

User Interface

Sony Ericsson has set up a nice little interactive tool to explore the phone interface and features.

The first thing to mention is the main menu structure. Except the traditional 4 x 3 grid matrix, the main menu is perked up with a couple of alternative views: rotating and single icon view.

The rotating view shows three animated front icons on the display, the center one showing the active selection. The other two icons are half-hidden, just as an indication of what comes next. Five other menu icons can be seen in the dim background.

The icon view displays a single icon at a time and a vertical bar, which this time isn’t a simple position mapping graphic but features tiny icons for the other main menu entries.

The C905 features the well-known Activity menu. The Running Apps tab of this menu offers basic multi-tasking – for example you can run two Java applications and in the same time listen to the radio or music player. The Activity menu also offers quick access to recent events, the web and My Shortcuts menu, which contains a user-defined list of shortcuts to favorite features.

Excellent Browser

The Sony Ericsson C905 comes with an Access NetFront™ Internet browser which provides the user with mobile Internet access on their handset. Pages visualize correctly, the text shrinks to avoid the heavy horizontal scrolling, and pressing # activates the panning mode, which zooms out and lets you choose a different part of the page to read.

Wi-Fi Support

This augments the standard connectivity options of Bluetooth and USB. You can use the WiFi connection to connect wirelessly in WiFi hotspots. You can also easily move data between the phone and a PC equipped with WLAN. The C905 is also a 3G phone with HSDPA supporting data transfer speeds up to 3.6 Mbps. This is fast enough to enable near-broadband web browsing, file downloading and video streaming. You get a personal blog site with the phone, so you can use the 3G connection to upload photos and videos to your blog. Software is built into the phone to make it dead easy to blog or to send photos and videos to friends via MMS.

Contact Organiser : When adding a new contact, the available details are distributed over five available tabs. The first is where you put the name and the numbers, the second holds email and web addresses. The third is for assigning a picture, custom ringtone, custom message tone and a voice command. The fourth goes for postal details. The last, fifth tab, is for making an additional note and adding a birth date.

Messaging Along with the standard messaging functionality, Sony Ericsson C905 offers the latest Sony Ericsson Manage Messages feature, plenty of settings for accounts, and the option to assign categories to messages. The Manage Messages application enhances message handling. Messages can be moved to memory card or phone memory, arranged by categories, date, size, and contact.

Multimedia Sony Ericsson C905 is equipped with Music Player 3.0, which is almost the same as the Walkman player 3.0 seen in Sony Ericsson W980. The video player accommodated in the media center supports fast-forwarding and rewinding, Fullscreen player mode and screenshot capability, are some cool extras in the player. You can save a frame of video and add it to the gallery.

Miscellany

* A plus in the camera spec: There is a Java application called Camplus that lets you take time-lapse photographs of a sense at time intervals that you define, and also lets you take photos whenever any motion is detected within the camera’s field of vision.
* Better still is the DLNA compatibility, which lets the C905 communicate and share media with a variety of other home entertainment devices, such as a PlayStation 3. For example, you can wirelessly connect the C905 to a PS3, and using DLNA, use the PS3′s controller to browse through the C905′s videos (it records at 30 frames per second) and pictures, which are displayed on your TV.
* Google Maps is included, and a trial version of the Wayfinder Navigator software is bundled with the phone. This is more advanced than Google Maps, giving you turn-by-turn navigation, suitable for use in a car.
* The GPS also enables geo-tagging of photos, so you can identify exactly where your pictures were taken.
* Sony Ericsson C905 ships in a neat and simple box and the package contents are above the average. You get a charger, data cable, a simple non-detachable headset, 2GB M2 card, and extras as a wrist strap and a Sony Ericsson M2 USB adapter.

* The battery standby time is between 360 and 380 hours from a full charge
* Colour Variants: Night Black, Ice Silver (pictured) and Copper Gold.

On a closing note…

Even though it’s not a smartphone, C905 offers pretty much the very best you can get from a phone in 2008. Overall, the Sony Ericsson C905 is a very impressive looking mobile phone. Sony Ericsson has addressed most of the issues with the K850i and come up with a phone that feels good in the hand and does all the standard phone things well, but also boasts one of the best camera phones in the market.

Tags: 8 mega pixel, C905, Camera Phone, Review, Sony Ericsson