Sony Ericsson C905 Cybershot

Sony Ericsson’s 8 megapixel camera phone, the C905 Cybershot, made its way into our labs just recently and it has a few neat surprises in store for SE fans. Allow me to give you my impression on the latest Cybershot camera phone that’s hit the shelves.

Form Factor
While at first sight the C905 may come off as a bit bulky, weighty and thick (18mm), it however does have that feel good factor that will immediately take away all doubt of it being something one would construe to be an uncomfortable-to-use handset. It also weighs in at just 136g. The 2.4-inch TFT LCD display sports a 240 x 320 pixel resolution with 262K colors. Just above the display, on either side of the earpiece are shortcut keys for quick access to various camera settings. A secondary camera is located in between. The five way nav pad also has camera shortcuts that become available when in camera mode. The other keys are quite generic to Sony Ericsson handsets – Call Answer and End, two open keys, a Cancel/Delete key and access to the shortcut menu.

The C905 is a brilliantly smooth slider phone with a well designed keypad that’s large enough to accommodate even stubby fingers like my own. The keys themselves are well placed and space is utilized to the fullest. On one side of the handset are the volume/zoom keys, shortcut to the gallery, camera mode switcher (video to still) and the camera’s shutter release. An M2 card slot and SE’s proprietary port are located on the other side. The speaker and strap loop are at the bottom.

What really appealed to me was the camera, that’s very neatly hidden by a sliding panel at the rear. The bottom portion actually moves inside to accommodate the top. Just slide the silver panel down (smooth) and voila, an 8 megapixel camera lens with a Xenon flash is revealed.

What I’d also like to talk about are the goodies that are included in the packaging. Apart from the 2GB M2 card that accompanies the handset is a sleek memory card reader for the same (swivel design). SE has also finally answered our pleas to do away with their one-port-for-all system. The port is still present of course, but the charger now has a secondary port built in for plugging in the handsfree whilst the handset charges. It’s well designed and I haven’t been ‘shocked’ so far, in case you’re wondering.

So much for the design and box content, I’d say it does really well in the looks department.
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Features and Performance
Interface and Misc. Features
There’s absolutely nothing at all that’s new or improved with the SE interface. The only difference you’ll see is the addition of the Location Services icon in the main menu. The C905 has an accelerometer that of course, works only in specific menus like the Media menus (video and audio player) and while accessing web pages, though not when you switch back to the menu for selecting Bookmarks, settings etc. You’ll have to keep flipping it around. It’s not universal to all screens. The rotation itself is not always very consistent and sometimes tends to take a couple of seconds to adjust. Navigating the menus however is smooth and there’s no lag at all, which is quite perplexing considering the rotation issue.

All the regular features are present and accounted for including a Stopwatch, Timer, Calculator, Calendar, notes etc. SE has also included a few freebie apps - AccuWeather to get the latest weather updates for the region you’re in; Photo Mate which gives users hints and tips on being a better photographer; a 3D World Clock and a slide show Wall.

Media
Once again there’s no real difference between the C902 or the C905 or most other higher end SE handsets when it comes to media. Media features include the usual editing applications for images, videos and of course MusicDJ to create your own ringtones. It has a built-in voice recorder and a Bluetooth remote for PC control and TrackID is very evident for getting music information either from the integrated FM radio (that has decent reception) or music playing through an external source. 3 preloaded games that include Tennis, Chess and Need for Speed (sadly none support playing in landscape mode) are tossed in for a bit of entertainment. You can also download other Java games.

The Audio capabilities of the handset are by far the best I’ve experienced in Sony Ericsson handsets, including some of the Walkman series. It supports MP3/AAC/MPEG4 playback. The bass-line is superb with almost no distortion even when the volume is at peak. Tones are well rounded and clear with good dynamic range in the sound.

The player allows you to choose from EQ presets or you can manually customize the 5 band graphic EQ to your preference. The Stereo Widening option opens up the range a bit for a better audio experience. There are options for downloading Podcasts as well. I was quite happy that the handsfree came with normal earphones and were not the in-ear type. Video playback looks really good on the 2.4-inch screen and the Resume feature is always great to have when you’re interrupted while watching a video or listening to music. It also has a TV Out feature for which you’ll need to purchase the required cables.

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Connectivity
The C905 supports GPRS/EDGE and is also 3G ready (HSDPA 3.6Mbps). The browser is fast enough but I’d recommend downloading Opera mini as well. The handset also has support for IM and Push email but what I didn’t like was the setting up of the same. If you’ve never done it before, you’ll have to get the information off the net. Click here for the settings. However, even after I got the new settings I kept getting the ‘Cannot connect to server’ error constantly. There don’t seem to be any settings available for IM on the same site. You’ll have to contact your operator. Hopefully that will prove fruitful.

Wi-fi makes browsing and running all other net applications a lot faster. It also supports DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) that allows you to connect to other such devices like Sony’s PS3 to swap images etc. That didn’t work out even after a lot of trying. Stereo Bluetooth will allow you to use stereo Bluetooth headsets for wireless audio streaming which I highly recommend, considering the handset’s audio capabilities. SE’s PlayNow application is also present for downloading various forms of entertainment (ringtones, music, games etc.) for your handset and the RSS reader comes in handy for keeping track of all your favorite sites with instant updates.

GPS
The C905 is equipped with an internal GPS receiver that supports A-GPS. Google Maps are preloaded as well. I was not too thrilled with the Wayfinder Navigator 7 application as I personally didn’t find it as user friendly as either Route 66 or even SatGuide used in some WinMob devices and others. It’s just a wee bit slow due to the fact that it doesn’t store maps on the handset or the memory card but instead updates your routes on the go so to speak.

It has options for 3D map display and pedestrian mode for walking. I could have used a little more data on the points of interest that could have been preloaded. The application does manage to find Wi-Fi hot-spots when in a certain range of the same. An area with low network poses a bit of a problem though. But it gets the job done without too many hassles.

The handset’s Geo-Tagging facility will allow you to take pictures with the camera and show you exactly where the images were taken by pinpointing the location on Google Maps. One of the biggest problems was the lack of an uploading application for images. The only pre-loaded option is to connect to e-Blogger and the option to create an entry for an email address for which you’ll require to have MMS settings actively installed. A pre-installed version of something like Shozu would have been very helpful. You can of course do it manually from the site.

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Camera
It was a real pleasure using the C905’s 8MP camera. However, once again I found that although I had easy access to all the features I would require, the lack of too many of these is what was a bit disappointing. Though unlike the INNOV8’s wider range of options and settings, the C905 is still quite decently equipped with features that include Face detection and SmartContrast that is handy depending on the conditions you’re shooting in. It doesn’t have an auto-stitch Panorama Mode so getting those images together are sometimes quite a task.

Quick access to scene modes and shooting modes makes it a little faster for capturing those spontaneous moments. The only problem is, it takes about 3-4 seconds for the camera to activate after the lens cover is lowered. But let me give you an idea on the actual quality of the images taken.

Images in normal daylight conditions look really good with a lot of the details and fine lines retained. The colors may look just a little bit off but only on extremely close scrutiny.

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In Macro Mode you’ll be able to get really up close and personal with the subject with the details again remaining very evident. Colors look pretty good in this mode as well.

Night mode is quite impressive. The image below was taken without keeping the camera on a steady surface and on a timer. The amount of grain and noise is evident as you’d find with all other camera phones but the amount of blur is very clearly much lower than any other phone I’ve owned or used.