Sony Ericsson C905 Review

The C905 is the latest and greatest camera phone from Sony Ericsson. It is its flagship 8 MP shooter and an attempt to regain Sony Ericsson’s lost glory as a premium camera phone manufacturer. The Sony Ericsson K850 Cybershot had been bogged down by many problems and even lost the battle of the 5 MP’s to the Nokia N82 and now the Motorola ZN5. Sony Erisson released the C902 soon after and it bagged some rave reviews but it couldn’t do much to salvage the reputation of the giant. Now, with the C905, Sony Ericsson attempts to correct all that went wrong and to prove again that it is the king of camera phones. The C905 competes mainly with the Samsung INNOV8, the M8800 Pixon and the LG KC910 Renoir. It comes with a whole array of features, mostly camera centric like - Geotagging, Autofocus, Smart Contrast, Face detection, and Xenon flash. Nokia doesn’t seem to be interested in 8 MP camera phones as of yet.
In this review, we check out the new Sony Ericsson C905 see it Sony Ericsson has succeeded in making the successful comeback it was after.

Sony Ericsson C905 Specs:

Dimensions: 104 x 49 x 19.5 mm
Weight: 136 gms
Display: 2.4 inch TFT display, 256K colors, 240 x 320 pixels
Internal Memory: 160 MB
External Memory: 2 GB Memory Stick Micro M2 included, expandable to 8 GB
Connectivity: GPRS class 10, EDGE class 10, 3G HSDPA 3.6 MBps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with DLNA, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, USB v2.0
Camera: 8.1 MP camera ( 3264 x 2448 pixels ) with autofocus, face detection, smart contrast, xenon flash, Video Recording QVGA 30fps
Battery: Li-Po Battery 930 mAh (BST-38) with rated standby time - 380 hrs, talk time - 9hrs

Other Features: Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS, Google maps, Wayfinder Navigator software, Geotagging, Java MIDP 2.0, FM radio with RDS, TV out, MP3 / AAC / MPEG4 player, TrackID music recognition, Picture editor / blogging,

Design and Build Quality:

The Sony Ericsson C905 features a nice industrial design with great build quality. It has a very ergonomic feel, the designers at Sony Ericsson have definitely tried to do their best. At dimensions of 104 x 49 x 19.5 mm and with a weight of 136 gms, it isn’t very thin or light but that is excusable considering all the features and the heavyweight 8 MP camera Sony Ericsson has managed to fit in. It does seem a little fat compared to its wafer thin sibling the C902 and the Samsung M8800 Pixon we reviewed earlier and also the INNOV8 or the LG KC910 Renoir. However, except or the extra flab, there is nothing to complain about in the design of the C905.

It is made almost fully of plastic with some traces of metal. It has a good feel and grip. The build quality is great and feels very durable. The slider mechanism feels solid with a nice sliding action. The front face of the phone sports the 2.4 inch display with the ambient light sensor on top. Flanking the light sensor are two shortcut keys which control the imaging and camera application. Below the display, you find a relatively big D Pad and a 6 buttons lined nicely next to it - Left select, Right select, Call, End, Shortcuts and Clear. The D Pad is nice to operate and the buttons are good too.

In the slider, lies the standard keypad - the keys are amply spaced out and aren’t cramped at all. It is a decent keypad for SMS and email addicts. The tactile feedback offered is quite nice. The keypad is nicely backlit and is clearly visible even in the dark. The right side of the C905 sports the volume rocker, the shutter key, a camera mode button and a gallery button. The left side features the connectivity port and the memory card slot. The top is completely clean while the bottom has the speakers and a tiny lanyard eyelet. On the back of the phone lie the 8.1 MP camera with the Xenon flash, both hidden under a lens cover.

Display, Interface and Multimedia:

The Sony Ericsson C905 sports a 2.4 inch display supporting 256K colors and a native resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The display is totally non reflective. The display quality is superb with excellent brightness and contrast levels. The display is scratch resistant. The sunlight legibility is decent.

The C905 features the standard Sony Ericsson interface which is easy to use and very intuitive but with many performance and visual improvements like better fluid animations and transition effects. It features 3 different layouts like the standard Grid, Rotating and Single Icon layout.

The C905 comes with Music Player 3.0 which again is very easy to use and intuitive. It has loads of features like equalizer presets, stereo widening etc. It can also be minimized and be run in the background. The player supports playback of many formats including MP3, AAC, AAC+, EAAC +, WAV, WMA, M4A and MIDI etc,. The sound quality is nice and crisp and performs almost like a W series phone. The video player is also very nice and supports many features like full screen playback, fast forwarding, rewinding, in video screenshots, landscape mode etc. It also features a well thought gallery for viewing your multimedia files.

The C905 also sports a built in FM radio with RDS to get track and station info off a data network. Another nice feature is support for the TrackID feature you can use to identify and download songs. You can save upto 20 channels and autoscan them.

Camera:

The C905 sports a mammoth 8.1 MP camera which captures images in 3264 x 2448 pixels resolution. It features many features like autofocus, face detection, smart contrast, image stabilisation auto rotation etc. Of course the images captures are huge about 2-3 MB per image, but that’s the price we would happily pay for superb image quality. The camera interface is superb but doesn’t offer much new stuff, you would already have seen it in the K850 or C902. The Xenon flash works automatically and is a nice addition. The image quality is totally awesome and marks the entry of the C905 in the big league. The images produced are vibrant and the color reproduction is totally accurate. There is very little noise included in the images. The images are very detailed and almost perfect. It is as good as the Samsung INNOV8 if not better.

The C905 captures video at 30 FPS but only in QVGA resolution. This is a bit of a letdown, they should have included VGA recording at 30 FPS. The videos have superb quality and are saved in the MP4 format.

Other Aspects:

The Sony Ericsson C905 has nice call reception with absolutely no issues. The call quality is loud and clear. The built in loudspeaker is adquately loud. It is powered by a 930 mAh Li-Po Battery (BST-38) with a rated standby time of 380 hrs and a talk time of 9hrs. It should last for about 2 days easily with moderate usage.

The C905 sports a whole lot of connectivity options like GPRS class 10, EDGE class 10, 3G HSDPA 3.6 MBps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with DLNA, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, USB v2.0. The Wi-Fi reception is good and offers nice speeds. The C905 sports a revamped version of the Netfront browser which has improved greatly and offers a nice browsing experience. It also has a built in GPS receiver with AGPS for better tracking, it comes with Google Maps and Wayfinder Navigator which is used for guided navigation.

Pros:

Superb 8.1 MP Camera
Nice Design and Build Quality
Wi-Fi, AGPS and lots of features

Cons:

Slightly Bulky
QVGA video recording at 30 FPS

Conclusion:

The Sony Ericsson C905 is a superb phone with an awesome camera which is definitely near the top of the 8 MP lineup. It is also relatively very inexpensive compared to the Samsung INNOV8, its only real match which makes it all the more attractive. We will give it a Must Buy rating

Our Rating: 4.25 / 5.