Sony Ericsson C905 Review

The C905 is the first Sony Ericsson phone to break the 8 megapixel camera barrier, and launches in the UK in the second half of October.

The C905 is a slide design phone, unlike the classic-shaped Sony Ericsson C902, and is quite a bit thicker and heavier than the 5 megapixel C902. It's still smaller than its arch-rival, the Nokia N96 though. It's available in a choice of colours: Night Black, Ice Silver (pictured) and Copper Gold. We've got to say that it's a very nice-looking phone, with a distinctive Sony Ericsson style - both square and curved at the same time!

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, so it's nice to see that feature restored in the C905. It means that night photography is much less likely to end up as a murky blob (unless you were pointing the camera at a murky blob, of course.) There are so many settings and options on the C905's camera, that it can take quite a while to work out how to use it at its best - it will certainly appeal to keen camera buffs - but on the other hand all of these tools and gadgets make it easier to get a good photo even if you don't understand the principles of photography. As a CyberShot phone, Sony Ericsson have borrowed technology and features extensively from their range of market leading digital cameras. The camera has autofocus with face detection, plus an image stabiliser and red-eye reduction. A new feature introduced in the C905 is Smart Contrast, which automatically balances light and colour (a bit like the Auto Levels option in PhotoShop.) If you're still not confident of getting a decent shot with all this stuff helping you out, then BestPic™ will automatically take a series of 7 pictures, so that you can choose the best one!

Of course there will always be someone keen to point out that just having 8 megapixels and a load of gadgets doesn't make a camera that can rival a dedicated digital camera. That's true of course, and Sony aren't going to destroy the digital camera market with the release of this phone. However, if you have a camera this good built into your mobile, then we think that you'll be pretty satisfied with the results. Buy an expensive digital camera if you want to get the best possible quality by all means, but this beauty can match many of the mid-range cameras currently on the market.

As well as the 8 megapixel camera, there are a whole load of goodies packed inside the phone. Assisted GPS is a new addition, and it means that you can use the C905 for satellite navigation, either as a pedestrian or on the road. 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.

A fully functional media player is included, even though this isn't a Walkman phone. The media player will play music in MP3 and AAC formats, and is a well featured iPod substitute, supporting album art, playlists and high quality stereo sound. You can listen to music through the integrated speakers or using a stereo headset or a Bluetooth wireless stereo headset. Other music-related features include TrackID, which can identify a recorded song by track, artist and album. PlayNow lets you download premium content such as ringtones, although you have to pay for these.

The built-in memory isn't huge, at 160 Mbytes, but is adequate, and you can add a Memory Micro Stick to increase storage up to 8 GB - enough for 2,000 MP3 tracks.

As well as the usual features that you'd expect from a high calibre phone, there are a few new things that Sony Ericsson have introduced into the C905. The mobile email experience has been improved with Exchange ActiveSync, which synchronises with your Microsoft Exchange mail server. The auto rotate feature switches the display between portrait and landscape mode when you turn the phone around - great for photos and videos.

Another feature that got us quite excited is the addition of WiFi 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.

The C905 is pretty much what we were hoping it to be. The guys from Sony Ericsson must have intercepted the letter we sent to Santa! If there's one thing we would have liked to change, it would have been the amount of built-in memory.