By Kaloyan Stoychev and Michell Bak, 3rd of January 2009.
On paper, Sony Ericsson aims high with its latest 8-megapixel
Cyber-shot phone, the C905. It’s the first product from the
Japanese/Swedish venture to sport such a high resolution camera, and,
if you ask us, also the first capable of competing with the standalone
compact camera. In addition to this, the C905 features built-in GPS,
and is also Sony Ericsson’s first feature phone to include WLAN. Mix
that up with Sony Ericsson’s excellent user interface and a slightly
updated set of organizer applications, and you’ve got yourself a mighty
fine, albeit heavy and large, phone for the masses.
In this review we’ll be focusing mostly on what’s new in the C905
compared to other recent Sony Ericsson phones. If you’ve got a question
about the C905 or feel like we’re missing important parts of the
review, please let us know either by contacting us or submitting a
comment. Having said that, you should be able to find an answer to most
questions somewhere on the site, whether it is in posts or other
reviews.
Official product pictures of the Sony Ericsson C905
Advantages
Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
UMTS / HSDPA 2100 (tri-band for the US), up to 3.6 Mbps
Bluetooth 2.0 including A2DP and EDR
Overall good build quality
Bundled 2 GB memory card
2.4-inch large scratch-resistant TFT display
Improved user interface, messaging and organizer applications
8-megapixel camera with auto focus, xenon flash, and lots of features
Built-in A-GPS with WayFinder Navigator software
WLAN (802.11b/g) with DLNA support
TV-out functionality
Disadvantages
No HSUPA support
No front facing video call camera
Mediocre battery performance
Heavy weight and large dimensions
Camera lens cover
Annoying lanyard eyelet
Limited video recording
Sony Ericsson’s current portfolio shows a few phones that are
similar to the C905 - the G705 and its music-loving sister, W705. None
of these are camera-centric offerings though, hence the poorer camera.
In addition to this, the W705, unlike the G705, lacks a built-in GPS.
If we take a broader look at the market, only the Samsung Innov8 comes
to mind as a very similar product. However, the Innov8 is a smart
phone, meaning it’ll trump the C905 in some areas, such as web
browsing, while falling behind in other aspects.
The C905 comes in a pretty standard box. Quite a pity, as this is a
high-end product, and therefore should project that feeling from the
moment you get your hands on the sales box. In the box you’ll find the
following (depending on region and operator):
Sony Ericsson C905
Charger
USB cable
Stereo headset
Memory Stick Micro USB adapter (CCR-70)
Strap
Software CD
Manual, brochures, etc.
That’s not bad at all for a product in this price range.
Large is a bit of an understatement
Let’s face it; the C905 is not going to win any design awards, but
nonetheless it’s quite classy in a way that’s incredibly hard to
describe. The moment you pick it up and hold it in your hand, you
simply sense a certain feel of quality.
The TFT display is 2.4 inches large and is capable of displaying up
to 262.144 different colours. The resolution of the display is 240 x
320 pixels, also known as QVGA. It performs very well outdoors, even in
bright sunlight. The backlighting is quite powerful, and it gets rather
bright if you max out the brightness level. When it comes to colours,
I’d say they are as saturated and precise as they get on a display like
this. Not only is this one of the best display I’ve ever seen, it’s
also scratch-resistant as the display is made from mineral glass.
The alphanumeric keypad is much like a bag of mixed chocolates.
Initially, it felt like an excellent keypad and I really enjoyed using
it. Tactile feedback was excellent, and although the spacing between
the keys could have been a bit better, I didn’t really have any
problems using it. After having used it for a few weeks though, it
started acting up. The tactile feedback was getting weaker by the day,
and the pleasure of using it slowly turned into a bit of a nuisance.
I’m not sure if this is a problem exclusive to my review handset or not
though, as I’ve never heard of a similar case.
The size of the soft keys is just phenomenal, and they’re placed well,
too! The navigation d-pad isn’t bad either. My only gripe is that it
makes an utmost annoying click every time you use it, and it’s bound to
drive you nuts.
The dimensions of the C905 are 104 x 49 x 18 (19.5) millimetres.
That may not sound like a lot, but it sure is chubby in real life.
Personally I don’t like the size of the phone. It’s too large for me.
The weight is at 136 grams, but this is actually quite acceptable. The
weight makes it feel like a solid and exclusive piece of hardware. The
slider mechanism is excellent, and felt sturdy during the review period.
The C905 is currently available in three colour variants; Copper
Gold, Ice Silver, and Night Black. In addition to this, we’ve seen
pictures of a pink variant as well, dubbed Tender Rose. It should be
available in shops soon.
The back of the C905 is most reminiscent to a compact camera, which
is quite expectable as this is a camera-centric handset. This is
especially due to the large lens cover made in metal, but the black
rubberised back adds a bit to that feeling as well.
The left side of the phone houses the proprietary Fast Port
connector as well as the Memory Stick Micro slot. The right side is
pretty much dedicated to the camera. This is where you find the camera
shutter button, a camera mode key (photos / video), preview key, and of
course the volume keys that double as digital zoom keys when you’re in
the camera.
The C905’s loud speaker is placed at the bottom of the handset, and
so is the lanyard eyelet. It bothered me a lot having it there, as it
was in the way of my fingers quite a lot of the time. There’s nothing
on the top of the phone.
You reveal a standard BST-38 (930 mAh) Lithium-Polymer battery when
you remove the battery cover. Sony Ericsson claims it’s good for 380
hours of standby on 2G networks (360 hours on 3G networks), or up to 9
hours of talk on 2G networks (4 hours on 3G networks). Having used the
built-in WiFi functionality on daily basis, it’s hard to say whether or
not this is true, but based on my experience with the handset I dare to
say its battery performance is not as excellent as Sony Ericsson wants
it to be. On average I got about 2½ - 3 days out of the battery, which
is considerably lower than I usually get with other Sony Ericsson
phones.
User interface
Sony Ericsson phones have always been renowned for their user
friendly and intuitive Interfaces. The C905 is no exception, and
actually builds on the A2 software platform, which is generally used in
Sony Ericsson’s mid- to high-end offerings, by adding a few new
features. There aren’t many new things compared to previous generation
A2-based phones, most being subtle tweaks related to the C905’s new
features (read: Wi-Fi & TV-out functionality). There are a few
extra new features though, as we’ll discuss later on in the review. The
interface itself is practically identical to, say, a C902 or a W760.
It’s speedy and really a joy to use.
Is it laggy, you ask? Nay, say I! The time it takes for the software
to switch between menus is roughly a third of a second - that is, a bit
more than it takes for the phone to register a button press. Frankly,
you’d never notice it if you aren’t looking for it. It also doesn’t
slow down considerably while playing music. Adding Wi-Fi and Skype to
that didn’t slow the phone down much either. Overall, I’m quite pleased
with its performance.
The interface itself is quite the looker. It packs large colourful
icons and many animations and transition effects to please the eyes.
The phone itself comes preloaded with 4 themes. Setting aside the
rather dull Clarity theme, we’re left with Cyber Shot, Dusk setting and
Morning glisten. Okay, some may find the Clarity theme pretty nice, but
once you’ve been through 10-15 review handsets, and you find that theme
pre-loaded on every single one of them, it gets rather dull.
The first one is supposed to be some kind of default theme that
should come with every Cyber-shot phone from the C905 onwards and in
that way is similar to the Walkman theme that comes with every Walkman
branded phone. The cool thing about it is that the wallpaper of the
theme is a kind of slideshow that switches between several
pre-configured backgrounds that are made out of various scenic photos.
Although it’s pretty cool, it would have been nice to be able to
configure the photos yourself.
The second theme is dark and goes well with the black
aspects/exterior of the phone. It comes with a flash menu (a type that
changes the generic menu to a more stylized one, depending on the
theme) and a rather interesting wallpaper that shows silhouettes of
trees on a dusky background going sideways (as if you’re travelling
with a car) depending on the orientation of your phone.
The third one is a bit too feminine for my taste. It comes with a flash
menu (jam-packed with pinkish hues) and wallpaper that shows glistens
sparkling on your screen, the position of which, again, depends on the
orientation of the phone.
The menu layout can also be changed independently from the theme.
You can set it to show as the generic grid type, a rotating carousel
type and a single icon type that switches between rather large-sized
menu icons vertically. There’s also the option to use the theme’s flash
menu, if available. I think most users will find themselves using
either the Grid menu or the Flash menu. They are certainly the most
practical.
Another very useful feature of the phone’s UI is the Activity menu.
It is activated by pressing the activity menu button on the phone and
pops up no matter in which menu you were currently. It’s basically a
place where you can access all of your recent events (such as unopened
messages, missed phone calls undone tasks and calendar events),
shortcuts, running applications and Internet bookmarks (think Windows
taskbar or OS X dock). It’s really handy and undoubtedly an integral
part of the user interface of almost every Sony Ericsson phone.
The 3-soft key layout isn’t very new to Sony Ericsson phones, but many users arestill
upgrading from older-generation SE phones. I’ll just briefly say that
it’s much more convenient than the older 2-softkey + back key one, as
it is capable of displaying more vital options right on the screen.
It’s really easy to get used to as well.
Applications and GPS
The Sony Ericsson C905 comes with a total of five pre-installed Java
applications. That’s quite a nice amount of pre-installed applications!
Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of that in future handsets. The
pre-installed applications are:
AccuWeather - Neat weather application that can
keep you updated on the weather all around the globe. The application
features 3-day forecasts, including temperatures and wind speeds.
Photo Mate - With such a good camera on-board,
you’ll need to know how to use it. This is where Photo Mate comes in
handy. It’s a photo application that tells you about the basics of
photography and how to use some of the special photo features of the
C905.
Slideshow Wall - A simple application that displays
your camera shots with a few special animations. I suspect this
application is partly based on Flash (Project Capuchin). The main
purpose of this application is that it can be used as a wallpaper,
which is quite fortunate as it would have been pretty useless otherwise.
WayFinder 7 - The only ‘real’ GPS navigation
software on the C905 is WayFinder 7. It works with the C905’s built-in
GPS unit, and does a decent job. It’s quite simple to use, and feels
pretty entuiative. You can do point to point navigation, perform
searches, mark locations as favourites and simply use the application
as a map, although we’d recommend you use Google Maps instead for that
purpose. The built-in GPS unit is pretty responsive. The initial fix
took about 3 minutes, and with A-GPS enabled, you should get connected
in about 10-15 seconds after that.
World Clock 3D - A 3-dimensional world globe that shows the time (including time zone) and date of all the countries of the world.
You’ll find Sony Ericsson’s converter application missing, but it’s
actually hidden somewhere else in one of the organizer applications -
more on that later.
As with all of Sony Ericsson’s other feature phones, the C905 comes
with a good deal of organizer functionality. The ever-functional file
manager hasn’t changed a bit since we last looked at it, but that’s not
necessarily a bad thing. We’re generally very fond of the file manager
because of its functionality and many features. The phone will
automatically sort your content, so you have one folder for camera
shots, one for pictures, one for music, one for themes, etc. This is a
brilliant way of dealing with files, and is probably one of the reasons
to why the file manager works so very well. As said, it’s pretty
feature rich as well. You can copy and paste files, move files, perform
bulk edits, send files and much more.
The calendar is yet another of C905’s many advantages. It’s
perfect if you need a quick overview of the day, week, or even month,
and it’s easy to use. The calendar is fairly comprehensive, and gives
you the ability to create rather detailed appointments and reminders.
You can also add notes to these, if you want. If you should ever get
lost or simply can’t find an appointment, you can use the search
functionality to find it. Your calendar, along with notes, contacts,
etc., can be synchronized via either SyncML or Microsoft Exchange.
Other organizer applications include several alarms, simple tasks
and notes, a timer, a stopwatch, code memo, and a slightly updated
calculator that now also features a built in converter, so you can
convert all kinds of values.
The Media application holds most of the media on the phone,
including photos, music, videos, games and web feeds. The interface is
pretty slick, and works really well. It will automatically rotate
depending on the orientation of the phone. The Media application also
supports TV-out functionality with the C905, although this is only
available when displaying pictures. There’s not a whole lot more we can
say about the Media application right now, as we’ll go through the main
parts (pictures and music) of it later in the review. Instead, we’ll
leave you with some screenshots.
The C905 also comes with a few location
services that build on the built-in GPS unit. It is basically a couple
of navigation applications - Google Maps and WayFinder 7. We’ve already
gone through WayFinder 7, so let’s talk a bit about Google Maps. This
is an excellent application for viewing maps or checking if the Eiffel
tower really exists - you can use it for anything. The latest version
also includes the ability to do point to point navigation. You can also
locate yourself on a map based on cellular information, in case you
should ever get lost.
Compact cameras, beware!
Judging by the C905’s background story, you’d think Sony Ericsson
has decided to go all in on the so-called megapixel race. Why? Well,
not only did Sony Ericsson announce it as the first 8 megapixel camera
phone for the American and European markets, but they also decided to
put a hell of a lot emphasis on marketing it as having an 8.1
megapixel camera. Fact is that it’s “only’ got 7.99 megapixels (not
that it matters), and that the allegedly remaining 0.11 megapixels is
nothing but utter marketing talk. So, why are we even mentioning this?
Well, if you take a look at a production unit C905, you’ll notice it
has the text “8.1 megapixel” printed on its right side. If you were to
compare this to that of a C905 prototype (from before it was officially
announced), you’d find the “.1″ missing. I guess that just goes to
prove how important marketing really is.
Anyway, let’s get on with the review… As said, the C905 packs an 8
megapixel camera (3264 x 2448 pixels) with auto focus. There’s a small
self portrait mirror, as well as both an LED for video recordings and a
very powerful xenon flash for photos.
The camera interface is pretty standard. It’s the usual Cyber-shot
interface that works extremely well, and for the first time ever, it’s
actually speedy and not laggy at all. Sony Ericsson has been using this
interface in its Cyber-shot phones for quite some time now, but it has
always been a bit laggy when switching between the settings. The
following settings are available for you to choose from.
Many of these settings are available in the video recording mode as well.
As with the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, the camera software algorithms
in the C905 are significantly different from what we’re used to see
from Sony Ericsson. In the case of the X1 it was a much welcome change,
and even though we find this change more fitting in a device like the
X1 due to its smaller camera resolution, it’s still preferable over the
old algorithms.
You’ll find a large amount of camera samples from the C905 available
just below. The majority of the samples have been shot in auto mode,
but some of the samples have been redone with different settings to
show you the difference. We’ve also got a special page for C905 camera
samples, where you’re more than welcome to add your own snapshots by
posting a link in the comments. You’ll find this page right here.
Generally speaking, the C905 is capable of delivering high quality
shots in most conditions, but especially outdoors with plenty of light.
The new algorithms make photos look sharp, especially in areas of high
contrast or few details. It’s all got to do with the small camera
sensor, but we think it generally does a good job of compensating for
that. We’ve printed a couple of photos in A4 size, and they looked
smashing!
Colours are very saturated and spot on for the most of the time,
although with seldom hiccups now and then, mainly due to wrong a white
balance setting. While we’re at it with the white balance performance,
I think it’s safe to say that most will be more than pleased with it.
Naturally, it’s not perfect and does mess up once in a while, but it’s
rarely that bad, and even if it is, odds are you’ll be able to have
another shot at taking the picture.
The metering works pretty well, but as you can see in some of the
samples, it has a tendency of over-exposing the images. Fortunately,
you can change the metering mode to spot, so it’ll adjust the exposure
based on the centre light conditions.
The xenon flash is really powerful - probably the most powerful to
date! It’s got a reach of about 5 metres, which can be improved a lot
by shooting in the twilight portrait mode. And what’s even better is
that Sony Ericsson has tweaked the software to a point where it’s almost
possible to do macro shots with the flash on without getting an
over-exposed result. The over-exposure is still there, but it’s hardly
anything compared to what it is with other Cyber-shot branded phones
with a xenon flash.
Smart Contrast is a new camera feature to the Cyber-shot range. What
it does is light up dark areas by adjusting the contrast levels. The
outcome is often pretty good, but it’s not perfect - especially not if
you’ve got a photo with both dark and bright areas, where the dark
areas would come out fine, but the bright areas would get even brighter.
There’s no arguing that C905 could replace mid-tier compact cameras,
but it still doesn’t stand a chance against high-end compact cameras
and digital SLR cameras. We did a brief comparison between the C902, C905 and a
Nikon D80
(d-SLR), and the outcome was quite clear: C905 is a lot better than
C902, but miles behind the Nikon D80. We had originally planned a much
larger and comprehensive comparison, but as the days went by, we
realised that we simply didn’t have the time.
The C905 records video clips in MP4 format (container for the H.263
codec) in 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA). We measured an average video bit
rate of about 450 Kbps, with a few peaks at 550 Kbps. That’s a really
good bit rate for this relatively low resolution. The video framerate
is 30 frames per second, so that’s nice as well. The best thing about
video recording on the C905 is the audio quality. The C905 features two
internal microphones, so the recorded audio is in stereo and it sounds
fantastic.
We’ve gathered a few video samples in a video just below. If you
want the original video clips, you can download these to your computer
from the links below the video.
Your photos and video clips can be viewed in the Media menu. You can
easily access it by pressing the preview button on the right side of
the phone. From the Media menu you can add tags to your media, view
photos on a map (if they’re geo-tagged), edit photos and videos, and
view photos in a slide show using the X-Pict Story feature.
More than decent for music
Even though the C905 is not a dedicated music phone, its music
player is probably one of the best on the market. It’s actually a
generic version of the Walkman v3 music player from the mid- to
high-end Walkman phones. What does that mean, you ask? Well, you’ll
miss out on a few gimmicks, such as Shake Control, SensMe and a few
filters, like genre and year, but it’s got all the basics covered. You
can browse your music by artist, album, tracks and playlists (you can
create playlists on-the-go, which can prove very useful). There’s also
a place for your audio books and podcasts in the music menu. The menu
itself can be auto-rotated, which makes use of the phone built-in
accelerometer. There’s also a dynamic search feature, which allows you
to find content both easily and quickly, just by typing the title of
what you’re looking for, much like the contact search feature in the
phonebook.
While playing a song there are a few settings you can change in
order to adjust the sound output. The first and foremost being the
volume, which can be adjusted via the volume rocker on the side of the
phone. Obvious things aside, you are presented with a 5-bar equalizer
in the settings menu of the main music playback screen. There are
several presets you can choose (including the renowned Mega Bass), but
you can always adjust the equalizer manually. You can also turn on
stereo widening which gives the sound a “deeper” feel, but diminishes
the basses. Of course, the player can also be set to shuffle and loop
the songs.
The player itself supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, RealAudio 8, and
several WMA file formats. It also shows album art. That should leave
most people’s needs covered.
The sound quality is really good. The phone can easily replace most
mid-tier mp3 players. But be warned that it comes with a rather
underwhelming pair of headphones (which would actually serve most
people well). If you really want to squeeze every bit of sound quality,
you’d be better off buying a good set of in-ear headphones though.
The C905 also comes with an FM radio receiver. The radio player
supports RDS, which means that you’ll be able to see information about
the particular station you’re listening to on your screen. You can also
save up to 20 favourite frequencies. One thing to note though - you
need to have a pair of headphones plugged into the phone if you want to
listen to radio. You can choose to transfer the audio to the
loudspeaker, but you still need a set of wired headphones, because the
cable actually acts as an antenna.
Screenshots from the Sony Ericsson C902
Finally, we arrive at one of the more unique features of Sony
Ericsson phones nowadays. It’s called TrackID and as you may have
guessed or already know, it’s a music recognition service. Say you hear
a song on the radio or in a nightclub and you really want to know its
name, so that you can download it later on (or right on the spot if
you’ve got a suitable connection). Just fire up TrackID and it’ll
record a short clip from the song, send it to an online database for it
to be analyzed and retrieve information about the name of the track and
the corresponding album and artist. All of that happens magically
before your eyes in just 10 - 15 seconds. It can prove very useful to
absolutely anyone, especially in the summer (wink, wink!). The service
is absolutely free, excluding any data charges your operator may apply
(if you’re not using Wi-Fi, that is).
Games
The C905 comes preloaded with 3 Java games.
Kasparov Chess is, you guessed it, a chess game. You can
play either a solo game (against the phone/computer) or a multiplayer
game against a friend, but on the same phone though. You can also
choose from 3 different themes, which change the look of the game.
There’s not much more to say about the game except that it should be
quite engaging to anyone who likes to play chess.
Need for Speed Pro Street is the next game you’ll find on the C905. This
game can also be found on some of Sony Ericsson’s more recent
offerings. It’s quite a fun game to play actually. It offers nice
visuals (at least for a phone) and smooth framerates. There’s also a
variety of tracks you can play on. But probably the coolest fact about
the game is the ability to steer the car by tilting the phone sideways,
just as you would a steering wheel. That feature contributes a lot to
the fun factor of the game. The feature is most comfortable when used
in landscape mode, as opposed to the default portrait view.
The good-old Tennis Multiplay is the last game on the list.
As you may have figured, in this game you play tennis via a virtual
avatar, the different skills of which can be customized by you during
the course of the game. You can play a quick match, take part in a
tournament or just train, if you think your skills are
lacking. The most exciting mode is probably the Bluetooth Multiplayer,
in which you can play against other friends wirelessly. Although it may
not seem so, it’s loads of fun! The game is in 3D, which serves a
purpose in the slow-mo replays of those winning strokes - your pride is
sure to be satisfied.
Web browser and connectivity
The C905 supports both quad-band GSM / EDGE networks, and UMTS /
HSDPA 2100 (3.6 Mbps) networks. The American variant, C905a,
furthermore adds support for 850 / 900 MHz 3G networks.
Bluetooth 2.0 is supported, and so is EDR (Enhanced Data Rates).
What does this mean then? You’ll get much faster data transfer rates -
up to about 140 - 150 kilobytes per second. This is quite useful
considering the phone also supports the stereo audio Bluetooth profile
(A2DP), meaning you can stream music from your phone to a compatible
headset via Bluetooth. You can connect to a computer via Bluetooth or
USB. The latter is definitely the fastest solution, especially in file
storage mode, but Bluetooth could come in handy as well for certain
purposes, such as presentations. You’ll find no support for infra-red
connections (irDA).
One of the new features about the C905 is that it offers built-in
WLAN functionality. It supports both 802.11b and 802.11g networks, and
the overall performance is quite good. The C905 offers good reception
strength, although not as good as that of the X1. That’s actually quite
ironic, considering the body of the X1 includes a great deal of metal.
The C905 will automatically connect to any favourite networks it may
find in range. All you have to do is enable WLAN, and C905 will prompt
you that it is connected to your favourite network, once it has
searched for networks and is connected to one.
Another thing about the C905 is that it supports DLNA.
DLNA makes it possible to share digital media between various consumer
electronics, such as the Sony PlayStation 3, computers and mobile units
that support DLNA.
The web browser you’ll find under the hood is called Access NetFront
version 3.4. It’s not a bad web browser, but it’s not as good as Opera
Mini. We still can’t see why Sony Ericsson won’t include this browser
as a pre-installed Java application on its phones. One of the best
features of NetFront version 3.4 is the mouse cursor. The mouse cursor
makes it considerably easier to browse large websites, as you can
easily pan around websites. Another nice feature is the website
overview feature, which makes it easy to get an overview of a website
and quickly zoom in on an interesting part. One thing we dislike about
NetFront is that it’s rather slow at loading large websites and that it
slows down significantly with these large sites. Because the C905
features WLAN, this is a bit of a let-down. You simply can’t expect
users only to browse websites specifically fitted for mobile phones
when your phone features WLAN.
NetFront 3.4 supports CSS, HTML, xHTML, and light Java!s. It
cannot display any Flash content. It’s quite a nice web browser when it
comes to rendering web sites. You can also use the browser in landscape
mode, and it will automatically switch to landscape mode if you tilt
the phone.
The custom homepage has been slightly
updated, and now looks a lot cooler and more fresh. A neat “extra
feature” is that the background image is randomly chosen when you load
the homepage. The homepage includes search functionality, shows your
browsing history, bookmarks, RSS feeds, and a few links to some of Sony
Ericsson’s services.
PlayNow Arena - one of Sony Ericsson’s web services
RSS feeds provide a brilliant opportunity for people to keep
themselves updated on the latest news from various websites. This is
built right into the web browser, and if you’re browsing a website with
RSS feeds, you’ll be notified by a RSS icon at the top of the browser.
From here on it’s easy to add the feed to your list of sub!ions on
the phone. You can set the feed to be updated automatically or
manually, if that’s what you prefer. You can easily access your feeds
from the Media menu, but if you don’t want to go through the hassle (or
lack thereof) of doing that every time, you can simply add the feeds
directly onto the standby screen. This is quite a brilliant solution,
if you’re a keen user of RSS feeds.
The C905 supports most common e-mail services, including Gmail,
Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. You’ll have to set up everything manually
though, unless you choose to make use of Sony Ericsson’s online e-mail
set-up. The phone also supports push e-mail. You can make use of both
IMAP4 and POP3 protocols.
Contacts
The C905 holds up to 1,000 contacts, and up to a total of 7,000
numbers. I’m confident that’s enough for most “average Joe’s”. Each
contact can be saved with the following info entries;
Name
Number (Mobile, Mobile (private), Mobile (work), Home, Work, Fax, and Other)
E-mail (up to 3 e-mail addresses)
Web address
Picture
Contact-specific ringtone
Voice command
Work information (Title, Company, Street, City, State, Zip code, and Country)
Personal information (Street, City, State, Zip code, and Country)
Info (a note)
Birthday (can be added to the calendar)
That would seem satisfying for most people. All of your contact data
can of course be synchronized with a computer or sent to another
handset via Bluetooth, e-mail, MMS or SMS. The phonebook also allows
you to create a business card of your own with all your contact details
on it. This is quite useful as you can easily send it to your
co-workers’ mobile phones via Bluetooth or alike, and it gets stored
there. This is much easier than a physical business card!
You can do backups of your contacts on the C905, so you’ll never
have to worry about losing your contacts. The backups will get stored
on the memory card, and are therefore not affected if you reset the
phone. Other than that, you can set up a total of nine speed dials, and
groups, if you want to send a message to all your co-workers at once or
perhaps a Christmas greeting to your family.
Messaging
like on the majority of Sony Ericsson’s phones, you can send and
receive both MMS and SMS messages on the C905. It’s supposed to be
capable of handling your voice calls and messages as well, but we
really can’t comment on that as it’s not supported by our operators.
Sony Ericsson’s messaging application has been slightly updated on the
C905. It now provides a better overview of its functions, and its
editor has been given a make-over as well.
As said, the message editors have gone through a bit of a make-over
and there’s actually just one editor now, and it does both MMS and SMS
messaging. It starts off as an SMS message editor, but if add a picture
or alike, it turns into an MMS message editor. That’s quite a ingenious
thought and it works excellently. Now… The editor wasn’t changed just
because of this. With this new editor comes another feature -
unfortunately not for the C905, but at least for upcoming handsets -
the Sony Ericsson W705 being the first. This feature is called
conversation messaging, and means messages between you and a contact of
yours will be displayed as a conversation in speech bubbles. It’s quite
cool, and is now from a few other handsets on the market, including the
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 (due to Windows Mobile 6.1). We have included a
screenshot from the C510 to demonstrate how it works.
As always, the T9 dictionary is the best on the market and miles
ahead of anything else out there. You can always add a word to the
dictionary if it’s not in there already. The C905 supports EMS
messaging, so you can add graphical smilies, sound effects, animations
and small black/white pictures to your SMS messages. You can also set
up templates, or use the default ones. These can be added without even
leaving the editor. Other features include a large variety of special
symbols, support for copying and pasting text, changing writing
settings, such as language, dictionary, word predicitons and
suggestions.
Calls
As always, there are several ways of calling someone. You can either
dial the phone number, find a contact in your phonebook or make use of
Smart Search to search for contacts and phone numbers directly from the
standby screen. Smart Search is quite a brilliant feature that
automatically searches through your contacts for any kind of data that
matches the pressed key combination. Here’s an example of how it works.
Say, I want to call myself (excellent example, I know…). From the
standby screen I now have two options - either search for my contact
entry by name or by phone number. If I was going to do a search by
name, I’d press the 6-key and 4-key for the letters ‘M’ and ‘i’. As you
can see from the screenshot below, that brings up my contact entry.
likewise, if I wanted to search for my phone number, I’d press the
5-key and 0-key, and boom! - there it is! I’ve used this feature an
endless number of times and it’s just excellent. However, you should
note that Smart Search has a tendency of getting a tad slow if you’ve
got a large number of contacts.
Enough about that - let’s get on to the calling part. The C905
supports both voice and (limited) video calling. There’s no video call
camera, which some will find as a bit of a let-down. I personally never
use video calling and have always thought of it as overrated marketing
bull that people will never use in a million years. But hey, that’s
just me. Voice calls, on the other hand, is something I’m quite fond
of. And fortunately, the C905 is great at these. Audio during calls is
of high quality with little to no background noise. The volume during
calls is more than sufficient, and there’s an option to turn on speaker
phone is you really want it out loud!
Network reception throughout the review period has been very good, with only a irregular few drops in reception strength.
The call manager can be accessed from the main menu or by pressing
the call button in standby. It holds a total of up to 30 calls, which
should be enough to get you through the day. We’re still eagerly
awaiting the day when Sony Ericsson updates the call manager to include
data about the length of a call or when a call ended.
Conclusion
The way we see it, the C905 doesn’t have any serious flaws, and most
of the few minor flaws it does have are related to the design and size
of the phone. Other than that we’ve got the issue of limited video
recording capabilities - recording videos on the C905 simply feels
outdated when compared to other phones on the market.
There’s much to like about the C905, especially if you’re used to
Sony Ericsson’s feature phones and like the user interface, etc. It’s
nice to (almost) see a fully equipped phone when it comes to
connectivity. Apart from HSUPA, there’s not much you’ll find missing
with the C905. It even features a built-in GPS unit and is also the
first of Sony Ericsson’s feature phones to feature WLAN - something
we’ve been eager to see in feature phones for quite some time now. And
then there is the camera… Although we’ve not given it top grades, it’s
still a really good mobile phone camera and is without a doubt among
the best out there.
An unlocked and SIM-free C905 retails for about £350 right now,
which is a decent price to pay for a handset like this. Had it been 50
quid cheaper, it would have been a bargain, but I’m sure the price will
fall just a tad more.
We’ve expressed concerns about the battery performance earlier on in
the review, but haven’t been able to confirm these. Most people will
get no more than a few days of use out of it, which is less than you’d
expect from a typical Sony Ericsson product. Having said that, this is
not a typical Sony Ericsson product, and after having used the built-in
WLAN on a daily basis, it’s hard for us to say just how good the
battery is.
All in all, we’re quite pleased with the C905, and think it’s a
wonderful handset that is definitely recommendable to people looking
for a great all-round handset.
PS. Due to incompatibility issues with the C905, the SPMark Java
Benchmark results are invalid and pretty useless. We’re almost certain
this is because the C905 is based on a new Java platform (JP-8.4).
[Review based on firmware revision R1BA034]
Sony Ericsson C905 review
Published on January 3, 2009
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