At A Glance:

The Sony Ericsson C901 is part of the Cybershot range of phones made by Sony Ericsson. It was announced in February 2009 and a subsequent Sony Ericsson C901 Greenheart model was announced in three months later in May 2009 for certain markets.

The Greenheart phone is roughly the same phone, except that Sony Ericsson has claimed the use of reduced packaging materials, recycled plastics, optimized display light and waterborne paint in order to reduce the lifetime CO2 footprint of the device by 15%.

In the box
- Transceiver unit
- 1 standard battery
- Charger set
- Headset

Exterior
Our C901 review unit is in black, and this is undoubtedly the ‘Noble Black’ version of the phone. The phone is slim and flat, and a shutter window on the back can be slid down to automatically activate the camera.

Buttons/Screen
The screen is a 240 x 320 pixel one, measuring 2.2 inches across according to the manufacturer’s specifications, but the actual lit-up area was about 1.8 inches long. The buttons light up with a white backlight and using the camera lights only the camera-related buttons in blue. I thought this was a pretty nice touch to separate both the regular use buttons and the camera related buttons by the use of a different lighting scheme for the buttons.

The menu is a 3x4 icon page by default, but the main menu controls are pretty small, especially the call and end buttons which are really tiny and placed on the edges of the device.

Hardware
The C901 measures 105 x 45 x 13 mm and weighs 107 grams. It does feel solid, and I do remember a Sony Ericsson briefing from years ago where they said they measure for how much unused space is inside their phones. There could not be much empty space inside this phone.

The screen does not justify the 5.0 megapixel camera, displaying only 262K TFT which is pretty much entry level. It was also pretty dim compared to other devices using AMOLED screens and such, but of course you can dial up the brightness if it matters to you.

The funny thing is that the charger port resembles the ones on early Ericsson phones – the chunky Analog ones of the early 90s with the stubby antennae that always broke off. Anyway, not having a standard, mini or micro USB port means that the user has to fork out more money to get a connector cable to the computer. You can also use Bluetooth but cable is always better to move large quantities of data.

Software
Applications in the phone are pretty standard. You get both the Facebook and Youtube applets, and the usual suite of Notes-Tasks-Calendar-Calculator. There is no office- suite type of application in the phone.

Camera/Video
The camera is a 5.0 megapixel type, pretty high resolution for a product that is officially just above the RM 1100 line at the time of writing. The camera is pretty decent, just point and click. The internal mechanism then focuses the lens to the subject, lights it up accordingly and shoots a fairly decent picture. All the user needs to do is to hold the camera fairly steady.

It is a great way to build a phone camera. Use the protective cover to activate the camera, and then switch the software environment immediately into the one that is used for photo-shooting. No need to fumble around the menus when you need to snap something on the fly.

Connectivity
This is a HSDPA 3.6 Mbps phone. It supports 3G with an option in the Settings->Network menu to limit usage to a GSM network only. It supports EDGE and GPRS too, and has Bluetooth for local connections.

The USB, as mentioned earlier, is worthless without the data cable in the box. Chances are one would have to fork out a lot of money for a piece of wire with a funny-looking connector, one that is unique to this brand of phone only.

Games
There are 6 games in the phone – Bowling, Brick Breaker, Brain Challenge, Bubble Town, Kasparov Chess and Sudoku. Fairly entertaining stuff.

Editor’s Opinion
The C901 is a great phone. It feels solid and gives you a pretty good user experience for its price. On the downside, not having standard USB connectors and flash card slots will force you to buy your accessories from Sony Ericsson.

We will have to say that that this is an outstanding camera on an average phone. The buttons are small and the screen is weak, but you can sure shoot a mean set of pictures with the C901.