We've tried Sony Ericsson's sharp-shooting C905 Options

[Mizzle]

Today we received the new Sony Ericsson C905. It comes in a pretty standard piano black box with "8.1 megapixel" printed on it. It's pretty obvious that Sony Ericsson wants to compete against its competitors with what is technically speaking a false statement, but let's not go into details about that now.

When you get the C905 in your hand for the very first time, you get a feel of quality. The rubberized backside feels exquisite, and the sliding mechanism really is top notch. Fortunately, some might add, as it would have been an utter disaster had it not been.

Our review unit is the black version of the C905. It looks classy, and there's not really a lot to come for on a visual point of perspective. The handset is roughly the same size as most other Sony Ericsson phones, albeit it feels a bit thicker and a tad heavier as well. In our opinion though, the weight plays an unimportant factor as it adds to the quality feel of the handset. One gripe with the design of the phone however, would be the lanyard eyelet near the bottom of the phone. It protrudes a few millimetres from the rest of the body, and although it hardly sounds like an issue, I expect it to be an annoyance factor.

The 2.4-inch TFT display looks very nice. It is bright and vibrant, yet it manages to sport a better contrast than most others. It still isn't quite up to levels with the contrast levels of the K850, which in our opinion features one of the undoubtedly best displays on the market.

The user interface is really quite fast and it's incredibly easy to learn as well, as one might have expected. Icons are large and intuitive, and the tiny animations throughout the interface makes it that much more fun to use.

There's no doubt the camera is the main selling point of this phone. The C905 features an entirely new camera sensor, that, along with new software algorithms, produces pictures of noticeably higher quality than what we've seen so far. The camera resolution is at eight megapixels, and the C905 features auto focus along with a variety of other camera-related features, including a xenon flash, SmartContrast and face-tracking.

Going through the menus in the Cyber-shot camera interface has been much improved compared to what previous members of this photographic family had to offer. It's now a lot quicker and without the annoying lag that happened all too often.

When it comes to picture quality, colours, noise levels, etc., the C905 is rather impressive. Given the right circumstances, you can actually end up with pictures of very high quality and detail, as well as excellent colours. The xenon flash is quite powerful as well, and we've got to give Sony Ericsson props for improving the camera software so the flash can now also be used for macro shots without causing too much over-exposure. Night pictures and pictures in poor lighting conditions have also gotten a positive overhaul.

Here are a few camera samples for now, but expect a lot more in our full review that will be published early next month (that's our target, anyway).

The C905 is Sony Ericsson's first feature phone to sport built-in WLAN functionality, and our initial thoughts on it are positive. It's a lot faster than anything else we've seen from Sony Ericsson, and it seems awfully easy to set up and use. We have yet to test out just how good it is at picking up signals, though.

A GPS unit is also built-in, but we haven't had a chance to try this out yet. Media is excellent on the C905, and the built-in speaker is really loud. Definitely among the loudest from Sony Ericsson to date.

Based on our first impressions, we're quite pleased with the C905. You can look forward to our upcoming gallery of the C905 as well as unboxing video and video preview. All of this will come relatively soon (partly depending on the weather). We also plan on doing an in-depth camera comparison between the C902, C905 and a middle class Nikon digital SLR camera. Watch out for that one!

From the Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog:
http://blog.se-nse.net/2008/11/19/weve-tri...-shooting-c905/.

[Ly]

Certainly elegant.

[moedjs]

the photo samples are sharp enough .. definitely higher quality than k850 shots ..

[Wally_Dog]

Good lord I can't believe those picture samples... Those are top-notch for a phone!

[lawrencep93]

Well the wlan is a little week. To be honest you get about 2 meters more from an Itouch but not a great difference. The GPS is good the only problem is that it can be a little in accurate if you do not get more than like 4 satellites and to get them to all connect it can take a few minuets. But over all its is a very good Phone I love it.

O I have the silver and it looks so much better than your black ones.

[weirdwilli]

Can't wait for a DSLR-C905 shootout!

[spAik]

this wont be a success. the technologie inside is of no use if the phone doesnt look good. this will be huge flop

[weirdwilli]

Ahem.

[spAik]

it uk
i ment in countrys where the citizens have taste

[weirdwilli]

So what, anywhere apart from Germany?

[spAik]

nah just fun

...but u cant say that this phone looks anywhere similar stylish like the k750 or the k850..
and atleats here its still some statussymbol, so people also want their phone to look good to others

[weirdwilli]

I personally don't think that the K750 or K850 are very 'stylish', but then again, everyone has their own sense of fashion.

[M]

it aint the best looking phone but it does pwn. watch the camera quality. SE really did well!

btw the k850 is a bit stylish hehe

[weirdwilli]

That's a matter of opinion.

[number1]

does it have front camera for videocalls??? or did screw it up

[Mizzle]

Yep, they did.

[number1]

How on earth are you meant to make video calls on the rear camera and look at the screen the same time, unless you have detactable eyeballs.

[weirdwilli]

Can I just ask, who actually Video Calls people?

[Mattwood]

does it have front camera for videocalls??? or did screw it up

More to the point has anyone used video call more than once to see what its like?

[number1]

I've used it about twice just for fun, costs alot. But with a top-end expensive phone like the c905 you'd expect them to atleast get the video calling right.