Sony Ericsson C905a Camera Phone Review

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by Franz Bicar

Like Motorola, Sony Ericsson vanished just like that. With the emergence of touchscreen phones, Sony Ericsson has failed to catch up. Sure, there are releases here and there, but nothing that prompted people to go out and get one. Sony Ericsson, of course, became popular with their Walkman music phones and their Cybershot camera phones.

Sony Ericsson has released the C905a. The device can best be described as a camera with a built-in phone. Of course, that is not the case here but you get the idea. Its main attraction is, no doubt, its 8.1-megapixel camera with an LED flash that could pass as a stand-alone point-and-shoot digital cameras.

The C905a is a bulky slider phone measuring 4.1 by 1.9 by 0.7 inches, and weighing 4.8 ounces. It features a bright 2.4-inch screen and a numeric keypad. A problem with this setup, however, is that the keys on each row run together without any dividers, determining where one key ends and another begins can be hard. Also, the top row of keys can be a little uncomfortable to press, since they are right up against the slide-up portion of the phone. Other buttons on the face, such as the call start/stop buttons, are small and might be tough to press if you have big fingers.

As always, build quality for a Sony Ericsson phone is good. It’s solid and feels good in the hands. The C905a’s software is adequate. But then again, once you are accustomed to the new software sported by new smartphones, you can’t help but compare and feel that the C905a’s software is inferior. This in terms of navigation, and especially in aesthetics.

The C905a’s Entertainment app handles music and video playback as well as photo viewing, and it includes a handful of games. The interface is reminiscent of what you see on the PlayStation Portable or the PlayStation 3 game console, and it works about as expected. The player is easy to navigate, and it’s the most attractive part of the phone’s interface. One downside is that the C905a lacks a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

The C905a’s headlining feature is its camera. Sony Ericsson was always great with cameras and the C905a is no exception. Modeled after Sony’s Cyber-shot stand-alone camera line, the camera here, with its 8.1-megapixel lens, rivals basic point-and-shoot cameras. Photos come out pretty sharp, though colors aren’t quite as vivid as with a dedicated digital camera. The camera features a Xenon flash, which performs reasonably well indoors.

It also offers a handful of advanced functions, such as red-eye correction, digital zoom, image stabilization, autofocus, and a macro mode. To add to the camera-with-a-phone nature of the C905a, the handset has a dedicated shutter button, a photo-preview button, and a button to toggle between the still-photo and video modes, just like most point-and-shoot cameras.