Sony Ericsson C905a Handset Review

How often have I lamented, and perhaps you too- photo buff, import phone maven, that our US carriers never get the good stuff. AT&T has surprised us with a little piece of former import goodness, the Sony Ericsson C905a with an 8.1 megapixel camera and autofocus lens. Sweet. The C905 (minus the "a" at the end that indicates it's for the Americas) came out several months ago in Europe and Asia, but not here. Not even an unlocked US 3G version, and that's likely because AT&T picked it up as T-Mobile should (theirs will be called the CS8 if it does arrive). The C905a is a slider phone, and beyond the impressive imaging capabilities it has a GPS that works with AT&T Navigator, an FM radio, 3G HSDPA on AT&T's bands and Europe's 2100MHz band, the same media player found on many Sony Ericsson Walkman phones and the PSP, Bluetooth with stereo support and AT&T Video Share. At introduction, this high-end imaging phone is very attractively priced at $179 with a contract and $329 without. That's significantly cheaper than the import version which lacks US 3G.

What's missing on the AT&T version vs. the import? WiFi has been disabled (those of you who like to flash your ROM will be happy to hear users on the Net have said that they've flashed the C905a with other firmware to bring back WiFi). Since WiFi got axed (we assume because AT&T wants you to buy a data plan), the photo and video blogging integration with blogger.com is gone. The import version has a YouTube player with upload capabilities and that's gone from the AT&T version. You can still visit YouTube's mobile site and play video to your heart's content (more on that later). And you can upload images to HP's Snapfish service directly from the phone's camera app and album. Sony Ericsson's standard email client has been replaced by AT&T's Mobile Email, so Exchange support is gone and you can only get email from a pre-set list of providers (Yahoo, AOL, BellSouth, Earthlink, Juno, NetZero and Mindspring). Thanks to the capable NetFront web browser with full HTML support, you can use the browser to get web-based mail too.

But all isn't doom and gloom. AT&T added a few heavy hitters: US 3G, a US warranty with support and turn-by-turn Navigation via AT&T Navigator. Some Sony Ericsson import and unlocked (no contract, no carrier phones) ship with Wayfinder navigation, which is stronger in Europe than in the US-- we'll take AT&T Navigator. AT&T puts a ton of applications on the phone, many of which are subscription-ware, but they are useful, as are the applications and games available for purchase under the phone's Media Mall icon.

In the US, this Cyber-shot phone competes with the 8 megapixel Samsung Memoir (obliquely since the Memoir is a touch screen phone with a very different design philosophy), the 8 MP Nokia N86 (not yet released in the US but it will be priced considerably higher at $558), the 5 megapixel Moto Zine ZN5 on T-Mobile, and the Nokia N85 among a variety of Nokia Nseries 5 megapixel smartphone shooters. The C905a and the Memoir are currently the only 8 megapixel camera phones offered by US carriers.

The Sony Ericsson C905a is a relatively thick phone but not terribly heavy at 4.8 ounces. The build is pure plastic, and the light silver finish does nothing to make the phone look more classy or chic. By no means does the C905a look or feel like it will fall apart, it's the appearance we're bemoaning. The phone is currently available only in silver and it has a black slide-down keypad. The keypad is flat but ridges between the rows make it easier to blind dial and the keys are large and clicky with good travel. It's easy to dial and text and the keys are backlit in white. Both multipress and T9 are supported for text entry and you can enter numbers by pressing and holding the appropriate key rather than switching input modes while texting. We particularly like Sony Ericsson's on-screen preview that shows the next number or character in line for multi-press-- this makes it much easier to select the proper symbol when pressing the "1" key. The "*" key doubles as the case changing key and if you press and hold it you can toggle between the multipress and T9 input methods.

The menu icon grid corresponds to the number pad, so you can press 4 to open the first icon on the second row (which happens to be the web browser). Sony Ericsson's usual shortcuts are here and you can assign a press of the d-pad when in the home screen (up, down, left, right) to quick launch the applications of your choosing. The dedicated Activity Manger key also has a series of shortcuts which you can edit, along with web browser bookmarks and an application switcher-- yes the phone multitasks.

Front controls include two soft keys, call send and end buttons (the end button doubles as the power button), app manager (quick launcher/switcher) and the clear key. Most hardware controls are devoted to camera control, which makes perfect sense given the phone's Cybershot heritage. When in the camera, the d-pad lights in blue to reveal four camera control shortcuts: flash, focus mode, timer and exposure compensation. Two tiny buttons surrounding the earpiece light in blue and become controls for shot mode and scene selection. Keys on the top (when the phone is held in the camera position) include playback, switch between photo and video mode and the large (also blue backlit) shutter button. The volume keys handle digital zoom.