AT&T offers up an 8-megapixel Cyber-Shot phone to take the lead in the megapixel race. Is this the best cameraphone you can buy? Find out in our Sony Ericsson C905 review.
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson C905:
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 The Sony Ericsson C905 is a phone that takes pictures that look fantastic, perhaps better than any other cameraphone we've seen so far. Unfortunately, that's about the only thing it does very well. For people who want to take print-worthy shots without carrying an extra camera, the Sony Ericsson C905 is a perfect fit. In terms of other features, it does an adequate job, especially in text messaging and GPS Navigation. But for a high-end phone, we were let down by the lack of a decent Web browser, and we were frustrated by the video playback that made our videos look foggy and poor. It's too bad AT&T is selling this phone without the included headphones and memory stick micro, as these proprietary formats are expensive, and a few features rely on these accessories to work properly. Still, cameraphone fans have found their king shooter at the top of the carrier pile, and AT&T has fired its latest shot in the burgeoning megapixel phone wars. Release: July 2009. Price: $180.
Pros: Great 8-megapixel camera with nice features and shortcuts. Solid interface design with a sleek look and convenient app switcher.
Cons: Doesn't excel much beyond the camera. AT&T has stripped package of necessary accessories. Big device with a mediocre keypad.
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Full Sony Ericsson C905 Review:
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Design – Good
The Sony Ericsson C905 is a thick, bulky phone, but when you look at it, there's no mistaking it's purpose. All around, the device seems more compact camera than phone. On the back, a sliding lens cover protects the lens of the 8-megapixel camera, and everywhere on the phone seems to be covered with shortcut buttons for the camera features. It's only when you slide the phone open, with an assured click, that the device looks obviously like a phone.
The 2.4-inch display is nice and bright, but graphics and text on the screen were somewhat disappointing, ironic considering the super-high resolution imaging that the screen is expected to showcase. Pictures, including our wallpapers and shots we took with the camera, had a foggy look to them, with some obvious pixelation and jagged diagonal lines. Menu screens and the built-in apps looked much better, so clearly the QVGA display is capable of better, but we were still disappointed.
The interface design is pure AT&T carrier junk. The main menu is a 4 by 3 grid, with a mix of useful and useless icons that you won't be able to customize. Thankfully, Sony Ericsson has also included a dedicated shortcut menu, with tabs to jump quickly to apps running in the background, and a list of shortcuts that you can arrange. Button placement on the phone was a bit off from what you might be used to. The center button does not open the main menu, it instead jumps right to the AT&T MediaNet Web browser. The menu key is the soft key on the right. Also, the send and end buttons were stuck in the middle of their respective columns, so this might take you some time to get used to.
Calling - Good
Call quality on the Sony Ericsson C905 was usually pretty good. We tested the phone on AT&T's HSDPA network in the Dallas metro area, and reception was usually strong, about 4-5 bars. Callers sounded clear, though occasionally we heard a slightly digitized hum in the background during calls. We dropped a few calls during our test period, but no more than we usually lose on our Apple iPhone 3G on the same network. Battery life was acceptable, just under 5 hours of talking time in our tests. Of course, once you start using the camera, with it's high-intensity Xenon flash, that battery life will take a dive quickly.
The Sony Ericsson C905 has a nice looking address book with tabbed sections and plenty of fields to hold contact information. We wish the phone supported some sort of online synchronization, with Yahoo's online address book or even our work's Microsoft Exchange account. The phone has voice dialing, but it uses voice tagging, so you'll have to record your favorite names before you can start bossing the phone around. The Sony Ericsson C905 has a great speakerphone that was loud enough for us to use outdoors. The phone also paired perfectly with our Bluetooth headsets.
Messaging - Good
Sony Ericsson has included a very nice looking, advanced text messaging app that makes it easy to send simple messages, or attach any number of media files for MMS messaging. The app looks great, and the T9 auto-complete typing on the Sony Ericsson C905 was quick and convenient, thanks to the drop down menu that gives you word options as you type. Even the simple IM client got something of a facelift, though we found it to be unreliable in our tests. We're still waiting to receive a message in the Yahoo IM chat we opened up hours ago. IM users will find client support for AOL, Yahoo and MSN. E-mail on the phone was very disappointing, as it's the only app Sony Ericsson left untouched, and the phone gets the most basic, Web-based version of AT&T's e-mail client. There's support for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, as well as a few popular Internet providers, but no support for Gmail and no custom options to enter your own settings.
The keypad on the Sony Ericsson C905 was difficult to use. The phone slides open to reveal a flat set of number keys with continuous columns and only a slight division between the rows. The top row butts up against the phone's slide, and all around we found the keys difficult for typing longer messages. With such a good texting app on board, it's too bad Sony Ericsson couldn't come up with a more comfortable keypad.
Camera – Very Good
At 8-megapixels, the Sony Ericsson C905 instantly takes its place in the rarified strata of high-megapixel phones on the market. The C905 leapfrogs the rest of AT&T's lineup, and sits among an elite few truly dedicated camera phones (to check out our reviews of the best on the U.S. market, click here). The phone is well designed for camera use. When you slide open the lens cover on the back, the camera comes to life, and shortcut buttons all over the phone light up soft blue. There are buttons on top to switch to camcorder mode or to launch the photo gallery. On the front of the phone, two buttons up top help navigate the scene modes and shooting preferences. Hidden icons on the 4-way button let you adjust flash, macro mode, white balance and the self-timer in a hurry. We hardly see this level of shortcut control on a dedicated compact camera, let alone a camera phone.
Of course, all of these controls would do little good without impressive image quality to back them up, and we're happy to say that in most respects, the Sony Ericsson C905 delivers. With more and more 8-megapixel shooters on the market, we're starting to get a feel for what to expect from these lenses. The C905 does a great job in broad daylight, with crystal clear images that show great color and depth of field. The camera does its best work close up, and though landscape shots looked good, at full crop you'll notice a lack of detail in the grass and the trees.
Indoors, the Sony Ericsson C905 held its own, but even in a sunlit room, colors looked pale and washed out. Details also grew fuzzy, especially up close. The flash did a fine job lighting up our shots, and the Xenon flash on the C905 does a much better job than the LED flash you'll find on other cameras.
For shooting modes, the Sony Ericsson C905 gets a nice mix, but nothing too extensive. There is a macro mode for close-ups, a panorama mode to stitch together 3 frames into one long image, and scene modes for sports or for photographing text on a document. For shooting, the camera has a "Smart Contrast" mode that brightens up underexposed areas, especially in shots with a dominating backlight. This definitely helped in a pinch, but it gave our pics a very washed out look. To help correct some of these issues, the Sony Ericsson C905 also has PhotoDJ software, which allows for some retouching and some automatic level-setting in images. The camera also has face detection built in to make sure faces stay in focus against the background.
In the end, the Sony Ericsson C905 won't compete with the best compact cameras on the market, but it could certainly give you a reason to leave your compact at home if you're going to be outside, or if you just don't need great image quality enough to carry two devices. Photos from the C905 were definitely good enough to print at an 8 by 10 inch size, and were more than adequate for any online use. Check out our image samples below for some of the best pics we got out of the Sony Ericsson C905 in our test run.
Texas Sunflower
Wildflower and tiny bee
End of Spring flowers
Landscape path
Seed pod and bugs
Self Portrait
Amid the tall grass
Panorama shot
Buttercup close up
Rusty lock
Firehouse Subs
4th of July Fireworks
Yellow Light Cycle
Orchids, with flash
Indoor Orchid close up
Multimedia - Good
For music and video playback, the Sony Ericsson C905 makes a nice device, but it doesn't live up to the best Sony Ericsson has to offer. The phone gets the cross-bar menu setup that will be famiiar to folks who own a PSP or PS3 gaming device. It's a nice looking setup, and the music player itself is clean and easy to use. We sideloaded our music onto a Memory Stick Micro card, and the C905 had no trouble playing our tracks or displaying the attached album artwork. The music player has an equalizer with custom settings available, but otherwise the phone doesn't have too many multimedia features. You can create playlists on this phone, but the music player on Sony Ericsson Walkman branded phones (to check out our reviews of Walkman phones, click here) is much better and easier to navigate. The phone was also able to handle video files, and could play back videos at QVGA resolution. We wish it could downsize larger-resolution files, but it had problems with anything else. Video looked mediocre on the Sony Ericsson C905. The screen gave our videos a washed out look, like we were watching through a thin fog.
For hardware, don't expect any dedicated media keys, since almost every button on the Sony Ericsson C905 is working for the camera, instead. AT&T has also been very stingy with accessories for this device, and it severely hurts the multimedia experience. In fact, the onboard FM radio won't even work without special, proprietary headphones. While the international version of this device comes with headphones and a 2GB memory stick micro card, AT&T has included only a charger and a proprietary, Fast Port USB cord. You'll have to buy headphones and memory, and because Sony Ericsson uses unusual, proprietary formats for both, expect to pay through the nose. We'd like to see Sony Ericsson adopt the easiest standard options for their phones, including microUSB instead of Fast Port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD cards. Jeers also to AT&T for eliminating these accessories from the retail box.
Web browsing - Good
The Web browser on the Sony Ericsson C905 was just a step above a simple WAP browser. It was able to load our own home page just fine, but images came out looking blocky and jagged, and layout was somewhat skewed, with some strange errors popping up. Most sites will identify this phone as a mobile browser and won't offer their desktop-formatted pages, but this is for the best. For mobile pages, the C905 did a nice job. The phone has an accelerating scroll which helped us swiftly browse long Web pages. The phone's orientation sensor also worked quickly to redraw a Web page in landscape mode when we tilted the phone on its side.
GPS Navigation – Very Good
The Sony Ericsson C905 comes with a couple of options for location based services. For turn-by-turn navigation, the phone uses AT&T Navigator, a TeleNav app. For local search and a few other widget-like features, the phone uses the "Where" app, which can help find local points of interest like Starbucks and gas stations. In our tests, the Sony Ericsson C905 was slow to pick up our GPS location. Often the phone would take a few minutes to find us. Once it had us locked in, the C905 was able to track us through our trip with no trouble. The fast, HSDPA networking helped the phone load new maps quickly. We also had a great time geotagging our photos, and the phone didn't seem sluggish in applying our location data to pics.
Price and availability
The Sony Ericsson C905 will be available as of July 19 from AT&T for $180 with a contract agreement and mail-in rebate.
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