Sony Ericsson C905

Editor's Review of the C905

Weighing 136 grams and measuring 104 x 49 x 18 millimetres, the Sony Ericsson C905 is a member of Sony Ericsson's C-range, joining the C702i and C902i models. The C905 comes in three vibrant colour options for its casing, consisting of ice silver, midnight black and copper gold.

The Sony Ericsson C905 boasts of a wide coloured TFT QVGA screen measuring 60.96 millimetres, and showcases picture wallpapers in 240 x 320 pixels. It operates on slide mechanism, which reveals a neat set of keypad for ease in texting. The handset comes with navigation and shortcut keys, allowing owners to use it even when the slide is closed.

This mobile phone can reflect its owner's personality with the various ringtones it offers in Polyphonic, AAC and MP3 formats. New ringtones can be downloaded via the PlayNow feature that the C905 supports.

Getting online access is easy with the the Access NetFront Web browser. Sony Ericsson has incorporated the 3G HSDPA technology in the C905 for speedier Internet connectivity and a better 3G video call experience.

A quadband mobile phone, the Sony Ericsson C905 works on GSM 1900, GSM 1800, GSM 900 and GSM 850, and UMTS 2100. The standard messaging capabilities of the handset include SMS text messaging that operates with Predictive Text Input, and MMS multimedia messaging. As this handset has Internet connectivity, it allows e-mail and instant messaging, and is powered by Exchange ActiveSync.

The Sony Ericsson C905 runs on EDGE system for faster data transfers between the handset and other compatible devices. The handset also supports file and data transfers through wireless Bluetooth and USB cable.

A banner feature of the Sony Ericsson C905 is its built-in 8.1-CyberShot Megapixel camera. The camera has a powerful 16x digital zoom allowing better focus on photo subjects. The C905 also has auto-focus, face detection, and anti-red eye features. Users can take as many as nine shots with just one click, thanks to the BestPic function of the integrated camera. The handset's CyberShot is fully equipped with a Xenon flash that tweaks the lighting when capturing a picture. The Xenon Flash in the C905 CyberShot is an apparent improvement, as it was missing in the camera of its predecessor, the C902.

The multi-tasking Sony Ericsson CyberShot camera supports both video and still images, and comes with a built-in image stabiliser, assuring camera users better quality of shots taken and videos recorded. In addition to video recording, it is capable of video streaming.

Music-loving users can opt to play their favourite tracks using the media player that supports standard audio formats. The mobile phone is also powered by PlayNow, and features Album Art that displays album covers on the handset's screen. The C905 also comes with track recognition feature called TrackID. Tuning in to FM radio stations is also possible.

While seemingly sophisticated, the Sony Ericsson C905 has stayed true to the practical features of a mobile phone, offering an organiser, a phone book, an alarm clock, a calculator, a calendar, a stopwatch, a timer, a vibrating alert, notes and task, as well as a speakerphone. It also comes with a sound recorder and GPS navigation system supporting Google Maps, which serves as its users' guide on directions. Users are kept entertained with its support for Java and 3D games.

The Sony Ericsson C905's battery provides nine hours of talk time for GSM, or four hours worth of talk time for 3G functions, when operating on full battery. The handset has a standby time of 360 to 380 hours. The internal memory has the capacity to store files of up to 160 Megabytes. This memory can be expanded to up to 8 Gigabytes through inserting a Micro M2 card slot.

The Sony Ericsson C905 impresses its observers with functions that exude style, brilliance and functionality. However, some users attest that the mobile phone can become slow during start-up that renders it unresponsive, or tends to freeze during calls. Others say that the battery life of the C905 lasts less than it promises.