Sony Ericsson C905 deals & review

The Sony Ericsson C905 is a phone for people who would like a camera that doubles as a phone, rather than a phone that also serves as a camera. Its main advantage over the competition comes in the form of a Xenon flash, rather than LED flash, which means that dark settings and night scenes are now far easier to capture.

The Sony Ericsson C905 is hardly what you’d call a slimline phone, but it manages to have a certain aesthetic appeal nonetheless. When held sideways, it looks and feels a bit like a camera. At a weighty 136g, it also has a solid, durable build, with metal casing and scratch-resistant glass over the screen. The phone navigation is classic Sony Ericsson, focused around a central D-pad with buttons on either side. The C905 features a slide-out keypad underneath the phone, with large – though not brilliantly defined – buttons.

As a Sony Ericsson, it isn’t a surprise that the C905 is also packed with a few smart features, including an FM radio, music and video players and Google Maps software. The phone’s display is a decent 2.4-inch QVGA, 262K-colour screen – which might leave a little to be desired in terms of size, but still delivers bright, clear images and video.

Of course, this phone’s pride and joy is its 8MP camera. While 8MP is now fairly standard among smartphones, the C905 takes some of the best quality photos you’ll see on a phone today. It boasts a fancy little extra in the form of BestPic, which allows you to take a quick burst of seven photographs in succession and choose the best one. It also features red-eye reduction and – the best part yet – a Xenon flash, which makes a world of difference compared to the lacklustre LED flashes that most camera-phones offer.

The Sony Ericsson C905 performs well, with nine hours of talk time on the battery – which naturally falls to dramatically less with 3G and Wi-Fi in use - and a decent 160MB of on-board storage. This can be increased by an extra 8GB via the Memory Stick Micro slot, which should be enough to store a good gallery of photographs. One slightly disappointing detail is that the phone seems to take a little while saving pictures, which could be a fairly important flaw in a Cyber-shot phone.

The phone’s fast Wi-Fi and 3G connections mean that sending photos via email or uploading them to the web is quick and easy. The C905 comes with a web-browser which is reasonably easy to use, though there’s also a choice to download Opera Mini, another popular web browser which works well for full-page browsing.

Users looking to purchase a mid-range phone that excels in photography will probably also want to consider the Nokia N82, the LG Renoir and the Samsung Pixon. The Renoir and Pixon both offer touch-screen controls, which will probably be a big turn-on for a lot of people – but the C905’s Xenon flash and ability to take excellent shots in low light is a rare treat in a camera-phone, and one that should ensure its success in the market.