Amazon.com
Boasting an impressive 8.1-megapixel camera and advanced features such as face detection, autofocus, xenon flash and geo-tagging, the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot C905a from AT&T simplifies your on-the-go photography needs while also taking advantage of AT&T’s ultra-fast 3G network. Additionally, with AT&T’s 3G network, you can listen to a conference call on a headset while sending and receiving e-mail attachments, picture messages or Web pages at the same time. This GPS-enabled phone can access the AT&T Navigator service for turn-by-turn directions as well as its Video Share service, which enables you to send video of yourself to another compatible phone while making a voice call. The Sony Ericsson C905a is an exce (more…)
A monster in a box – once debranded!, August 6, 2009
Rating: 5/5
I have been an avid user of Nokia N-Series phones for a while now, including the N95, N85, and most recently the N97. These phones have everything and the kitchen sink as far as specs and features go, and I had simply grown too accustomed to using them for just about everything in life. “Decent” camera with flash? Check. GPS turn-by-turn directions? Check. Organizer? Check. Personal e-mail? Check. Work e-mail and calendar sync? Check. Tethering to share its data connection while on the road? Check. Multitasking? Check. Music player, FM Tuner, Podcasting, Internet Radio? Check, Check, Check, Check. Then there are the more esoteric features, such as Nokia Sports Tracker (to record your route, speed, distance etc as you go jogging, biking, etc), TV-Out cable and Bluetooth keyboard support (to use it for basic Internet access from your living room), Speech Synthesis to read your messages and e-mail out loud while driving, and so on. I simply could not see myself “downgrading” to anything else.
I had also tried out a Sony Ericsson k850i in the mix, but despite the Xenon flash, I was unimpressed by the overall picture quality. It performed no better than my N95 as a camera phone, and was lacking in every other aspect. (No GPS, no WiFi, not very many useful applications, etc).
That was then, and this is now. I recently sent in my N97 for service (the camera had started malfunctioning – that’s another topic), and go the C905a merely as a “stop gap” in the mean time. Since this is also by far the most interesting phone AT&T have had in some time, I figured it was worth a new 2-year commitment, and that I would hang onto it as a “back up” phone. Also, I did know a thing or two about its features and capabilites — for instance I knew that it supports FM Radio, WiFi, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, and any standard/personal POP3/IMAP e-mail setup – but also that AT&T had disabled all of these features. So, the first thing I did once I got it was to “de-brand” the phone. I used the DaVinci tool for this, another one is WotanServer; or you can even do it for free with the “A2 Uploader” tool and a little bit more reading beforehand. While I was at it I got it unlocked to, so that I can use non-AT&T SIMs (e.g. get a local pre-paid card while traveling abroad to avoid the exorbitant roaming fees to AT&T).
I have been absolutely blown away by this phone! It may not have every single feature that the Nokias do – but pretty close. More to the point, Sony Ericsson pay a lot more attention to the small design and implementation details, and so things generally feel more polished and complete, less quirky and buggy compared to the Nokias. The main thing it is missing is a “Smartphone” operating system (like Symbian/S60 in the case of Nokia); other than that it is in many ways more capable than even many high-end smartphones. More on that later.
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The Best Cameraphone
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The main feature of the phone is the camera — and the C905a has the best camera of any phone on the market, IMHO. Especially for indoor/party pictures, it – quite literally – shines above the competition. There are only a handful of other phones available that have real Xenon flash: The Sony Ericsson k850i, the Nokia N82, the Motorola Zine ZN5, and the LG Renoir – but the C905a flash illuminates better than any of these. Also image quality is better overall – i.e. more optical resolution, better color reproduction, and so on.
The camera interface and features are also quite extensive. For instance, it supports face recognition, which if enabled will put a square around every face it detects in the viewfinder, and use these for autofocus. Or “Smile Shutter”, which keeps the picture from being taken until the identified subject actually smiles. The one thing it lacks is manual ISO control – though it does have several “scene modes”, and usually picks a good ISO setting on its own. (Sometimes a bit conservative/low, choosing instead to rely on the flash for illumination. The good news is that means less grainy pictures; the bad news is that in twilight settings where the subject is close to the camera, you’ll find that the strong flash causes a very short exposure time, where the background becomes too dark in the picture).
As far as video recording – well – that’s another story. While competitors – notably Nokia – have standardized on VGA resolution (640×480 pixels) at 30 frames per second ever since the N95, Sony Ericsson STILL stick to their QVGA (320×240) resolution video mode. Well – at least – each pixel seems to count a bit more now than it did with the k850i; in terms of “real” (optical) resolution I’d say videos from this phone may actually be – just about – comparable to those from the N95/N96/N85/N97.
UPDATE: I compared the cameras of the C905a with the Nokia N97 (now back from repair). As it turns out, not only do the C905a’s still pictures have better optical resolution, particularly in low light conditions, but it turns out that zooming in on subjects while recording video is handled much better as well. The C905a’s zoom zooming operation is smoother, and subjects remain relatively sharp up to a factor of 3x-4x or so, whereas the N97′s zoom operates in discrete steps (“choppy” zooming), and the videos immediately become more grainy as you zoom in. It may simply be that the C905a features optical zooming in video recording mode, while the N97 is all digital zoom. Finally, the zooming range of the C905a is much larger (allows you to zoom in much further), though I would actually have preferred the option to limit that to about 3x/4x in order to retain video quality.
I don’t have any knowledge about other phones’ performance in this area; however if you are interested in a good camera that also has good video recording capabilities, you may wish to check out the Samsung OmniaHD (i8910). This is another 8MP camera phone that supports HD video recording (720p), and which otherwise has an operating system and feature set very similar to the Nokia N97. (But beware that it lacks support for one of the 3G bands that AT&T use, so your 3G coverage will be more limited).
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The Smartest “Dumbphone”
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Once debranded, the C905a has virtually all the features and capabilities that you would expect from ANY phone, smart or not:
- GPS, with included applications for turn-by-turn directions (WayFinder; subscription required), Google Maps, and location tagging of pictures taken by the camera. The GPS works pretty well: Where some of my Nokia phones and in particular the N97 would constantly lose and re-gain the GPS fix, and as a result Nokia Maps would constantly be recalculating directions and getting things completely mixed up, the C905a with WayFinder has been rock solid. It may not be quite as full-featured; for instance I don’t see a place to change the default UK English voice, endearing as she is; nor does there seem to be a way to store maps/data directly on your device, so you will depend on a data plan. Overall I am very happy with the GPS though.
- Wireless LAN (WiFi). Unlike the Nokias, when you setup a WLAN access point you can also chose to share your phone’s filesystem over the network, as if it were a Windows file server.
- Bluetooth with nearly every profile in existence. HSP/HFP for handsfree calling (obviously), A2DP/AVRCP for stereo audio streaming/control, DUN/PAN for internet connection tethering, GOEP/OBEX (so you can send/receive files, Contacts/vCards, browse the phone’s filesystem, etc), PBAP/SP (to transfer/synchronize your contacts with compatible devices such as your car stereo). One thing that’s missing compared to the Nokias is support for a Bluetooth keyboard – but then again, that’s pretty esoteric anyway.
- E-mail reader with support for standard IMAP/POP3 setups as well as Microsoft Exchange. It is nicely done – much more polished and userfriendly than the Symbian/S60 reader in Nokia smartphones, and in some ways works better too. For instance, the only way to get the S60 reader to persistently update your mailbox without having to keep the Messaging application open is to set it to poll at specified intervals; but in this case it insists on indexing ALL e-mails in your inbox. Since I have about 9000 messages in my Inbox, it would simply not work (it would become slow and eventually crash). Not so with the C905a – it autodetects IMAP IDLE support on my mail server, and consequently gives me “push” mail (without the need for any third party service such as Nokia Messaging, BlackBerry Connect or MobileMe). More to the point, it just works — right out of the box. NOTE: To set up a Microsoft Exchange account via Outlook Web Access, you need to go into Settings -> Connectivity (the right-most tab) -> Synchronization.
- There is a built-in IM application, which supports the standard Open Mobile Alliance IMPS protocol. In the branded version, there are predefined settings for MSN, AIM and Yahoo! (using AT&T’s IM service). Unfortunately, after debranding, these are not available; however you can bring them back by uploading a customization file into the phone’s filesystem via “A2 Uploader” or similar. More info in the comments. Alternatively, you may be able to use one of the several open IMPS gateways that exist – a free one is MobJab
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Ilias