The lack of a flagship model capable of competition against the leading solutions by other vendors looks like a situation very uncharacteristic of Sony Ericsson. Over an extensive term, starting from T610i and going on till K800i, the company enjoyed maximum efficiency and success, holding the title of the technology leader and subsequently attaining a larger share of the market. In 2007, the strategy was revised once again, the main goal remaining the future expansion onto the new markets. An accent was made on the mid-end segment, where Sony Ericsson achieved maximum success. Still the idea of an ultimate flagship wasn’t discarded, ending up with C905 hitting the shelf. Some might argue that the rival offer by Samsung, - the i8510 INNOV8, - is better in any imaginable aspect, yet in this case the price factor seems to be neglected. A difference of 200-250 euros plays a huge part on the mass market, effectively driving i8510 out of competition on this field. The situation seems to restage the release of G810: sporting better specifications than Nokia N95 (the materials, optical zoom, superior audio quality and so on), and even a lower price, the smartphone is nothing but a wallflower largely out of public attention. We don’t think that i8510 will break the wall; it might be a step closer to a revolution yet is not a revolutionary product itself. Inside its native segment, it will sport good sales yet competition against N95 is still something this model still doesn’t have the gut to be up to.

Unlike K850i, C905 only faces a few competitors. Besides the much more expensive i8510, the market will be lacking 8 Mp devices for quite a while; Nokia will only release a comparable solution in winter, as well as LG. KC910, the sequel to the KU990 Viewty bestseller, turned out to be a very successful solution; yet it didn’t reach the mass scale of sales that the predecessor used to enjoy: the price question backfired again. Sporting perfect camera and touchscreen capabilities, KC910 has a very unattractive price label; the keyboard-equipped gadgets taking on a more important role on the market, the traditional candy bar form factor of KC910 doesn’t contribute much to the product’s popularity as well. Both factors combined, KC910 ends up being a fancy choice for a limited number of well-to-do customers, falling out of the mass market race. Keeping this point in mind, it becomes clear that the low direct competition leaves much freedom for C905 to go on conquering and to conquer, at least until the release of comparable LG and Nokia gadgets. C905 is a highly expected (yet not as highly priced) product sporting a perfect price/functionality ratio, assuming a most honorable position within Sony Ericsson’s portfolio. Design, measurements and weight are very well-balanced; we failed to find a slightest fault in this general aspect, which gives the product a big plus in the mass-market outlook. C905 is the most likely candidate for the first best selling 8 Mp cameraphone; should it establish strong positions by the arrival of LG and Nokia competitors, the chances are that it will hold a leading position for some time even pitted against these formidable opponents. A very affordable price generously compensates for not the highest specifications around; still the functionality keeps on a pleasingly high level. As much of a focus as possible is kept on the camera aspect, so don’t expect any concessions in this sphere; this is what should give the model enough popularity to become a successful mass market entry.

Let’s take a closer look at the current situation. Nokia N95 and its 8GB variation have been present on the market for more than six months. This smartphone is equipped with everything that Sony Ericsson C905 has, save for a not as powerful camera and a few miscellaneous features which hardly substitute a selling point that matters (DLNA support, some minor software additions and such like stuff). By the release date of C905, the price for N95 8GB will drop to a comparable level, making about 570 euros. The mentioned Samsung i8510 is to appear in September sold at about 750 euros. Let’s compare these two top-ranking leaders of the hi-end segment and see what an average consumer thinks. By saying an average consumer we don’t mean some generic guy from the street but rather a person who follows the telecom news and takes interest in the emerging products, yet isn’t overly keen on the stuff and takes no priority in getting the latest and most powerful gadget around right the next day after release. Out of the fifty people who took part in the poll, the opinions were divided in such a manner as you can see in the tab:

It must be understood that none of these people are really concerned with the outcome, the opinions are subjective and don’t pretend to pass for expert assessments; yet it’s obvious that not everybody, to put it politely, is up to shelling out such a sum even for a highly functional device like that… even if the price is fully justified. The way Nokia N95 was selling last year is a good example illustrating the huge difference in how demand arises for mass-market products and the more elite ones (or should we better say ‘niche?’). When N95 debuted on the market, all the rest of 5 Mp cameraphones were hardly competitors; the former simply outnumbered their scores in all departments of functionality. Today we can say for sure that the ambitious i8510 can’t make a peer to Nokia N95 8GB or N96. It’s apparent that from the technological point of view, Samsung has the real advantage, yet the price and lack of an established reputation play against. As a result, many of the potential buyers will rather prefer the last year’s flagship or a similarly priced new model which is both cheaper and less technically advanced than the newest and most powerful of the three, the repulsive price being the grave factor denying the latter’s entry into the mass market race. By the way, a number of fully functional copies of i8510 have just become available, so it won’t take long before we publish a camera deathmatch article.

Why wasn’t the N96 model included into the competition? This model is a purely niche solution, sporting no perceptible advantages over the predecessor. A minor OS update, a doubled RAM size and a memory expansion slot all summed up don’t make a decisive point for buying one, let alone the DVB-H model hardly ever needed by anyone. Thus N96 isn’t a full-fledged heir of N95, but rather a variation meant to extend the portfolio; we even had guesses that its target audience are the people who buy devices with the latest technology on board just for the sake of having it in the pocket, even if rarely or never used. A price not below the money charged for Samsung i8510 even further diminishes the chances for becoming popular. A mass consumer will never care about the DVB-H unit either.

Let’s get back to Sony Ericsson C905 for now. This handset is positioned as a cameraphone leader. It’s still a bit too early to talk about the actual quality of implementation of any of the features: a term of whole three months separates this day from the official release date, and that’s just enough for serious fixes to arrive, possibly. Or not arrive. So we will only overview the design and ergonomics, putting the further examination on hold until a more finalized sample arrives.

Design and Ergonomics

C905 uses a slider form factor; the size and weight are standard for the current generation of hi-end devices. The handset is relatively large and weighty, but to an extent adequately proportional to the variety and power of the onboard hardware, and not a notch above. The quality of assembly and materials fell to our liking; by the most part, the casing is made from plastic with a soft-touch coating of a dark gray or white color. The back surface of the slider has a metal plate; the lens guard is also made of metal. On the whole C905 feels more on hi-end side and hardly goes along with epithets like plasticky or cheap-looking. The handset feels a monolith, no part ever goes wobbly.

The keyboard is of a rather standard type. The buttons aren’t clearly segmented, yet their large size is enough to make handling comfortable. The backlight is of a bright white color, perfectly visible in the dark. In the camera mode, the functional buttons is backlit in blue; the joystick button marks become visible. Other Cyber-shot handsets had the extra functions associated with the numericals (examples include K770i, K850i). In C905, they are habitually placed on the joystick button.

The screen is large enough and sports a fine quality. The color palette looks very rich and natural. A screen size of 2.4’’ still may look unimpressive against the competitors, yet this is justified by a more slender build of C905 clearly visible from a comparison with N95 and Samsung i8510, which are just wider. Above the screen a couple of buttons are located, serving as dedicated controls in the gallery and also sporting some functionality in a number of Java games. There’s no frontal cam for video calls. This may be another sign of an emerging trend among the large companies to do away with this function because its universal unpopularity with the masses. No frontal cam stands for more space in the casing which may as well be used by something handier, isn’t that right?

The left edge of the casing houses a Fast-Port slot and an M2 memory expansion slot (hot swapping supported, a plastic flap serving for protection). On the right edge, you can find a two-position shoot button, a gallery/camera switch button and the volume controls.

The back panel of the handset only contains a lens guard which doesn’t stick out above the surface.

As far as it goes to ergonomics and design, Sony Ericsson C905 is a very successful solution. It looks really good: solid, impressive and a pleasure to handle. No liberty was taken, the developers seem to have extracted a good lesson from the unlucky experience of the avant-garde K850i. C905 brings us back to the ideas originated in K750i and K850i – a handy, neat-looking and highly functional phone, three-in-one (four-in-one if we think of its adequate price). We can’t say the functionality is sky high, yet it’s quite on a decent level not to annoy even a picky consumer, and is perfectly balanced with the price. That’s how things become bombshells on the mass market.

Functionality

The interface themes come in an exclusive variety for each individual Sony Ericsson model. C905 comes with four, of which two are flash-based. The Media menu item also sports very little difference from homologous menus seen in other SE phones. An accelerometer is found on board, just like in the competitive solutions.

The GPS functionality is nothing to get excited over, no changes since W760i or C702 at all. The global positioning software used is still the same Wayfinder Navigator, with Google Maps mobile 2.0 coming as a complementary options (in addition to the standard functionality of Cell-ID data processing, it can also handle the data acquired with the onboard GPS receiver). A-GPS is supported, as well as a geo-tagging function (that’s a feature allowing to attach the current coordinates to the metadata stream of a just taken photo). The Tracker application is missing, limited to the youth-oriented models like W760i, C702. C905 comes with a three months’ license for Wayfinder Navigator; TeleAtlas maps are used. For a comparison, Samsung i8510 comes with the Route 66 applications (again, the TeleAtlas maps are used, provided on the basis of a three months’ license).

The availability of Wi-Fi currently plays an important role on the mass market. This is SonyEricsson first conventional (or ‘dumb’, as opposed to ‘smart’) phone with a Wi-Fi unit on board. The second one to follow, codenamed G705, is to appear shortly, offering a comparable range of features minus the powerful camera (switched for a dull 3.2 Mp non-autofocusing unit instead). Be it this way or another, the availability of Wi-Fi in a ‘dumbphone’ is a very rare occurrence, so far only seen in Motorola ZN5 and a few Nokia phones (where this functionality was curbed down to just provide for UDMA voice broadcasting). The Wi-Fi signal sensibility is perfect, the settings are all standard: search by name, preconfigured network connection, manual settings, auto sleep after a long standby cycle (something of the kind we could witness in Motorola ZN5). A Wi-Fi connection can be alternatively used for Web surfing, blogging, DLNA is also supported. The first DLNA device to appear on the market was Nokia N95 8 Gb, a fact denying the pioneer status to the C905 models. The browser was largely left unchanged, the good old NetFront 3.4 sporting features like web-to-phone photo saving, SmartFit, horizontal screen orientation, page zooming, etc. If you do a lot of web surfing, you would always be better off with OperaMini, though.

Browser is still the same, NetFront 3.4 with smart-fit technology supported.

The preinstalled games include Need For Speed, Kasparov Chess and Tennis Multiplay. We found these very amusing. NFS engages the accelerometer and the extra buttons below the screen as active controls.

Camera

There has been a large bit of gossip circulating all across the web questioning the actual type of camera used in Sony Ericsson C905. Most of the guesses were wrong, Sony Ericsson took up a unit produced by the child Sony company, buying cameras from a third-party manufacturer (many hints at Samsung were aired during the recent weeks) would badly harm the final cost of the product, endangering its performance on the mass market. Given the availability of a home-produced range of mobile cameras, SE would never go looking for a better option outside. The alleged use of a Samsung cam has been recently denounced, as seen from the officially published specifications.

The use of a Sony camera in C905 is an approved fact; today its characteristics look quite decent, but we reserve our judgments on the photo quality until the appearance of a finalized sample.

The camera of C905 works really fast; focusing takes only about two seconds, a same amount of time is need for saving a photo. The camera application takes but a few instants to launch, it takes about 6 seconds in total from the moment when you shift the lens guard to the moment when the photo is saved. The lens guard, by the way, is very convenient. It will never open accidentally, it doesn’t stick above the casing surface.

The camera application interface utilizes a horizontal orientation. The differences from the previous cameraphones (e.g. C902) are minimal, for the concept has been proven by time as successful. In the viewfinder mode, a variety of status indicators are shown on the screen, including the current resolution, the flash activation status, the macro mode, the remaining number of shots, the image stabilizer activation status, the geo tagging status, the Smart Contrast filter status and so on.

Once the shooting mode has been activated, the joystick button markings become backlit, as well as the side-positioned buttons. The functions corresponding to the directions of the joystick button are: flash activation, focusing mode selection, timer and brightness settings. The buttons on the right edge serve for rapid switching between the gallery and viewfinder windows and zoom control (up to 16x, digital).

Pressing the navigation button to the left will bring up a standard Cyber-shot settings tab, offering five shooting modes ranging from the standard Normal, Panoramic, Frame and BestPic to the brand new Smart Contrast which automatically processes a taken photo so that it possesses the best contrast balance available. Our test sample had a few failures with this feature, and it seems to remain unstable. Ironically, at times it was hard to tell which of the two shots looked better – the original or the Smart Contrast one, especially when you weren’t told from the beginning which one was the original and which had been processed with Smart Contrast. Smart Contrast is available both with activated or deactivated flash.

A total of four focusing modes are available: auto, macro, infinity (meaning no auto-focusing), face detection. If you select Face Detection, an object is captured in a special frame which starts following the person’s face. Its initial color is white, growing to green or red depending on the focusing status. This feature works pretty well yet can be easily deceived with a photo. In most cases the increase in quality is marginal, yet at times you can make a use of it. You are always welcome to try, sorting out a small boost in accuracy and contrast in case you’re lucky enough.

A few shots taken in the Face detection Mode. The object is seen in the center or in the very corner of the frame.

Seven Scene settings + auto are available. That’s quite enough for most users. The list includes the following entries:

• Auto
• Portait
• Twilight portrait
• Landscape
• Twilight landscape
• Beach/snow
• Sports
• Document

The list of resolutions is quite standard, a total of five options are available:

• 3264x2448 (8M)
• 2592x1944 (5M)
• 2048x1536 (3M)
• 1280x960 (1M)
• 640x480 (0.3M)

The special effects come in a very modes variety, including Sepia, Negative, Solarize and Black and White. A timer functionality is available, as well as an exposure meter, two alternate quality settings (Fine, Normal), quick view for latest taken photo, shutter sound options (4 variants, the fifth being simply OFF), and an image stabilizer. This image stabilizer function equally available for photos and videos has a long history in the company’s phones (e.g. it’s found in C902), and can only be activated in the panoramic shooting mode. It doesn’t bring you any real improvement in quality though, yet ought to make the feature list look more impressive; ironically!

A few standard White Balance settings are available (Auto / Daylight / Incandescent / Fluorescent / Cloudy) the ISO level is adjustable in a range from 400 to 100, optionally switched to Auto. The extra settings include geo-tagging. The feature is very interesting, eventually becoming a standard option even on conventional phones. An auto screen rotation setting is available.

Below you will find a few photo samples. These images were acquired with a R1AA081 firmware. No changes affecting the camera are observed in the newer R1AA083. The latest firmware version is R1BA005. We expect a considerable increase in photo quality in the upcoming firmware versions. Even without that, the current image quality is pretty fine. In most cases, it is above the quality of the previous generation flagships Nokia N82 and K850i. It’s still too early to draw comparisons with the other 8 Mp cameraphones. As of now, only i8510 is available in flesh in bone. Sporting comparable camera characteristics (save for the traditionally poor video quality of SE), i8510i suffers from the lack of a xenon flash, having a slightly better camera matrix. No public comparisons will be about until we retrieve a more finalized version of C905.

Videos can be shot at a QVGA resolution (320x240) with a framerate of 30 fps.

Gallery

The gallery options come in a standard set for all the latest Sony Ericsson phones. The Media menu item stands for a standard viewer reminiscent of the Sony PSP interface. In this application, the accelerometer will automatically switch the screen orientation depending on the handset's physical position. Only the left-side turn is supported. You can turn this function off at will. Getting back to the media gallery, let’s have a quick overview of its functional structure. The following menu items are available: Photo, Music, Video, TV and Settings. The names are pretty self-explaining. The menu uses some very neat graphics with animated features, the performance is pretty high, no lags at all. The gallery interface never depends on a handset’s market positioning as it goes to SE products, it’s all the same in the latest UIQ smartphones manufactured by SE. That’s a namecard of sorts distinguishing SE products from the phones by other brands.

The Photo menu items allows to view the latest taken shot or the whole album; images can be sorted by user tags. In the Photo submenu, all the content is divided into separate albums: the camera album (with a monthly categorization of the materials), the latest shots album, the misc graphics album and the tagged photos album. Each monthly category in the camera album has an associated thumbnail and an indication of the number of photos in that category. In a way similar to Nokia S60 FP2, the user is free to create own tags, type in associated text notes and thus group the photos into groups each associated with an individual tag.

The X-Pict story application lets you compose slide shows from the available photos. The settings are very scarce, even the time interval between the frames can’t be customized. The frame transition effects, as well as the music background, are hard-coded into the each of the four available slideshow themes, the so called Moods. There’s no option for creating user themes.

Imaging

The PhotoDJ graphics editor and the PhotoFix standard feature are included in the default software package. The former is what you would use for generic photo manipulations, also preserving a simple MS-Paint like functionality. The feature list runs as follows:

• Rotate,
• Auto levels,
• Brightness,
• ISO settings,
• Contrast,
• Red eye filter,
• Add effect (Negative, Cartoon, Frosted glass, Painting),
• Insert object (Frame, Clipart, Text)

The latter is a set of filters which helps you with giving your photos a bit of post processing for better looks.

Impressions and opinions

As we have already mentioned, C905 has a lot of would-be competitors but none really posing a serious challenge. The last year’s Nokia N95 8GB has a poorer cam, which is a serious drawback given that the 8 Mp label will play a key role on the mass market during Q4 of this year. Thus, even a better functionality in the other aspects (large storage, S60 platform) and a comparable price will never overpower that; some people’s practical mind would suggest that in a sense N95 8GB could make a better choice, but common sense can do nothing against the trends of the mass market, where people always take preference of a shot-calling, actively promoted feature and not the subtle balance of all the features combined. The audiences of the two devices intersect, but not to a great extent. The other competitor wannabe, Samsung i8510, also can’t engage C905 on all fronts. A much higher price and no real advantages over C905 in the camera department stand for little chance against C905 in its native market segment. In other words, Samsung i8510 falls into a different product class, the audiences of the two products have but a few points of intersection, so the competition, if any, would be but a very indirect one. Nobody would doubt Samsung’s superiority in the overall functionality, but a sober and cold-minded vision of the market situation is always welcome: C905 has much stronger position on the mass market than i8510 would ever win. The Cyber-shot brand label, a maximum shot resolution, a handy interface, additional shooting modes, fine quality of the photos all combined with an affordable price will inevitably result in an overwhelming success, as if advising the alleged competitors to go and try selling in their native market sectors instead of trying to claim some other product’s firm ground.

Once a finalized commercial sample of the device is available, we will expand our review with the missing data and compare the camera quality of the final sample to the already available models. But that’s a bit too early to discuss the matter right now, leaving to you a three months’ term of guesses and wondering.

Author: Dmitry Ryabinin

SMAPE.com

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