Friday, October 31, 2008

Review: Sony Ericsson C905 CyberShot

The C905 is Sony Ericsson’s first Cyber-shot slider and its most advanced camera phone yet. With an 8.1 megapixel camera and real camera flash amongst its cutting-edge capabilities, it offers easy photo-taking in a phone that derives its looks from a digital camera and offers the picture quality to match. “The Sony Ericsson C905 CyberShot has been developed to make us all better photographers! That means making it easier to take great shots and never missing that magic moment.” said Sven Totté, Head of Imaging Marketing at Sony Ericsson. “The 8.1 megapixel Sony Ericsson C905 is a viable alternative to a digital camera.”


Sony Ericsson C905i CyberShot

  • Complete digital camera experience on a phone - true digital camera styling and an 8.1 megapixel camera with Xenon flash
  • Outstanding picture quality - complete with face detection auto-focus, smart contrast and image stabilizer
  • From baby's first steps to an amazing sunset; store them all on the 2GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) included
  • The USB adaptor (CCR-70) provided in-box allows for easy transfer of your photos to-and-from your PC.
  • View high-quality pictures on the phones impressive 2.4" scratch-resistant mineral glass display
  • Share your memories - send your photos wirelessly from your phone to your TV via Wi-Fi (using DLNA), or connect with wires using the TV-Out Cable ITC-60
  • Upload photos to your own online blogsite or print your photos with fantastic resolution up to A3 size
  • Much more than a camera phone - GPS-enabled for geo-tagging of photos and navigation support.


Sony Ericsson C905 8 Megapixel camera phone
Building on Sony Ericsson's camera phone heritage, the Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot phone is an all-round performer that maximises its camera credentials. The C905 CyberShot is a powerful 8.1 megapixel camera phone that looks, feels and acts like a real camera.





Sony Ericsson C905 Price & Availability
The Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot will be available in three colours (Night Black, Ice Silver and Copper Gold) in selected markets from Q4 2008. It will support the following networks:

  • Sony Ericsson C905: GSM / GPRS / EDGE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 UMTS / HSDPA 2100
  • Sony Ericsson C905a: GSM / GPRS / EDGE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 UMTS / HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100
  • Sony Ericsson C905c: GSM / GPRS / EDGE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

[Source]

Review: Sony Ericsson W902

Sony Ericsson has announced the W902 Walkman for those who want it all. The 8GB Memory Stick Micro lets you store more than 8,000 songs and switches seamlessly from music to media to experience crystal clear video capabilities. No longer do you need to make a choice between music, media and imaging when picking your next phone. The Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman is a phone that goes beyond music and gives users everything they need in one pocket-sized stylish device. Downsize your bag, free your pockets and leave your music player and camera at home - use the premium W902 phone to play your favorite tunes, snap those precious moments or watch crystal clear video on the bright, scratch-resistant 2.2” QVGA display.

Sony Ericsson W902 - Multimedia experience
"We all want more from our mobile phones than ever before." said Ben Padley, Head of the Music Category at Sony Ericsson, "If you love music but don't want to compromise on imaging and video, we have used our expertise as music phone specialists to give users a truly multimedia experience with this latest phone. The Sony Ericsson W902 is one of our most high-performing phones yet and perfect for those who want it all."


W902 Sony Ericsson phone - Sound quality and Premium headphone
The new Sony Ericsson 902 delivers music as it was meant to be heard through Sony Ericsson's revolutionary clear audio experience. With crystal clear sound quality and a dramatically richer bass, together with Sony Ericsson premium headphones, HPM-77 included in-box, your favorite tracks will sound better than ever. The Sony Ericsson W902 features the same superior sound quality as the W980, about to launch shortly, which was rated "best audio experience" this month, in a trial conducted in Germany by TESTfactory.

W902 Features :
  • Fast forward to fantastic sounds
  • Outstanding music sound
  • Clear Stereo + Clear Bass+ premium headphones = clear audio experience
  • Retro music navigation keys - skip forward, back, play and pause with the push of a button
  • Crystal clear video playback
  • 5 megapixel camera - snap your stills and videos
  • Scratch-resistant 2.2" QVGA screen and lens - made with mineral glass
  • 8GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) for more than 8,000 songs

Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman phone - Availability
Look beyond music and have it all with the new Sony Ericsson W902. Convenient, stylish and compact - why carry your life around in your bag when it can fit in your pocket? The Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman is a UMTS/HSDPA 2100 and GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 phone that will be available in selected markets in Volcanic Black, Wine Red and Earth Green in Q4 of 2008.

Review: Sony Ericsson W595

The Sony Ericsson W595 is unveiled. “We all want more from our mobile phones than ever before.” said Ben Padley, Head of the Music Category at Sony Ericsson, “If you love music but don’t want to compromise on imaging and video, we have used our expertise as music phone specialists to give users a truly multimedia experience with this latest phone” For the real rocker in you, the Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman, is packed full of innovations for great music and media moments. The W595 mobile phone features a 2.2” bright and large screen for impressing video capabilities. Store and play over 1900 tunes in the 2GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) or share great sounds through the built in stereo speakers.


Sony Ericsson W595 phone - Entertainment package
Get up close and personal with the stereo Share jack so your best friend can listen in from an additional headset. Make play lists that match your moods with SensMe and change your tune or raise the volume with a flick of your wrist using Shake control. The Sony Ericsson W595 also comes with preloaded games for a full entertainment package - the possibilities are endless! Look beyond music and have it all with the new Sony Ericsson W595. Convenient, stylish and compact - why carry your life around in your bag when it can fit in your pocket?



W595 Sony Ericsson mobile phone - Features
  • Walkman player - music on the go
  • 2GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) - store and play more than 1,900 songs
  • Share jack and stereo speakers - share your sounds
  • Bluetooth - use the many wireless speakers for loud sound
  • TrackID and SensMe - lets you know what you are listening to
  • 3.2 megapixel camera - snap some great shots and share with friends




Sony Ericsson W595 HSDPA phone - Availability
The new Sony Ericsson W595 Walkman is a UMTS/HSDPA 2100 and GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 phone that will be available in selected markets in Active Blue, Cosmopolitan White, Jungle Grey and Lava Black in Q4 of 2008. The Sony Ericsson W595c Walkman is a GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 phone that will be available in selected markets in Active Blue, Cosmopolitan White and Jungle Grey in Q4 of 2008. The Sony Ericsson W595a Walkman is a GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 phone that will be available in selected markets in Active Blue, Cosmopolitan White, Jungle Grey and Lava Black in Q4 of 2008.

Review: Motorola U9

Motorola's mobile phones division is in a bit of trouble at the moment having been hived off as a separate business and suffered the indignity of a very public lambasting. The company can only remain a serious player if it produces handsets that people want to buy. With that in mind, what do we make of the U9?

Well, the opportunity to buy it is certainly widespread. Checking online as I wrote this review you can get it from O2 from free on contract and for £99.99 on pay and go; on Vodafone from free on contract and £72 on pay as you talk; and from Orange for £89.99 on pay as you go.



This is a quad-band clamshell phone and it comes in pink and purple. I feel duty bound to explain that Moto suggests this is a handset for the ladies and offers an inane quiz to help you decide which colour suits you. If you are Barbie-like and/or dim enough to think you need a quiz to decide what colour phone suits you, then try it here. Motorola really should have more sense than to try such a patronising marketing effort.

Anyway, I got the purple version, the PRs having cleverly picked up on my dislike of pink. The phone is Christmas-decoration shiny all over the front and rubbery on the back. The visual design is distinctly PEBL making it two years old in concept.

Despite the design's age I can't really fault Motorola on the rounded ‘bar of soap' style shape. It means the U9 feels as comfy in the hand as the PEBL ever did. And dimensions-wise you are looking at a pocket-friendly 90mm x 49mm x 16mm that weighs a reasonable 87g.


And there is something very new to this mobile - its outer OLED display. Now, OLED displays should not be new to regular readers, but Motorola has done something rather clever with its implementation. The front OLED sits under the outer shell and you'd never know there was a front screen at all when it's not active. When it is, its 128 x 160 pixels provide information in a way that dominates the front of the phone. Moreover there is a touch-responsive element.

When playing music, for example, the screen displays track info for a few seconds and then turns itself off. You can reactivate it by touching the front screen, and this could be handy because there are touch controls for forward, back and pause/play.


When a call comes in the OLED pops up and tells you who is making contact. When nothing much is going on you can tap the volume rocker and change profiles.

When someone sends you an SMS the OLED alerts you. It can display the message and you can send a quick reply using a combination of the left side volume rocker and select key. There are various predefined texts and you can add more. It is a bit of a fiddly system, especially as you need to unlock the side keys before using them, but it could come in handy.

Open the flip and you are greeted by a 2in, 320 x 240 pixel, 262 thousand colour TFT LCD which is amazingly sharp and bright, and a retro flat number pad. There is nothing remarkable about the number pad though it does have a key dedicated to launching the music library.



Which brings me on to the phone's features, and I'll start with music. The formats supported are a standard bunch - MP3, WMA, AAC and AAC+ among them.

The phone's memory card will sync with a PC. There is a microSD card slot under the battery cover where it is as difficult to get at as it could possibly be. Moto says cards of up to 4GB in size are supported, which must mean SDHC is supported. You can't send music to the internal memory, but with just 256MB built in the absence of this ability is not going to worry you too much.



You can use Bluetooth stereo headphones or the set supplied by Motorola which, irritatingly, use a proprietary connector and are one-piece i.e. there is no way of using a headset with a 3.5mm jack.

My battery test indicates that this is not the ideal phone for music lovers. From a full charge it gave me 4 hours 47 minutes of continuous tunes through its loudspeaker, which is hardly record breaking.

There is a camera which shoots stills at resolutions up to 2-megapixels. The lens is on the front of the flip and with the phone closed you can use the OLED as a viewfinder to frame photos of yourself shooting with a side button. You can zoom using the volume rocker but can't access any other settings.

With the flip open you shoot facing away from yourself and use the main screen as the viewfinder. Now you can get to the camera's settings using the up and down controls on the navigation button to choose the type of setting (zoom, scene, exposure, lighting conditions etc) and then the left and right buttons to make selections. This system makes it really fast and easy to make changes.
The camera can be best described as average, and that may be doing it a kindness. Certainly my test shots, as usual taken with the camera on auto settings, did not perform wonderfully.

The coloured dish, photographed indoors under normal household lighting conditions is rather dark and grainy. The chair, which has become my standard outdoor shot, shows variation in its white tones and definition is not what it could be. The white flowers fare better, with an acceptable level of detail as far as camera phones go and less over-exposure than I had anticipated. All the test images, however, appear to suffer from a spurious colour shift at the centre of each exposure. Odd.


Interestingly you can set the phone to automatically send all photos to a list of contacts you specify. Not sure that is a good idea, really, but there you are.

As well as voice dialling you can set up a talking phone system where the phone reads stuff out to you such as the caller ID and content of incoming texts and emails. The voice used is rather more human than some, but making the setting is fiddly enough that you may not bother with it.
Yes, there is mobile email support, and there is an HTML Web browser which, frankly, I'd steer clear of on a quad-band phone with a 2in screen. There is a calendar, to do list, three alarms, world clock, calculator, and notepad too.

Verdict
So has Moto done enough with the U9 in view of its present difficulties? Well, the front OLED display is distinctive, the shaping is old-hat but remains attractive, and there is a reasonable array of software on board. Other mid-range mobiles do have better battery life, though, and I think a company with such a good past design pedigree could have done better.