The impression with Sony Ericsson, recently, is of little activity, whilst the reality is they have announced and released some high quality handsets recently. What hasn’t helped their cause is the recent unreliability of top end handsets, such as the well documented ear piece problem with the C905, but with phones like the W995, C901 and the much anticipated Satio on the go, Sony Ericsson are showing they still have what it takes to produce market leading devices. Personally, I really think they could work with their marketing in a much more effective manner, but that is a topic for another day.
In this post, we are going to take a detailed look at the Sony Ericsson C903. By the naming structure used by Sony Ericsson we can already deduce something about the handset. The C means it is a Cybershot device, so we can expect imaging to be well catered for. The leading digit, 9, is indicative of how high up the range the handset will be, and with 9 being top of the range we can expect a good set of features here. 0 shows it is the first device in this series and 3 tells us that the form factor is slider.
The Sony Ericsson C903 is a compact device, and very lightweight, weighing in at a healthy 96g. Measuring 97 x 49 x 16mm, this is not a phone that is going to cause any pocket damage. The screen is a 240 x 320 QVGA TFT display, supporting up to 256,000 colours and measuring 2.4 inches, pretty standard for most Sony Ericsson devices. The phone is enabled with an accelerometer, allowing the display to auto rotate orientation in compatible applications. The glass covering the display is scratch resistant, which should eliminate those annoying little scratches that seem to appear on a display screen after a few months usage.
As we have already mentioned, being a C class handset indicates that image capture on the C903 should be top draw, and we are not disappointed. The handset is equipped with a 5.0 Megapixel camera, enabled with autofocus and offering an LED flash. Image enhancements include face and smile detection, image stablisation, and Geotagging support, which includes location information in the digital image file, information which can be viewed on hosting sites such as Flickr and Picasa. It is also possible to upload pictures directly from the handset to your blog, with the integrated Blogger application. The camera is equipped for video recording, with clips captured at QVGA resolution at 30fps and with the TV Out option, images and video clips can be played on a TV screen, a great way of showing holiday snaps.
Too survive as a leading brand handset in a tough market, requires more than one standout feature these days. So, whilst the C903 offers a high quality camera, to be classed amongst the best it needs more, and it is pleasing to see there is much more to this phone than just a high quality camera. We already alluded to the inclusion of GPS by mentioning the Geotagging option in the camera; the GPS is provided by a GPS receiver, and backed up by aGPS support. Navigation on the handset is via Google Maps, and also with Wayfinder Navigator 7.
Messaging is worth a mention, as the C903 presents text message conversations in a threaded manner, similar to an instant messaging conversation, making it much easier to follow the topic. Email support is included on the phone, with support for multiple email accounts included.
Entertainment also fares well on the SE C903, with the phone sporting a quality music player, supporting multiple digital music formats amongst which we find MP3, and AAC, with the video player taking MP4 video files. Built in to the C903 is full support for YouTube, allowing you to browse and view video clips anytime, anywhere. To back this access up is a wide range of data connectivity options, including 3G over HSDPA, GPRS, HSCSD and EDGE. Memory is plentiful on the C903, with an internal capacity of 105MB, expandable with M2 memory cards, up to 8GB in size. Other entertainment elements of the C903 include a stereo FM radio with RDS, a picture editing application, and one of my all time favourite apps, Track ID. The web browser on the phone is Netfront, version 3.4 This browser does an admirable job of presenting web pages in a clear, easy to navigate format, but there is always Opera Mini available as a back up.
And that is the Sony Ericsson C903. A well featured handset, offering quality imaging capabilities, but with a strong enough all round feature set to merit it’s top of the range ranking. The C903 is available now, contracts start from £15.30 a month that includes 400 minutes and 500 text messages, a pay as you go handset starts from £219.95.
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