Sony Ericsson C902 Review
While Sony Ericsson loves to keep playing with design elements (often with less than happy results), the C902 is far from experimental in its look. In fact, its about as conventional as you can get. But the simple candy bar shaped look is a major plus point for most users. Everything is where you expect it to be and there no need to waste time familiarizing yourself with where the various keys are. The phone, at about $550, not cheap but as far as appearances go, it looks like its worth the price with glossy plastic and steel trimmings and edges decorated with elegant silver and black lines. This is a phone that you need not be embarrassed to be seen with.
Like all new Sony phones, the C902 has a 5 megapixel camera. That’s no longer just a toy, but a serious photographic tool. But first of all, where’s the lens? Look all over and you won’t find one. It only when the top part of the phone it gently pulled upwards that the lens is revealed along with the LED flash unit. This is a design that makes sense – it keeps the phone slim and protects the lens from damage.
The camera has just about every top of the line feature you can think of from the 5 megapixel maximum resolution to a variety of auto focus modes that range from face detection to macro, an image stabilizer and a flash that will stay on when needed for video shooting. All settings are done via touch sensitive icons that appear on the screen when the top of the camera is pulled upwards. The icons are clear and easy to understand, so getting used to the camera operation is not a problem. Image quality is good and lives up to the 5 megapixel specs. The auto focus is fast and crisp and although there may be occasional variations in reds and pinks, this is very rare and you can shoot with the confidence that what you see on the screen is what you will capture. This is a serious camera!
Be warned that the Geo-tagging option can be misleading. Unlike some other camera phones, like the C702, this model does not have a dedicated GPS receiver and all the information needed to place tags on your pictures is acquired by sending and receiving data over the air, which if you are not careful, can inflate you phone bill more than you may think.
The phone functions are top of the line with easy messaging functions and exceptional voice clarity, besides all the other things one looks for in a phone and which are all pretty standardized nowadays anyway.
The drawbacks are that like all Sony phones, this one supports only Sony’s proprietary M2 memory stick and micro SD cards cannot be used. The headphone sockets again are designed only to accept Sony headphones. However, since the operational standards of both of these are up to the mark, this should not be much of a problem.
A more serious issue is the battery life. With maximum brightness and all animations operational, the battery needs charging every alternate day. Stopping all but the essential animations and reducing the display brightness to about half will double the battery life, but aren’t all the bells and whistles one of the reasons for buying the phone in the first place?