Time for a Sony Ericsson C902 camera phone review, I think! The C902 is another Sony Ericsson CyberShot phone, this time destined to take over from its predecessor, the Sony Ericsson K850i. As you'd guess, the C902 is therefore all about taking photos, but it's got an armoury of other features as well. Not quite as many as a Nokia N-Series phone, but it is extremely well equipped, and much slimmer than the K850i, too.

Better still, the C902 is being pitched as a mid-range phone, so despite its range of high-end features, it won't break the bank.

What do you get for your money? Read our full Sony Ericsson C902 review to find out.

Overview of the Sony Ericsson C902 camera phone

The Sony Ericsson C902 CyberShot is, as its name suggests, a camera phone. Just like its predecessor, the K850i, the C902 also comes with a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, face detection, and all manner of other features designed to help you take better pictures.

It's also being pitched by Sony Ericsson as a designer phone, as it's much thinner than the old K850i (although it is taller) - just 10.5mm thin, in fact. Despite its lack of size, though, it crams in some good features, including HSDPA for super-fast downloading, and Google Maps, to help you navigate your way around the maze that we call life (hmmm, unusually deep for a mobile phone review - must have my Zen head on!)

The Sony Ercisson C902 Camera

It's a camera phone, so where better to start than the C902's camera?! It's a 5 megapixel jobbie with autofocus and Face Detection, which enables you simply to open the camera up and shoot. Shots are taken instantly, and with the Face Detection feature, you can pretty much guarantee that your mates will be in focus (even if your eyes aren't thanks to the inordinate amount of beer you'll no doubt have drunk when taking their picture!)

Better still, there's a Night Shoot mode, which according to Sony Ericsson features "the latest in lighting technology - Photo Flash." I'm assuming this is different from a normal camera's flash, as somehow that doesn't strike me as the latest in lighting technology, what with it being over 100 years old and all!

Actually, further digging reveals that Photo Flash is indeed new. It's based on LED technology (see pic above) rather than the xenon flash of more high-end camera phones. LED is more efficient than Xenon, so doesn't consume as much battery power (in fact, the Photo Flash LED of the C902 consumes half the power of a standard Xenon flash), yet is still able to produce arudn 25 lux/s of light.

It's smaller, too, and doesn't need to recharge like a Xenon flash does, so you can take photos in quick succession even in low lighting conditions. The downside, though, is that although Photo Flash is better than standard LED flash lighting (which is pretty poor), it's still not as good as Xenon flash technology.

However, the use of Photo Flash technology does mean that Night Shoot mode has been added to Sony Ericsson BestPic feature, which takes a quick burst of nine snapshots in succession, letting you choose the best shot and throwing away the rest. Apparently, the combination of Photo Flash and BestPic lest you take pictures "...wherever you are, perhaps even to capture the dance-floor action in a club!" Seems I'm not the only one who keeps using clubs and pubs as camera phone examples. (To be fair though, where else do you take photos on your camera phone?!)

These all sound all well and good, but do they actually work? Well, yes and no. BestPic works well enough, as does Face Detection (although you need to be careful you're not taking a photo of a group of friends, as the Face Detection feature gets confused, and none of your friends will end up in focus).

However, as you can see from some of the sample pictures taken by Mobile-Review (two of which are reproduced below, albeit in smaller form), the overall picture quality is only average. There are much better camera phones on the market at the moment, which is very different from the K850i's days, which set the benchmark for best camera phones when it was released last year.

In a way, this is to be expected, though, as the C902 is not being sold as a high end camera phone, but as a mid-range designer camera phone, and is priced accordingly. As such, comparing the C902's pictures with the Nokia N82 perhaps isn't fair, as it's closest competitor is the Samsung Soul, which itself only has a 3.2 megapixel camera.

One of the best features of the phone is the ease of use of its camera's user interface.

Snap open the lens on the back and the display instantly switches to landscape and eight blue touch-sensitive camera-specific buttons suddenly illuminate around the screen (see pic below). These buttons provide one touch access to the camera's features, making the C902 incredibly easy to use for taking pictures with.

There's also a built-in accelerometer, which instantly changes the orientation of displayed photos from portrait to landscape just by turning the phone around, which is a nice feature (even if it is one that's been nicked from the iPhone!)

Sony Ericsson C902 Media Features

Naturally, the C9092 also comes with a video recorder and MP3 player. The video recorder is a bit underwhelming, as although it takes videos at 30fps, they're only half-VGA resolution. Then again, the C902's screen is only 2" in size and supports just 262,000 colours, so you wouldn't be able to see much on the phone's display anyway.

The MP3 player (left) is a standard Sony Ericsson MP3 player, and, well, doesn't need me to say much more about it! The C902 is a CyberShot phone, not a Walkman phone, so although the MP3 player is usuable, it's not intended as the phone's main feature.

One nice touch that's worth mentioning, though, is the games that come with the C902. It seems it's no slouch in the graphics department, and although it can't compete with Nokia's N-Gage technology (particularly in the N96, which comes with a 3D graphics accelerator buillt-in), it does offer two pretty neat games (Need for Speed and Photo Quest Fishing - actually make that one pretty neat game, as Photo Quest Fishing is pants!).

Need for Speed (left) can be played either with the D-pad or with the accelerometer, which adds a nice extra twist to game play.

The accelerometer can also be used with the media player interfaces, making it snap from portrait to landscape when you rotate the phone, just like the photo displayer.

Navigational Features of the Sony Ericsson C902

Although Sony Ericsson haven't been pushing GPS phones as hard as Nokia have (although given that Nokia's just spent billions buying mapping company NavQuest, I doubt that anyone's pushing GPS phones as hard as the Finns are at the moment!), they have managed to squeeze some navigation-esque functionality into the C902. You get Google Maps built-in as an application, and GeoTagging, which not only tags your photos with the location of where they were taken, it also shows you that location at a later date overlaid on a Google map.

However, for Geo-tagging to work, you obviously need to know where you are. Given that the majority of us don't actually know our lattitute and longitude at any moment in time, this usually requires some form of GPS device, which you'd expect the C902 to have. But it doens't! All it has is the ability to triangulate your location from the three basestations that you're nearest to. Although this can get some idea of your present location, it's accurate only to within 5 kilometers!

Useful for when you're abroad on holiday, perhaps, but not so useful when you're trying to recognize whose house or which pub a picture was taken in (damn it, another drunken example!)

This is a strange omission, as the C902's smaller brother, the C702, offers fewer features and a smaller camera than the C902, yet it comes with GPS. I know the C902 is only a mid-range phone, but Nokia's mid-range phones now come with GPS, and if you're going to bother with navigational features at all, excluding GPS is just bizarre.

Connectivity with the C902

Finally, we come to the heart of a mobile phone - connectivity. It can take voice calls, which hopefully doesn't surprise you, but better still, it's quad-band GSM and HSPDA-equipped.

This means that you can take voice calls anywhere in the world as well as download data at a super-fast 3.2 Mbps (although this is theoretical - you'll more likely see data transfer rates in the 1 - 2Mbps range depending on where you live and how busy your mobile network is where you use it).

Note that there's no WiFi, though, which is a bit annoying. Other than that, though, connectivity shouldn't be an issue, no matter where you are or how you want to connect, as the following list of connectivity options shows:

• Bluetooth 2.0
• USB 2.0
• Instant Messaging
• Picture Messaging
• PictBridge
• Email
• Video calling

Sony Ericsson C902 reviews across the Web

But enough of what I think of the C902 - what are others saying about Sony Ericsson's latest camera phone?

TestFreaks has let the crowd review the Sony Ericsson C902 and has calculated the following scores:

• Average score from reviews across the web: 9.8/10
• Average score from 5,000 users: 8.4
• Average score from 6 experts: 8.7
• Average score from 5,00 users for the design of the phone: 7.9

Personally I agree with the users: 8/10 seems about right, while 9.810 seems far too high.

As for what other sites say, most seem to agree on the C902's pros and cons:

GMSArena has reviewed the Sony Ericsson C902, and note that it "...is a very promising cameraphone with some extra features and camera improvements. The stylish slim body, the original slide-up camera design and excellent build quality gain the C920 good points among style-conscious users."

Stuff has reviewed the Sony Ericsson C902, and like it, but not enough to trade in their old K850i for it. They write that "Unless your K850i is starting to look a tad chunky and a Xenon flash isn't a top priority, we see no reason to trade your Cyber-shot in for the C902. But we're so smitten with its slimline figure and secret agent camera action that the temptation might just be too strong." They give it five stars, though, showing they do rather like it.

RegisterHardware were a bit harsher with their review of the C902, expecting it to be a competent replacement for the K850i. They write that the C902 is "...[n]ot a bad handset, but no advance - quite the reverse, in fact - on the one it is presumably trying to replace [the K850i]." and give it 75%.

PCWorld also reviewed the Sony Ericsson C902, and were more even with their review. Giving the C902 four stars, they conclude that "Sony Ericsson's latest Cyber-shot phone has an impressive mix of imaging and phone functions. There are a few minor issues, but on the whole this is a welcome addition to the market."

Finally, Mobile-Review have a comprehensive review of the Sony Ericsson C902, and they conclude that "The C902 will retail for around 370 Euro, which is a somewhat common price tag for a fashion-conscious phone that has just started shipping...Don't view the C902 as an imaging-centric solution, though, since it ends up behind the Sony Ericsson K850i, Nokia N82 and some other phones...It's a phone, whose major trump is fashion and it leverages it well enough, adding decent build quality, robust functionality of A200 with a couple of neat touches and good battery time to the mix. The C902 will make a great buzzer with somewhat advanced features and mid-tier camera...On balance, the Sony Ericsson C902 is a likable product that won't be overly popular, but will generate a fair amount of sales after a scheduled price cut in October."

PhoneArena also have loads of cool pics of the Sony Ericsson C902, but they haven't reviewed it in full yet.

Summary

So there you have it - the Sony Ericsson C902 CyberShot camera phone fully reviewed. Personally I'd give it around an 8/10. Don't expect it to replace the K850i, and it's certainly no match for the Nokia N82 or N96, but then it's not meant to be. It's a super-thin mid-range designer camera phone with HSDPA and a 5 megapixel camera capable of taking decent pictures, and all for just £299.

Actually, it's cheaper than that - e2Save are offering it for free with seven months line rental at just £1.99 per month on O2 with unlimited texts. It's also their best selling mobile phone at the moment, so if you're after a stylish camera phone at a great price, go buy the Sony Ericsson C902 now! (OK, shameless plug over with!!)