Sony Ericsson C901i Smartphone Review
Sony Ericsson C901i QuadBand Cybershot Camera Smartphone
Sony Ericsson’s latest Cyber-shot camera PDA phone has an extremely impressive mix of imaging and phone functions. There are very few issues in the handset, but in total, it is a welcome addition to the market.
Sony Ericsson C901i sports a 5-mega pixel camera that features Smile shutter, auto focus, Bestpic, Smart contrast, Face Detection, PhotoFix along with geo-tagging. In addition to all these features, the Sony Ericsson 901i also comprises of xenon flash instead of photo flash LED, video stabilizer, video recording, red eye reduction, as well as video and picture blogging capabilities.
Design:
Sony Ericsson has great passion experimenting handset design. The maverick placement of the navigational key in last year’s K850i and combination of touch input and mechanical input found on W960i are proof of this. The C901i PDA Smartphone is also however, anything but experimental in design. It is an aboveboard candy bar style handset, and for our money paid, the simplicity and style in design is a major asset. The design is more clear having everything where it is to be located, and all its elements like number pad, dedicated keys and screen are well spaced and are easy to use.
Keypad Design of C901i:
The keypad and controls are well designed, with each key raised on a slight angle. The keys are easy to press and their tactility is really notable. The glossy surface of the keys makes your hands feel slippery and there are lot of chances that you might accidentally press a wrong key. At the heart of keypad is a comfortable 5-way navigational pad along with two selection buttons. The only blot in the design of the buttons is that the Answer and End call buttons are not raised and are placed between clear and shortcut keys, which makes it difficult to access them.
Handsome Handset:
The model C901i Cybershot Camera Phone looks and senses like a premium quality handset, comprised of lustrous plastic parts mixed with steel trimmings. The edges of the device are embellished with classy-looking silver and black lines which resembles emo leggings from a Tim Burton film are pleasing accents and helps giving C901i an overall impression of a very handsome handset.
Some intelligent tweaks in the design:
The design is altered by moving the volume controls to the bottom of the device making it uncomfortable to adjust the volume while you are on phone. Its slim handset streamlined makes it another superb piece of design. The only disadvantage of the model is that it is lint and dust attractive in the groove when the lens cover is closed.
Position of the Camera:
Turning the handset over reveals the surprise of the Cyber-shot camera. It seems like there is no covering to the lens of the camera, at least there is no sliding lens covered. The 5-mega pixel camera of C901i is actually under sliding lens mechanism. A gentle push exserts the top half of the phone and discloses the camera lens and LED camera flash. Although this design is unique it also carries some negatives. If the user holds the mobile in right hand as many of us do, it is difficult to open the cover because of the position of the hands. Sliding open the camera reveals an impressive feature: touch-sensitive controls surrounding the display. The various other functions include shot-mode, self timer and face detection. The buttons are very responsive and a nice touch is a fact that they alter on and off depending on the mode you are.
Two New Views:
The Sony Ericsson C901i has retained its intuitive user interface. General browsing and scrolling through menus is very fast compared to its previous model, making it one of the fastest Sony Ericsson PDAs. The main menu has included two new views, in addition to the standard grid layout- rotating and single icon layouts.
Features:
As everyone anticipated, Sony Ericsson has thrown nearly all the well known camera phone features into the new C901i. The model is incorporated with a camera of 5-mega pixel resolution, a range of auto focus modes including macro and face detection, a photo-light flash which can be set to stay on for shooting video and digital image stabilizer setting. The image settings can be adjusted with a selection of touch-sensitive icons which will be active when the lens cover of the camera is pulled open. During the tests that were conducted on the camera, the only holler found was that, the flash cannot be set to “On” and the only options present were “Auto” and “Off”.
Organizer And Apps:
Sony Ericsson C901i is offering a vast range of time-management features. Yearly, monthly and weekly views are offered by calendar. Whenever you enter a date of birth in the phone book, C901i automatically prompts to add it to calendar. Two types of tasks can be stored by using to-do application: simple tasks and phone calls.
Alarms are a part of the main menu and it provides five slots for alarms. Text and picture can be added to alarms. Furthermore, their behavior can be defined when the phone is in silent mode.
Optical zoom:
Photos are quite impressive in C901i, but the images are slightly upstaged by Samsung’s G800. We should thank the Samsung’s optical zoom. There is no optical zoom on C901i, but you do get the features like face detection technology, auto-focus and a fairly effective flash.
Geo-Tagging:
For the photographers using camera phone who are very eager to show their chums where the photos are taken, it is an ear-warming news that the C901i supports geo-tagging. Unlike its cyber-shot vis-a-vis C702, the C901i does not include a dedicated GPS receiver. This means that location data needed to be tagged to photos is evolved by sending and receiving location data on-the-air and this would be added to a costly mobile data bill if you are not careful. Before going to trigger happy with your new camera phone, you may need to double check the geo-tagging option which is found in the final menu of the camera settings under “Add Position”.
Headset Attachment:
Along with the most Sony Ericsson phones in this price range, the C901i also supports HSDPA data speeds for fast browsing and also includes a Walkman style media playback menu. This latest Cyber-shot phone similar to other Sony Ericsson handsets supports Sony’s own M2 Memory Stick memory expansion (as opposed to the most common microSD) and headset attachment, which basically supports Sony’s proprietary inputs, so you should strictly stick to the headset in the box.
Texting:
The communication establishment features of C901i include SMS, MMS, email messaging all with T9 predictive text input. A host of PIM features are also included like a voice recorder, video and image editors, an FM radio and an RSS reader. The TrackID feature is also included, which allows you to record few seconds of any second through an external micro phone. Then the recording is sent to music database and if the song is recognized the title, album and artist name are sent to you.
A2DP Bluetooth:
Except for the 5-mega pixel camera, the C901i is not offering any spectacular features. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack, but an adapter is included allowing the use of standard headphones. The inclusion of A2DP Bluetooth profile permits you to stream music to a compatible set of Bluetooth headphones.
FM Radio with RDS and TrackID:
The integrated FM Radio of C901i carries memory for 20 channels and supports RDS. It has great interface and takes good advantage of the TrackID music recognition service. The radio can be minimized in the back ground like the music player.
Performance:
The new C901i has got Sony Ericsson’s exceptional call quality and ease of messaging. The menu navigation of the model is very fast and lag free.
Camera Performance:
The large display is excellent for using camera as it is very easy to line up the images. Photos produced are not splendid, but they are more than good enough to use C901i as a secondary digital camera. Image noise is moderate, the poor color reproduction is the main black spot with the display. The camera can also be used as video recorder, as most of the mobile phones the video quality is not very brilliant.
Tests on 5-Mega Pixel Camera:
After we saw the average image quality in last year’s cyber-shot range, and again in the C702, you may not necessarily expect excellent photographs with the new model C901i. In the tests conducted over C901i, the 5-mega pixel shooter is kept through different paces in a variety of situations, both outdoors in natural light and indoor in studio lighting, the result is pleasing and there is a vast improvement in the picture quality compared with the earlier models.
Auto-Focus:
The auto-focus is faster and sharper, and can take excellent images without the artefacts found in the shots from the C702. The new models reproduction is not excellent-for example, the camera saw reds and deep shade of pink in a couple of shots, but overall the colors are rich with strong contrast.
Xenon Flash:
Xenon Flash performance almost adds to C901i, but the produced images are a bit softer compared with those taken with C905 in pitch dark conditions.
Video Recording:
Although it is limited to QVGA resolution of 30fps, C901i is also capable of video recording. LED flash can be used in video recording. The clips are recorded in MP4 format and take almost 3MB for recording of every minute.
Voice Quality:
The C901i is HSDPA-capable and operates on popular 2100MHz band. Voice calls are crisp and clear although the volume could have been louder. The handset comes with 160MB internal memory; the memory stick micro (M2) is also included, but in actual there is no card in the sales package.
Battery Life:
Battery life is of really great concern, where C901i have to be charged by the end of second day. If all the unnecessary animations are turned off and the display brightness is adjusted to 60%, one can manage to double the charge cycle. But it is a shame that, you have to turn off the “bling”, the animated wall paper from designer Nicholas X Morley-but it definitely makes a huge difference.
Package Details:
The Sony Ericsson C901i package consists of Sony Ericsson C901Cybershot OEM Factory unlocked handset, Lithium Ion Battery, one button ear piece, Memory micro M2 stick, USB data cable, CST-60 Universal Wall charger(110/220v), Sony Ericsson software, User’s Guide- English may downloaded off of this product’s page in the form of a PDF file. Please note that if this mobile brings a memory card, you may get a different memory denomination card than the one originally mentioned in the manufacturer’s global site. This discrepancy occurs due to the fact that manufacturers package different configurations in different countries where they launch their products.
Warranty:
Sony Ericsson C901i comes with one year manufacturer’s warranty.
Verdict:
The Sony Ericsson C901i is all killer and no filler. It is definitely an excellent cyber-shot camera smartphone. Every part works as intended, which is more that can be said to lot of phones now-a-days. Its design is slim, simple and stylish and the pull-out camera makes it genius. It is obvious that C901i does not have GPS receiver feature of C702 and many of its competitors, but in real no one is happy with receiver in C702. The main disadvantages are video recording maxes out at QVGA at 30fps, no document viewer, memory card slot beneath the battery cover, disappointing retail package contents. The Sony Ericsson C901i is a great value in terms of image quality.
The lagging features of the new model are location of the volume controls, a bit hit and miss lens cover, proprietary head phone or charger port and the fact that no M2 card is included. Despite these minor disadvantages, we still feel that the Sony Ericsson C901i is a best buy for a camera phone users along with a lot of PDA features. Though it cannot be said as a serious PDA, it is for the people who would like to see the fun side of it.
Check Nokia Smartphone Reviews, Samsung Smartphone Reviews in this website.
Sony Ericsson C901i Smartphone - Technical Specifications, Features
| Manufacturer | Sony Ericsson |
| Product Type | Camera Mobile |
| Model Number | C901i |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) in mm | 105 X 43 X 13 |
| Weight | 107 gram |
| Available Colors | Noble Black, Sincere silver, Precious Peach |
| Screen | TFT 262k colors |
| Antenna | Fixed internal |
| Phone Book | 1000 X 20 fields |
| Internal memory | 110MB |
| Memory slot | Memory Stick Micro(M2) |
| MP3 | Yes |
| FM Radio | Yes |
| Video Record | Yes |
| Video Support | MPEG4 |
| Audio Support | MP3/AAC |
| Voice support | Voice memo/dial |
| Games | Yes, downloadable, Motion-based games |
| SMS | Yes |
| MMS | Yes |
| Yes | |
| HSDPA | HSDPA, 3.6 mbps |
| USB Port | Yes |
| Infrared | No |
| Lens Type | CMOS, 5.0 Mega pixel |
| Max. Resolution | 2592 x 1944 pixels |
| Flash | Yes |
| Night mode | No |
| Extra Features | Auto focus, xenon flash, camera images geo-tagging (cell-ID), face and smile detection. |
| Battery Type | Standard battery Li-Po |
| Stand by (hrs) | Up to 430 hours |
| Package includes | Sony Ericsson C901Cybershot OEM Factory unlocked handset, Lithium Ion Battery, one button ear piece, Memory micro M2 stick, USB data cable, CST-60 Universal Wall charger(110/220v), software, User’s Guide- English may downloaded off of this product’s page in the form of a PDF file. |
| Warranty | One year |
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