Sony Ericsson C901 review: Cyber-shot reloaded

Introduction

At first, you might think that the Sony Ericsson C901 is just another 5-megapixel cameraphone. Well, that’s not terribly exciting in the current market bustling with 8-megapixel snappers, and probing the boundaries at 12. But you’d be wrong. Be it for the simple reason that the C901 is one of the few handsets out there sporting a Xenon flash. And the one on the C901 is special enough to help it stand above the crowd of cameraphones.

Another thing to note is the eco-friendly GreenHeart version which - interestingly enough - is the only C901 flavor currently available on the Sony Ericsson website.

The C901 GreenHeart is trendy for being partially made of recycled materials (though, technically both devices are identical). You can find out more about it here.

Sony Ericsson C901 official photos

Even after reading those lines many would say there is nothing so special about the C901, particularly as it’s not even selling worldwide! Well, we‘ve been inundated with requests that we review it and there’s nothing we like doing more than pleasing our loyal readers.

Key features

• Xenon and LED flash equipped 5-megapixel cameraphone, videocalling
• Lots of dedicated camera controls
• Active camera cover
• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
• 2.2" 256K-color display of QVGA resolution
• Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation
• 110 MB of internal memory, M2 expansion (up to 8GB)
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Motion-based games
• Multi-tasking and task manager
• Smart dialing

Main disadvantages

• Video recording maxes out at QVGA@30fps
• No document viewer
• Memory card slot under the battery cover
• Disappointing retail package contents

Sony Ericsson C901 live shots

The Sony Ericsson C901 is a great value in terms of image quality. Looking at the pictures we took with it makes us nostalgic for the time when Sony Ericsson camerphones set the pace and the others just followed.

Aside from the remarkable imaging though, the C901 is just an ordinary feature phone. And that isn’t a bad thing, since it does its job just fine. Very little to complain about, but at the same time not a huge list of features to get excited about either.

Anyhow, it’s about time we opened the box and started the review, don’t you think? Head for the next page to see what we found in the box and what we thought of the Sony Ericsson C901 design and construction.