Design
Sony Ericsson loves to experiment with handset design. The unorthodox positioning of the nav-key on last year's K850i is proof of this, as is the combination of touch input and mechanical input found on the W960i. The C902, however, is anything but experimental in design. It's a straightforward candybar style handset, and for our money, this simplicity in design is a major plus. Everything is where you expect it to be, and all its elements — number pad, dedicated keys, screen — are all well spaced and easy to use.
The C902 looks and feels like a premium quality handset, compromised of glossy plastic parts mixed with steel trimmings. The edges of the handset are adorned with classy-looking silver and black lines which, while looking like emo leggings from a Tim Burton film, are pleasing accents and help give the C902 an overall impression of being a very handsome handset.
Turning the phone over reveals a surprise for this Cyber-shot camera phone: there's no lens in sight, not even a sliding lens cover to speak of. The 5-megapixel camera on the C902 actually lives under a sliding mechanism. A gentle tug extends the top-half of the phone and reveals the camera lens and LED camera flash. This is another superb piece of design as it keeps the slim handset streamlined; our only complaint being that dust and lint from our pockets tended to get caught in the groove when the lens cover is closed.
Features
As you may expect, Sony Ericsson has thrown nearly every known camera phone feature into the C902. The camera features a maximum resolution of 5 megapixels, 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 a digital image stabiliser setting. Image settings are adjusted using a selection of touch-sensitive icons located around the screen which are activated when the lens cover is pulled open. We only had one gripe when using the camera during our tests and that was that the flash cannot be set to "On", there's only "Auto" and "Off" settings.
For camera phone photographers keen to show their buddies exactly where their photos were taken, the C902 supports geotagging. Unlike its Cyber-shot counterpart, the C702, the C902 doesn't include a dedicated GPS receiver. This means that the location data needed to tag your photos is acquired by sending and receiving location data over-the-air and this could add up to a pricey mobile data bill if you're not careful. The geo-tagging option is found in the final menu of the camera's settings under "Add position" so you may want to double-check the setting before you go trigger happy with your new camera phone.
As with most Sony Ericsson phones in this price range, the C902 supports HSDPA data speeds for fast Web browsing, and includes a Walkman-style media playback menu. Also similar to other Sony Ericsson handsets, this latest Cyber-shot phone supports Sony's own M2 memory stick memory expansion (as opposed to the more common microSD) and headset attachment, which only supports Sony's proprietary inputs, so you're basically stuck with the headset in the box.
Performance
We came to this review with a couple of simple expectations. Firstly, that the C902 would live up to Sony Ericsson's exceptional call quality and ease of messaging, and it certainly does this. Also, that menu navigation would be fast and lag-free, and again we weren't disappointed. But after the average image quality we saw in last year's Cyber-shot range, and again with the C702, we weren't necessarily expecting excellent photographs.
We put the C902's 5-megapixel shooter through its paces in a variety of situations, both outdoors in natural light and indoors under studio lighting, and we're pleased to say that the result vastly improve on the previous generation. The auto-focus is faster and sharper, and we saw excellent images without the artefacts we noticed in shots from the C702. Colour reproduction wasn't spot-on — for example, the camera saw reds and a deep shade of pink in a couple of shots — but overall the colours were rich with strong contrast.
Battery life was a concern at the beginning of our tests, with the C902 needing a charge by the end of the second day. To maximise each cycle we turned off many unnecessary animations and adjusted the display brightness to 60 per cent and managed to nearly double the charge cycle. It's a shame to have to turn off the "bling" — the review unit we've tested came with a funky animated wallpaper from designer Nicholas X Morley — but it definitely made a huge difference.
Overall
The C902 is all killer no filler — it's definitely the best Cyber-shot camera phone we've seen to date. Every part of the C902 works as intended, which is more than can be said for a lot of phones these days. Its design is slim, simple and stylish, and the pull-out camera slide is a stroke of genius. Sure it doesn't have the GPS chipset of the C702 and many of its competitors, but in truth, we weren't great fans of the receiver in the C702 and while Sony Ericsson is still refining that technology we're happy without it.
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