Sony Ericsson C903 is a 5 megapixel cameraphone with built-in GPS receiver, swift and elegant UI, large and bright display and much, much more.
Overview:
Sony Ericsson C903 has all the goodies you might need in a phone: good quality digital camera, music and video player, accelerometer for screen auto rotation, excellent connectivity and smart dialing. Moreover, as you can see in the photos below it is stylish and looks very solid.
Sony Ericsson C903 pros:
+ Excellent connectivity
+ Built-in GPS with A-GPS support, Wayfinder Navigator software, geotagging
+ Scratch resistant 2.4″ 256K-color TFT display
+ 5 MP AF camera with dual LED flash, geo-tagging,
+ Face and smile detection, active lens cover
+ Backlit D-pad shortcuts in camera mode
+ Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
+ Bluetooth (with A2DP), USB v2.0
+ FM radio with RDS and enhanced TrackID, YouTube client
+ Threaded conversations in messaging
+ Smart dialing
Sony Ericsson C903 cons:
- The glossy surface is a fingerprint nightmare
- No cover for the USB port
- No office document viewer
- Camera key has almost no feedback at full press
The design:
Sony Ericsson C903 measures 97 x 49 x 16 mm and weighs 96 grams so it is quite pocketable. It is made of glossy black plastic so it might be a fingerprint magnet, but still is looks very attractive. The front of the phone is dominated by the 2.4” screen displaying 256-K color. The image is bright, vivid and clearly visible in direct sunlight. Above the screen is the ambient light sensor and the earpiece. Below the display you will see only a few buttons as the rest of them is on the alphanumeric keyboard which you have to slide. On the right side of the phone there is the volume rocker, as well as the two step shutter key for the camera. The left side of the Sony Ericsson C903 houses only the Fast Port. The top of the phone is completely bare, whereas the bottom houses the lanyard eyelet. On the back you will find the camera lens and a LED flash. All in all, the Sony Ericsson C903 is a very solid phone and should not fall apart after a few days of heavy usage.
Performance:
The battery in the Sony Ericsson C903 is quite powerful and according to the manufacturer it should last for about 400 hours in standby mode. The scratch resistant screen working in QVGA resolution does a very good job both in bright light and in low lighting conditions. The User Interface in the Sony Ericsson C903 is similar to the standard Sony Ericsson interface, but with a few new icons and themes.
The phonebook in Sony Ericsson C903 can store up to 1000 contacts and up to 7000 numbers and although the name and the surname are entered into one field you can enter either of them to find the number. This seems to be the usual Sony Ericsson style as even the newer phones, like Sony Ericsson T707 do it in the same way. You can also group your contacts and assign them ringtones and add photos. If you add a birthday into one of the fields the phone will remind you of it in advance. The call log works well, but what personally dislike about the Sony Ericsson phones is that if you get a few missed calls from one person the phone will show you details only about the last one.
One new interesting feature in the Sony Ericsson C903 in the messaging system is the conversation style layout of your messages. It not only looks nice and makes it easier to follow what was sent where, but it is also automatically updates so if you get a message while reading the last one it will instantly get displayed. Apart from that the phone comes with quite a rich T9 dictionary and when you get to the 160 character limit you get informed that your message will be divided.
The Sony Ericsson C903 may work in the flight mode, but it requires a SIM card and a restart.
Multimedia:
Sony Ericsson C903 comes with a Music Player v3.0 and support for the majority of popular media files. Also, there are a few equalizes presets and the Mega Bass system. When you’re playing some music the thumbnail of the album art gets displayed which makes the nice-looking media player even more visually appealing. The sound quality is really good for a non-Walkman phone.
The video player can, of course, work in the landscape mode and supports rewinding and fast forwarding. The phone also comes with a pre-installed Youtube client.
The Sony Ericsson C903 comes with a 5 megapixel camera which takes photos in up to 2592 x 1944 pixels. The camera has plenty of features such as spot metering, macro mode, BestPic, face detection and smile shutter. Moreover you get a few manual settings thanks to which the images taken with the Sony Ericsson C903 are really good, although not as good as those taken with the Sony Ericsson C905. The images are vivid and sharp and only sometimes there is too much noise.
The photo gallery is fast and thanks to The built-in accelerometer is rotates automatically. From the photo gallery you can set a photo as a wallpaper, send it to a friend, or put it on the startup screen. Thanks to the built-in GPS receiver the Sony Ericsson C903 puts coordinated in the photos.
Menus / ease of use:
The standard home screen looks as usual: 4 x 3 icon grid. You can of course customize it using different settings or themes. The overall menu structure in Sony Ericsson C903 is very simple and easy to remember. There is nothing revolutionary in the menus, but the phone has a nice feature which allows you to put WalkMate right on your home screen. The application is useful for training and although it is designed for sport-oriented people it is a nice touch. Selected Sony Ericsson C903 features and specifications:
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| Connectivity |
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| Display |
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Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani, LG KS360, LG KF900 Prada, LG KP500 Cookie, Sony Ericsson W902, BlackBerry Curve 8900, Sony Ericsson W595, Sony Ericsson W995, BlackBerry 9500 Storm.