Review Sony Ericsson tends to get the most publicity from its Cyber-shot cameraphones and Walkman music phones. Not unusual, that, but the company also has a large array of mid-range and lower end mobiles. A case in point: the S312. At £100 Sim-free or £69 from T-Mobile on pay-as-you-go, it fits right into that lower price bracket.
The S312 makes no pretensions to be a Cyber-shot. But despite being pitched as a bit of an all rounder, there is a greater emphasis on the Camera than you might expect from a low-cost voice-centric mobile.
To that end, it does steal a clever Camera idea from its higher end siblings. Hit the small round green button on the right side of the phone and you are into the Camera software. Obviously, that’s nothing new. But when you are in Camera mode the 3, 6, 9 and # keys double up as Camera and video shooting shortcuts, small icons to the far right of the key area reminding you of their functions. Read the rest of this entry »
Review We recently took a look at the jewel in Sony Ericsson‘s ‘C’ for Camera range, the 8Mp C905 Plus, and so the arrival of the C903 marks an exercise in cost cutting. Yet, this mid-range model with a 5Mp Camera retains many of the features to be found in its higher priced and higher spec’d cousin.
The C903 is a deliciously compact little slider, shaving 7mm off the length and 2mm off the depth of the chunky C905 and it’s also a good 40g lighter at 96g that, for some, may well be worth a trade-off in Camera functions.
The TFT LCD screen has the same 2.4in, 262,000-colour, 240 x 320-pixel dimensions of that on the C905 but the more expensive phone‘s mineral-coated display is less prone to reflection and is more easily viewed in sunlight. That said, the screen on the C903 is still excellent, offering vibrant colours with intense sharpness and brightness, showing off the pics taken with the onboard Camera at their best. Read the rest of this entry »
Review If you’re a music mad, photo enthusiast, then Sony Ericsson has you in its sights with the W995 – its most advanced convergence of Camera and music phone features to date. Featuring a Walkman media player and an 8.1Mp Camera, the W995 also has HSDPA 3G, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and a new media sync system for Macs and Windows PCs.
At first glance, this is a chunky little slider at 97x49x15mm and 113g but, considering what’s stuffed into the W995, it’s a fairly solid and compact package. The casing is pretty busy, with the central D-pad on the front surrounded by six buttons: call start and stop, cancel, shortcuts and two soft keys.
On the sides are music player controls, which proved to be easy to operate with the W995 tucked away in a pocket. There’s also a dedicated Camera shutter button, a zoom rocker, a Walkman button, Sony Ericsson‘s standard two-pin Fast Port power connection and a 3.5mm jack plug, which is nice, but somewhat superfluous since an adaptor for the power plug also features a 3.5mm headphone socket and is included with the supplied earbuds. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Praised for combining quality optics with top-notch phone features, Sony Ericsson‘s ‘C for Camera‘ series has raised the bar again with the C905 Plus. It’s basically an upgrade of the existing C905 8.1Mp Cyber-shot camphone with expanded memory, a grin gabbing Smile Shutter feature, plus extra applications including Youtube and the BBC iPlayer.
Sony Ericsson‘s C905 Plus: existing C905 users get a free ‘Plus’ upgrade, allegedly
Sony Ericsson hasn’t changed the casing of the C905 Plus. It’s still very much on the chubby side, even for a slider, at 104 x 49 x 18mm and 136g. Now we can understand the need for girth when you have a high-spec Camera that requires a quality lens, but does the rest of it have to be so chunky? Read the rest of this entry »
