Sony Ericsson C903
Discontinued 10th February 2009
The Sony Ericsson C903 is a Cyber-shot series slider
phone with a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5G support and A-GPS.
As with most Cyber-shot branded handsets, the C903
is going to be a pretty good imaging phone, and it is
the only slider Cyber-shot phone except for the high-end
C905.
It stops short of being a Nokia
N95-class device because the C903 lacks WiFi connectivity.
As with quite a lot of recent Sony Ericsson phones,
the C903 has the appearance of a "parts bin special".
There's nothing really new here, just the same old elements
of other Sony Ericsson phones remixed. We're not saying
that this is a bad phone, it's just not a very innovative
one compared to other phones in the Sony Ericsson range.
What you get with the C903 is a 5 megapixel
camera with autofocus and flash, plus image stabilisation,
geotagging, face and smile detection. Of course, the
C903 can also capture video clips, but Sony Ericsson
have not said what the quality is. The C903 has a TV-out
port, so photos and video clips can be shown on a standard
television set, although the ITC-60 cable you would
need is an additional cost.
The
2.4" 240 x 320 pixel display is smaller than we
would expect for a 5 megapixel phone, but it should
be good enough for most users. Multimedia support is
the usual array of formats plus stereo Bluetooth and
an FM radio. A pair of stereo wired headsets are included
in the standard sales package. The C903 can also download
video clips from YouTube and supports photo blogging.
There's also a web browser, email client, RSS reader
and a host of personal information management tools.
The
C903's GPS comes with a three month trial of Sony Ericsson's
Wayfinder Navigator application, plus Google Maps. The
small non-touchscreen display means that the C903 is
more of a personal navigation tool rather than an in-car
satellite navigation system.
If you are in the market for a 5 megapixel plus slider
phone, then there are about a dozen different handsets
on the market. We suspect that the C903 might be one
of the cheapest in this particular wafer-thin market
niche.
Underneath it all, this is a quad-band GSM phone
with UMTS 900 / 2100 MHz support plus HSDPA. There is
a North American version, the C903a, which supports
850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz UMTS instead. At 96 grams, the
C903 is relatively lightweight for this class of device.
Maximum talktime on 3G is quoted as 4 hours with up
to 14 days standby time.
Sony Ericsson say that the C903 should be available
during Q2 2009 in red, black and white colour schemes.
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Sony
Ericsson C903 at a glance
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Available:
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Q2
2009
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Network:
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GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
+ UMTS 900 / 2100 (C903)
or UMTS 850 /
1900 / 2100 (C903a)
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Data:
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GPRS
+ EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
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Screen:
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240
x 320 pixelss, 262K colours
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Camera:
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5
megapixels
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Size:
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Medium
slider 97 x 49 x 16mm
/ 96 grams
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Bluetooth:
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Yes
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Memory
card:
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Memory
Stick Micro M2
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Infra-red:
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No
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Polyphonic:
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Yes
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Java:
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Yes
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GPS:
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Yes
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Battery
life:
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4
hours talk / 14 days standby
(3G)
|
|
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