PROS

It has a very good camera, easily on par with most digital cameras that aren’t in the hundreds of dollars. No optical zoom, of course, but it takes fantastic indoor pictures with its excellent Xenon flash.

It has a wifi radio inside, but you have to flash the firmware to use it, thanks to ATT being silly. This is not hard to do. If you are computer literate, use A2uploader, and if you aren’t, use the paid Davinci service. The ability to surf the internet when I’m at a hot spot, for free, is a fantastic bonus. As a ‘dumbphone’ all the service contracts are much cheaper for this unit, but it has more functionality than many smart phones.

It has an FM radio (requiring headphones for an antennae). And a XMB style media player. It plays movies, music, all that, in good fashion. It uses DLNA to trade movies with my PS3. It can output video to your TV if you get the cable.

It has a great screen for a phone this size, with the mineral glass that will keep this thing scratch free for years. Hardest screen material in the cell phone business.

Also, this is just a solid feeling phone. It’s plastic, but it’s a good weight. I like the size a lot (it’s a bit larger than my last phone, but it is very pocket worthy. Not too thin!

It has a GPS, but I haven’t used it. When you debrand the phone, the GPS is usable without data, but you would need a navigation program like wayfinder.

CONS

AT&T does not include headphones! That’s nuts. Sony Ericsson uses a proprietary plug for headphones; that’s lame too. You should buy some from Amazon. AT&T also does not include a Memory Stick Micro (and the phone uses a proprietary storage card). With the excellent camera, this was a very silly choice. You need one. Lastly, the AT&T branding is lame. A loud video when you start up and shut down the phone? I usually shut down my phone when I need it to be QUIET, AT&T! Disabling Wi-Fi is extremely anti-consumer.

Oh, and I have to recharge this phone every day. The flash bulb and wi-fi use more power. If you only make calls, this will go a few days between charges.
Rating: 5 / 5

When it comes down to it, this camera is downright terrible. I don’t know how other people use it, and I was able to coax a FEW ‘okay’ pictures out of it, but when you have something this bulky (and it is indeed bulky), you would expect it to take more than a 3-4 ‘okay’ pictures out of over 120.

From what I have gathered, this phone absolutely cannot focus on anything at night. So if you want to capture your night out on the town, the pictures are going to be as blurry as your memory. Also, if you plan on using the flash on anything with eyes, expect to see the worst red eye of your photographic life. Even in well-lit rooms after multiple pictures, people and pets alike had solid-red pupils. Every. single. time.

I toyed with all the settings, gave it my best effort, but when it comes down to it, I understand the basics of using a digicam, and although this phone says Cybershot right on it, don’t expect anywhere near that level of quality or functionality. I posted what was happening on the AT&T forum, and received similar complaints from another user who guessed with great accuracy what kind of situations I was trying to use the phone in. This was not a defective model, the phone really does have concrete limits to how far you can push it.

I am happily returning it to Amazon and I’m going to pick something else out. It’s a shame, because although bulky, it’s an aesthetically pleasing phone. Still, I don’t have much use for all the advanced features of phones these days (if it texts, that’s all I need), but this one seemed to call out to me to replace my actual camera. We aren’t quite there yet, it seems.
Rating: 1 / 5

The first day I used at work place (I made 5 calls, receive one text meesage, I explore the new features, menu, and setting about 5 mins. I did not watch video or listen to audio. The phone ran out battery and shut itself off at about 5:30pm even before I back home.

This is first time, I face battery problem. Before SE c905a, I used Samsung blackjack. I can take many pictures as I want, I can shot hours long video, I can play games hours, I never worry about the battery. I only need to charge once every couple days. When I was on vacation oversea for 3 weeks. I shut off the phone and on once a while. It still has battery when I came back.

I never thought about the battery probem until I got this new phone SE C905a. I was every excited to get this phone because the good views from pervious viewers. However, I am very disappointed because the battery for the phone can not make it through normal daily use. I am not the type of person who talks on the phone for hour long. I just wonder if the person take long on the phone, the battery shut itself in the middle of talk, why people want to buy this kind of phone no matter how good the features are? The phone should be a usable phone first before any features. I am very disappointed about this phone because of the terriable battery.

Update on 10/9/2009

I have been tried to switch the batteries between the two new c905a phones. It seems one of the battery something wrong. It did not get fully charged. I talked to AT & T, they will ship to me a new battery.

The good battery will last through the day if no WIFI on. With 100% at 8am, I will get about 40 to 45% left at 8pm with several calls and 20 to 30 minutes play card game which I consider ok as a basic phone. It will make sense if SONY Ericsson makes extended battery for this phone since it has good camera feature with flash. So people do not need to worry about ran out battery when they take photos. I will not mind to spend extra $ for extended battery.

Since the people in previous review already talked about some good features, so I do not repeat here. I like to mention one of feature I do not like. The calendor appointment reminder make a very short and soft alart, and it only sounds once. You may not even notice in a noise environment. I could not find anyway to change to different alart tone or make it sounds longer or louder. You can choose the alart for alarm but not for calendor appointment. This is quite inconvenient. I rely on much on appointment alart to remind me the appointments. The Samsung blackjack will keep alart with the alert tone you selected until you dismiss it. I hope SE will improve this feature in later software update.

Other than battery life (which limits the use of camera and video recording) and calendor alart, I like this phone. I want to change to 2 star from original 1 star.

Update on Oct. 14, 2009

The replacement battery from AT $ T also act like the “good battery”. With play game for 45 min, no any phone call or did not connect to Wi FI, the battery ran from 100% (at 7am this morning) to 81%. With one phone call about 2min and two calendor reminder now when I am editing the post at 2:44pm, the battery is at 53%.

So C905a is battery eater, I need to charge my phone every night with light use. Even without any phone call or any activity, the phone is in standby, the battery will be about 75 to 80% at about 8pm. I do not know how SE calculate up to 14 days of standby time (is it meaning the phone turn off?).
Rating: 1 / 5